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 Periodical article |
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| Title: | Max Gluckman and the Critique of Segregation in South African Anthropology, 1921-1940 |
| Author: | Cocks, Paul |
| Year: | 2001 |
| Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
| Volume: | 27 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Period: | December |
| Pages: | 739-756 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | segregation anthropology Anthropology and Archaeology Bibliography/Research Ethnic and Race Relations Law, Human Rights and Violence History and Exploration |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/823411 |
| Abstract: | Max Gluckman's essay, 'Analysis of a social situation in modern Zululand' (the 'Bridge Paper' to his students), first published in 1940, came to be recognized in the postwar period as constituting a major methodological breakthrough for British social anthropology. His chief innovation was to describe in great detail the events of a single day in northern Zululand in 1938 - a 'social situation' - from which he then proceeded to abstract the sociological patterns of the wider society. In addition, the 'Bridge Paper' is also recognized as one of the most significant anthropological critiques of segregationist policy in South Africa in the first half of the twentieth century. This article argues that the coexistence of methodological innovation and incisive critique of segregation was not coincidental. By using what became known as 'situational analysis' or the 'extended case method', Gluckman was able to provide a more effective critique of segregation than his mentors, A.R. Radcliffe-Brown and Isaac Schapera, had done. Indeed, it also enabled him to answer effectively W.M. Macmillan's criticism of anthropology by demonstrating that anthropology's theory and method could defend the coherent vision of the 'common society' that Macmillan fought so hard in intellectual circles to advocate. Notes, ref., sum. |
