Raymond Firth

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PhD
)
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1936; died 2001)​
Scientific career
FieldsEthnology
ThesisEconomic organisation of Polynesian societies: wealth and work of the Maori (1927)
Academic advisorsBronisław Malinowski
Doctoral studentsEdmund Leach
Kenneth Little
Joan Metge
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Social and cultural anthropology

Sir Raymond William Firth

ethnologist from New Zealand. As a result of Firth's ethnographic work, actual behaviour of societies (social organization) is separated from the idealized rules of behaviour within the particular society (social structure). He was a long serving professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, and is considered to have singlehandedly created a form of British economic anthropology.[1]

Early life

Firth was born to Wesley and Marie Firth in

Sir James G Frazer, author of The Golden Bough.[5] Firth's doctoral thesis was published in 1929 as Primitive Economics of the New Zealand Māori
.

Academic career

After receiving his PhD in 1927, Firth returned to the southern hemisphere to take up a position at the University of Sydney. He did not start teaching immediately as a research opportunity presented itself. In 1928, he first visited Tikopia, the southernmost of the Solomon Islands, to study the untouched Polynesian society there, resistant to outside influences and still with its pagan religion and undeveloped economy.[2] This was the beginning of a long relationship with the 1200 people of the remote four-mile long island, and resulted in ten books and numerous articles written over many years. The first of these, We the Tikopia: A Sociological Study of Kinship in Primitive Polynesia was published in 1936 and seventy years on is still used as a basis for many university courses about Oceania.[6]

In 1930, he started teaching at the University of Sydney. On the departure for Chicago of Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, Firth succeeded him as acting Professor. He also took over from Radcliffe-Brown as acting editor of the journal Oceania, and as acting director of the Anthropology Research Committee of the Australian National Research Committee.

After 18 months, he returned to the London School of Economics in 1933 to take up a lectureship, and was appointed Reader in 1935. Together with his wife Rosemary Firth, also to become a distinguished anthropologist, he undertook fieldwork in Kelantan and Terengganu in Malaya in 1939–1940.[7]

During the

Second World War, Firth worked for British naval intelligence, primarily writing and editing the four volumes of the Naval Intelligence Division Geographical Handbook Series that concerned the Pacific Islands.[8]
During this period, Firth was based in Cambridge, where the LSE had its wartime home.

Firth succeeded Malinowski as Professor of Social Anthropology at LSE in 1944, and he remained at the School for the next 24 years.

Chichele Professor of Economic History at Oxford). Firth was particularly focused on the creation of the university's Research School of Pacific (and Asian) Studies.[9]

He returned to Tikopia on research visits several times, although as travel and fieldwork requirements became more burdensome he focused on family and kinship relationships in working- and middle-class London.[7]

Firth left LSE in 1968, when he took up a year's appointment as Professor of Pacific Anthropology at the

University of Hawaiʻi. There followed visiting professorships at British Columbia (1969), Cornell (1970), Chicago (1970–71), the Graduate School of the City University of New York (1971) and UC Davis (1974). The second festschrift published in his honour described him as 'perhaps the greatest living teacher of anthropology today'.[4]

After retiring from teaching work, Firth continued with his research interests, and right up until his hundredth year he was producing articles. He died in London at age 100; his father had lived to 104.

Honours

Personal life

Firth married

Methodist then later became a humanist and an atheist, a decision influenced by his anthropological studies.[13][14] He was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto.[15] The Firths bought a cottage in the West Dorset village of Thorncombe in 1937; it was their second home until Raymond's death in 2002.[16]

Māori lament (poroporoaki) for Sir Raymond Firth

Composed on behalf of the

Professor Sir Hugh Kawharu (English translation)[2]

You have left us now, Sir Raymond
Your body has been pierced by the spear of death
And so farewell. Farewell,
Scholar renowned in halls of learning throughout the world
'Navigator of the Pacific'
'Black hawk' of Tamaki.
Perhaps in the end you were unable to complete all
the research plans that you had once imposed upon yourself
But no matter! The truly magnificent legacy you have left
will be an enduring testimony to your stature.
Moreover, your spirit is still alive among us,
We, who have become separated from you in New Zealand,
in Tikopia and elsewhere.
Be at rest, father. Rest, forever,
in peace, and in the care of the Almighty.

Selected bibliography

Other sources

Papers

Firth's papers are held at the London School of Economics – including his photographic collection

References

  1. ^ Bloch, Maurice (26 February 2002). "Obituary: Sir Raymond Firth". The Guardian (UK). London. Retrieved 29 November 2006.
  2. ^ a b c d e Huntsman, Judith (2003). "Raymond Firth (1901–2002)". American Anthropologist. 105 (2): 487–490.
  3. ^ Laviolette, Patrick (2020) Mana and Māori culture: Raymond Firth's pre-Tikopia years. History and Anthropology 31(3): 393-409.
  4. ^ a b Watson-Gegeo, Karen (1988). "Raymond Firth". asao.org. Archived from the original on 3 July 2007. Retrieved 29 November 2006.
  5. doi:10.1111/j.1835-9310.2002.tb00202.x
    .
  6. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.2002.tb02784.x
    .
  7. ^ a b Ortiz, Sutti (2004). "Sir Raymond Firth". Archived 11 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 148 (1): 129–133.
  8. ^ "The Naval intelligence Handbooks" (PDF). Progress in Human Geography, 27,2. 2003. Retrieved 29 November 2006.
  9. ^ S.G. Foster and Margaret Varghese, The Making of The Australian National University 1946-1996 (Canberra: ANU Press, 2009), 20-35; "History of ANU". Australian National University. Retrieved 11 May 2016.
  10. ^ "Raymond William Firth". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  11. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  12. ^ "Queen's Birthday honours list 2001". Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 4 June 2001. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  13. ^ Kitchin, Peter (2002). "Sir Raymond (William) Firth". The Independent (UK). Retrieved 17 January 2010.[dead link]
  14. ^ "His Methodist upbringing soon turned into a thoroughgoing humanistic atheism. This freed him for the sympathetic study of exotic religions, and for discussions of the role of faith in the anthropologist's own perceptions. He tended to feel a sort of good-natured intolerance of the religious beliefs of his friends and colleagues." Obituary: Professor Sir Raymond Firth, The Times (London), 26 February 2002.
  15. ^ "Humanist Manifesto II". American Humanist Association. Archived from the original on 20 October 2012. Retrieved 3 October 2012.
  16. ^ "Holway Cottage".

External links

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