Aidan Southall

Duration: 1 hour 8 mins 43 secs
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Description: Interview of Aidan Southall, in which he describes his life, work in Africa and America, and the influences upon him. Interview on 7th July 2005, lasting about one hour, interviewed and filmed by Alan Macfarlane. Generously supported by the Leverhulme Trust.
 
Created: 2011-04-13 14:45
Collection: Film Interviews with Leading Thinkers
Publisher: University of Cambridge
Copyright: Professor Alan Macfarlane
Language: eng (English)
Distribution: World     (downloadable)
Keywords: anthropology; Africa;
Credits:
Actor:  Aidan Southall
Director:  Alan Macfarlane
Reporter:  Sarah Harrison
Explicit content: No
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Screencast: No
Bumper: UCS Default
Trailer: UCS Default
Transcript
Transcript:
0:05:07 Introduction; born 1920 at Nuneaton, Warwickshire; father was an Anglican parson who died aged 56; mother lived as a typical parson's wife; both parents influenced me by the example of their lives; always a Christian

4:05:19 Rural vicarage at Dullingham, near Newmarket; taught at home by an old friend of my mother's; later sent to the Perse Preparatory School in Cambridge and then on to the Perse School; felt I was a poor mathematician but made a huge effort to get a credit in School Certificate examination; W.H.D. Rouse; prefect and later head of a house; games; Reddaway family; Max Warren, later a Canon of Westminster, encouraged me to apply to Jesus College, Cambridge, and got an Exhibition there and later got a scholarship

12:09:04 For Higher Certificate had taken classics and ancient history; from 1939 read anthropology where supervisor was Jack Driberg; J.H. Hutton was the Professor; physical anthropologist was Jack Trevor; after two year tripos was a conscientious objector and told to get a public service job in London; met Mary Trevelyan who had started Student Movement House which catered for overseas students; had a house in Gower Street which was run as a club; became a sub-warden there which counted as my war service

18:40:17 In my last year at the Perse was invited to go to the West Indies during the long vacation which was my first experience outside England; Driberg had advised me to take 'The Mind of Primitive Man' by Franz Boas to Jamaica; contemporaries included Kenneth Little; London School of Economics was evacuated to Cambridge during the war; did a couple of book reviews for the Royal African Society which were seen and liked by Audrey Richards and Raymond Firth; one of the reviews was of Nadel's 'Black Byzantium'; directed towards East Africa by Audrey Richards; needed to get a job and told of a teaching post at Makerere in Uganda in social studies; although the war had ended there was no transport; managed to get to Cairo and from there by flying boat to Lake Victoria and Makerere.

30:13:24 Makerere already had an impressive central building; put up by the Principal, George Turner, and accompanied him on his evening walks into the bush; eventually allocated a new-built house; Turner sent me to speak with Batten, the Vice-Principal, who suggested I lecture from Lord Hailey's 'African Survey' but dull to work with so I didn't do so; there were just 200 students at that time all specially chosen from secondary schools all over East Africa; they did two-year courses; standards rose and eventually Makerere qualified for a London University scheme to give their degrees; later became a university

35:49:17 Being an anthropologist; Malinowski; influenced by sociologists; Audrey Richards gave me a job at the East African Institute of Social Research after Makerere; anthropology and fieldwork; own experience of fieldwork in West Nile district of Uganda; agricultural practices; maize beer; dance;

48:16:17 Other areas of fieldwork; for social survey of Kampala got a fellowship to study sociology in U.S.; Talcott Parsons; Peter Gutkind joined me as assistant on the Kampala project; did a book together on slum area on outskirts of Kampala, 'Townsmen in the Making';

55:53:13 [Evans-Pritchard] and relationship with him; Audrey Richards' advice; visits to Oxford; Meyer Fortes and kinship; own book on cities and civilization and influence of Marx and Weber; Chinese and Japanese cities; Africa and the effects of colonialism; global self-destruction.
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