Society and Culture Atlas

How People Live Together
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Social Theorist

Audrey Richards

Anthropology

Audrey Isabel Richards was a British social anthropologist, born in London in 1899, who studied under Bronislaw Malinowski and conducted pioneering fieldwork in Zambia and Uganda. Her best known monograph, Chisungu: A Girl's Initiation Ceremony among the Bemba of Zambia, examined female initiation ritual, and her broader research addressed nutrition, family structure, migration and ethnicity; she is recognized as a founder of nutritional anthropology. She held positions including lecturer at the London School of Economics, senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, first director of the East African Institute of Social Research, and Smuts Reader in Anthropology at Cambridge, where she was also a fellow of Newnham College. She died near Midhurst, West Sussex, in 1984. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account
1899 1
Death YearSourced to the subject's own account
1984 1
BirthplaceSourced to the subject's own account
London, England 1
Death PlaceSourced to the subject's own account
Midhurst, West Sussex, England 1
Defining ContributionSourced to the subject's own account
Founder of nutritional anthropology; ethnographic study of Bemba female initiation ritual 1
Notable WorkSourced to the subject's own account
Chisungu (1956) 1
Connections

Associated With

Studied under Bronislaw Malinowski at the London School of Economics.

Source Wikipedia: Audrey Richards

Practices Studied

Audrey Richards documented the month-long chisungu rite among the Bemba of Zambia in her 1956 monograph Chisungu: A Girl's Initiation Ceremony among the Bemba of Zambia, based on fieldwork conducted in the 1930s.

Sources
1. Wikipedia: Audrey Richards
Wikipedia
  • Lead section
    Audrey Isabel Richards, CBE, FRAI, FBA (8 July 1899 - 29 June 1984), was a pioneering British social anthropologist.
  • Works section
  • Associated With: Bronislaw Malinowski, Biography section
View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.