Edmund Leach was a British social anthropologist known for his structuralist approach to political and social organization. In Political Systems of Highland Burma (1954), based on fieldwork among the Kachin, he argued against the prevailing assumption that societies exist in a single stable structural type, showing instead that Kachin political organization oscillated over time between more egalitarian and more hierarchical forms, a dynamic, processual model of social structure that challenged the static structural-functionalism dominant in British anthropology at the time. Leach, who later served as provost of King's College, Cambridge, was also an early and influential, though often critical, interpreter of Claude Lévi-Strauss's structuralism for English-speaking anthropologists.
Facts
Birth DateSourced to the subject's own account Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account Death DateSourced to the subject's own account Death YearSourced to the subject's own account BirthplaceSourced to the subject's own accountSidmouth, Devon, England 1 Nationality / CultureSourced to the subject's own account Defining ContributionSourced to the subject's own accountBridged British structural-functionalism and French structuralism, drawing on his Kachin fieldwork to show that political systems oscillate between hierarchical and egalitarian forms, and became a leading English-language interpreter of Levi-Strauss. 1 Notable WorkSourced to the subject's own accountPolitical Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Edmund Leach - Wikipedia
Informed By
Leach trained at the London School of Economics under Malinowski before developing his own more structuralist critique of functionalist anthropology.
Practices Studied
Source Edmund Leach - Wikipedia
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Nationality
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Source Edmund Leach - WikipediaLead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia articletier 3Quote, Lead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia article
Sir Edmund Ronald Leach (7 November 1910 – 6 January 1989) was a British social anthropologist and academic.
Sources
1. Edmund Leach - Wikipedia
Wikipedialead sentence, birth date clause
Sir Edmund Ronald Leach (7 November 1910-6 January 1989) was a British social anthropologist and academic.
lead sentence, birth year figure
Sir Edmund Ronald Leach (7 November 1910-6 January 1989) was a British social anthropologist and academic.
lead sentence, death date clause
Sir Edmund Ronald Leach (7 November 1910-6 January 1989) was a British social anthropologist and academic.
lead sentence, death year figure
Sir Edmund Ronald Leach (7 November 1910-6 January 1989) was a British social anthropologist and academic.
lead sentence, nationality descriptor
Sir Edmund Ronald Leach (7 November 1910-6 January 1989) was a British social anthropologist and academic.
Early years section, birthplace clause
Leach was born in Sidmouth, Devon, the youngest of three children and the son of William Edmund Leach and Mildred Brierley.
Academic contributions section, first book sentence
His first book was Political Systems of Highland Burma (1954); it challenged the theories of social structure and cultural change.
Academic contributions section, opening sentence
Leach spanned the gap between British structural-functionalism (exemplified by Alfred Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski), and French structuralism (exemplified by Levi-Strauss).
Associated With: University of Cambridge, Article text
In 1953, he became a lecturer at Cambridge University, and promoted to Reader in 1957.
Practices Studied: Kinship, Article text
Leach's interest in kinship was first exemplified by his 1951 article (which won the Curl Essay Prize), and it was here that he first cites Levi-Strauss, disagreeing with several aspects of the latter's kinship theory outlined in Elementary Structures of Kinship.
View the Source Edmund Leach - Wikipedia (Wikipedia)
In Group: British Anthropologists, lead sentence, birth date clauseQuote, In Group: British Anthropologists, lead sentence, birth date clause
Sir Edmund Ronald Leach (7 November 1910-6 January 1989) was a British social anthropologist and academic.
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