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Max Gluckman (26 January 1911 – 1975) was a South African social anthropologist.
He grew up in South Africa, working later under the British Administration in Northern Rhodesia (esp. on the Barotse law, in what is now the Western Province, Zambia). He was educated at Exeter on a Rhodes Scholarship and was called to professorship at the University of Manchester and was widely known for his radio lectures on Custom and Conflict in Africa (later published in many editions at Oxford University Press), being a remarkable contribution to conflict theory.
Gluckman was a political activist, openly and forcefully anti-colonial. He engaged directly with social conflicts and cultural contradictions of colonialism, with racism, urbanisation and labour migration.
"(...) perhaps the anthropologist par excellence whose own personal life, history and consciousness not only embodied some of the critical crises of the modern world but also demanded that the anthropology he imagined should confront and examine them" (Bruce Kapferer on Gluckman in "The Crisis in Anthropology" on the occasion of the first Max Gluckman Memorial lecture)
He was of considerable influence on several anthropologists and sociologists (J. Clyde Mitchell, A. L. Epstein, Bruce Kapferer, Victor Turner et al.).
His school of thought has come to be known as the Manchester School.
- focus on inherent conflict in society (like Marx, cf Durkheim) - attention given to the material form of existence - how people make a living and what technology used - idea that there can be inconsistency or contradictions at the heart of social life - one sphere or area of social life can be in tension with other domains of life - the diverse roles an individual plays can place a person in contradictory position - emphasis on 'internal dynamics' of small-scale societies Custom and Conflict in Africa, 1960 Themes of book: - how people quarrel in terms of certain of their customary allegiances - but how they are restrained from violence through other conflicting allegiances rebellion - social conflict, but only one theory of Gov -e.g. replace chief by one his brothers revolution - social conflict that leads to a change of system - replace one theory of Gov by another. cross-cutting ties: - ties of common residence among males living outside districts - ties of intermarriage between agnatic groups - 'outsider' wives living among patriclan - webs of kinship, particularly through maternal kin - 'outsider' mothers living among patriclan Conclusions: Through the idea of conflict at the heart of a social system, Gluckman's work linked to the ideas of Marx (held a similar view about inherent conflict) - for Marx this conflict led to revolution - an upturning of social order and introduction of a new theory of government - for Gluckman, conflict led to resolution not revolution - i.e. through conflict and the mechanisms to redress tensions, social order emerges renewed and re-established - conflict can bring about social cohesion
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Anthropologists | 1911 births | 1975 deaths | Jewish scientists | South African Rhodes scholars
"Max Gluckman"