Evans-Pritchard, Edward Evan (1902–1973)
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British structural functionalist anthropologist and africanist. He did pioneering fieldwork in the Southern Sudan (Azande, Nuer). His study of Azande witchcraft (1937) has had a major impact on later debates in anthropology, particularly the rationality debate of the 1960's and 70's. His first monograph on the Nuer (1940) is a classical study of segmentary lineages and political organization in acephalous societies, but also treats ecological and esthetic issues. It became the flagship of the structural functionalist school in Britain. After the mid-1950's, Evans-Pritchard changed his theoretical orientation towards French structuralism (influencing his student Mary Douglas, and others), though without the global systemic pretentions of Lévi-Strauss. His later books on the Nuer focused on problems of religion and domestic kinship.


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