Cameras, Kinship and Marriage on Groote Eylandt, Australia: Frederick Rose and Peter Worsley’s Challenge to Rivers’ Genealogical Method
Keywords:
Frederick, G. G. Rose, Peter Worsley, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, The Genealogical Method, W. H. R. Rivers, Australia’s Groote-Eylandt, KinshipAbstract
To be an anthropological heretTo be an anthropological heretic is not in itself unusual, but to critique W. H. R. Rivers, the ‘founder of the modern study of social organization’, and his ‘pupil’ A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, who established the science of social anthropology in five continents seems like professional madness, but this is what Frederick Rose did – he attacked the heart of their methodology – the mapping of kinship via the Genealogical Method. This paper explains how Rose’s critique of Rivers’ methodology began during his fieldwork (1938–41) on Groote Eylandt off Australia’s far north coast and how his observations were supported and extended by Peter Worsley’s fieldwork among the Wanindiljaugwa in 1953, indicating an entirely new approach to Australian kinship studies. Although these methodological innovations were praised by some contemporary influential anthropologists and followed up by colleagues in the West during the 1970s and later, Cold War tensions and a closed and politically conservative anthropological establishment combined to marginalize Rose and Worsley’s valuable contribution to the study of Australian kinship. ic is not in itself unusual, but to critique W. H. R. Rivers, the ‘founder of the modern study of social organization’, and his ‘pupil’ A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, who established the science of social anthropology in five continents seems like professional madness, but this is what Frederick Rose did – he attacked the heart of their methodology – the mapping of kinship via the Genealogical Method. This paper explains how Rose’s critique of Rivers’ methodology began during his fieldwork (1938–41) on Groote Eylandt off Australia’s far north coast and how his observations were supported and extended by Peter Worsley’s fieldwork among the Wanindiljaugwa in 1953, indicating an entirely new approach to Australian kinship studies. Although these methodological innovations were praised by some contemporary influential anthropologists and followed up by colleagues in the West during the 1970s and later, Cold War tensions and a closed and politically conservative anthropological establishment combined to marginalize Rose and Worsley’s valuable contribution to the study of Australian kinship.
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PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE
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Worsely, Peter. Email correspondence to Peter Monteath and Valerie Munt (August 20th, 2011).
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