Edmund Leach facts for kids

Sir Edmund Ronald Leach FRAI FBA (7 November 1910 – 6 January 1989) was an important British social anthropologist. He studied human societies and cultures. He was the head of King's College, Cambridge from 1966 to 1979. He also led the Royal Anthropological Institute from 1971 to 1975.

Early Life and Education

Growing Up and Family

Edmund Leach was born in Sidmouth, Devon, England. He was the youngest of three children. His father owned and managed a sugar plantation in Argentina. In 1940, Leach married Celia Joyce, who was a painter and later wrote poetry and novels. They had a daughter in 1941 and a son in 1946.

School and University

Leach went to Marlborough College and then to Clare College, Cambridge. He studied Engineering and graduated in 1932.

After university, Leach worked for a company called Butterfield and Swire in China for four years, starting in 1933. He worked in cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai. He soon realized he did not enjoy office work.

A Trip to Botel Tobago

On his way home from China, Leach met a psychiatrist named Kilton Stewart. Stewart invited him on a trip to Botel Tobago, an island near Formosa (now Taiwan). Leach spent several months there, studying the Yami and their boat designs. He wrote an article about his findings in 1937.

Becoming an Anthropologist

Studying in London

When he returned to England, Leach began studying social anthropology at the London School of Economics (LSE). He learned from famous anthropologists like Raymond Firth and Bronisław Malinowski.

In 1938, Leach planned to study the Kurds in Iraq. However, he had to stop his trip because of the Munich Crisis, which was a tense time before World War II.

Time in the Burma Army

In 1939, Leach was going to study the Kachin Hills in Burma. But World War II started. Instead, he joined the Burma Army from 1939 to 1945, becoming a Major. During his time in Burma, he learned a lot about Northern Burma and its many hill tribes, especially the Kachin people. He even commanded some Kachin forces. This experience helped him write an article in 1945.

Finishing His Studies

After the war, in 1946, Leach went back to the LSE. He completed his PhD in anthropology in 1947. His long paper was about "Cultural change, with special reference to the hill tribes of Burma and Assam," based on his time in Burma.

Later that year, he was asked to study the local people in Sarawak (now part of Malaysia). His report from 1948 helped guide many future studies in that area. After this work, Leach became a lecturer at LSE.

In 1951, he won an award for his essay about kinship (family relationships) among the Kachin people.

Teaching at Cambridge

In 1953, Leach became a lecturer at Cambridge University. He was promoted to Reader in 1957.

From 1960 to 1961, he spent a year in California, where he met Roman Jakobson, a Russian linguist. This meeting influenced Leach's ideas about how language and culture are connected.

In 1966, he was chosen to be the head of King's College, Cambridge, a position he held until he retired in 1979. He was also knighted in 1975, becoming "Sir" Edmund Leach.

His Ideas and Contributions

Bridging Anthropology Styles

Edmund Leach helped connect different ways of thinking in anthropology. He linked British structural-functionalism (which looked at how societies work) with French structuralism (which focused on how people think and organize their world).

He wrote several books explaining the ideas of Claude Lévi-Strauss, a famous French anthropologist. Even though he explained Lévi-Strauss's work, Leach still saw himself as a "functionalist."

Leach was known for his clear and sometimes funny way of writing. For example, he once said about Lévi-Strauss's writing that it was "difficult to understand."

Key Books and Ideas

Leach's first important book was Political Systems of Highland Burma (1954). In this book, he questioned common ideas about how social structures and cultures change. He was critical of making big statements about "primitive societies" based on just one group.

His second book, Pul Eliya, a Village in Ceylon (1961), looked at kinship (family relationships) as ideal systems. He disagreed with some of Lévi-Strauss's ideas about kinship in this book. By doing so, he helped introduce Lévi-Strauss's work to British anthropology.

Literature

• Tambiah, Stanley J., Edmund Leach: An Anthropological Life (2002). Cambridge University Press.
• "Leach, Edmund Ronald" Contemporary Authors Vol. 127, Gale Research Inc. 1989.
• "Leach, Sir Edmund Ronald" Dictionary of National Biography 1986–1990. Oxford University Press 1996.
• "Leach, Edmund Ronald" International Dictionary of Anthropologists. Garland Publishing 1991.
• Leach, Edmund R. Glimpses of the Unmentionable in the History of British Social Anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 13. 1984.

See also

In Spanish: Edmund Leach para niños