Richard Borshay Lee facts for kids

Richard Borshay Lee OC (born in 1937) is a Canadian anthropologist. An anthropologist is a scientist who studies human societies and cultures.

Richard Lee studied at the University of Toronto and the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his Ph.D. from Berkeley. Today, he is a Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. This means he is a retired professor who still holds an honored title.

Lee's research focuses on the indigenous people of Botswana and Namibia. He studies their way of life, their history, and how they interact with their environment.

He is well-known for his work on the Ju'/hoansi people. In 1980, he won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for his book The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society. He also helped organize a big meeting called "Man the Hunter" in 1966. Later, he helped edit The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunter-Gatherers. In 2011, he co-wrote a children's book called Africans Thought of It: Amazing Innovations with Bathseba Opini.

More recently, Richard Lee has studied how culture and society affect health. He has also looked at the AIDS epidemic in southern Africa. He received money from important groups to support this research.

Being Part of Professional Groups

Richard Lee has been very active in many professional groups. These groups are for people who work in the same field.

He helped organize several meetings for the Association of American Anthropologists. He was also a founding member of a group called Anthropologists for Radical Political Change. He served as president of the Canadian Anthropologist Society. He was also president of the Canadian Ethnology Society.

He has reviewed articles for many important publications. He also helped decide which research projects should get money from groups like the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada. He is also an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Important Books and Papers

Richard Lee has written many important books and articles. Here are some of them:

• Subsistence Ecology of !Kung Bushmen (1965). This was his Ph.D. paper.
• The !Kung San: Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society (1979). This book is about the !Kung San people.
• The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunter-Gatherers (1999). He helped edit this big book.
• The Dobe Ju/'hoansi (2003). This book is about the Ju/'hoansi people.
• Africans Thought of It: Amazing Innovations (2011). This is the children's book he co-wrote.
• Collection of publications and pictures by Dr. Lee, Richard B.

Awards and Honors

Richard Lee has received several awards for his work:

• 1980: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society.
• 1980: Herskovits Award from the African Studies Association for The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society.
• 2016: He was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. This is one of Canada's highest honors.

See also

In Spanish: Richard Borshay Lee para niños

• Economic anthropology
• Original affluent society
• Leveling mechanism
• Marshall Sahlins