Richard Borshay Lee facts for kids

Richard Borshay Lee OC (born 1937) is a Canadian anthropologist. An anthropologist is a scientist who studies human societies and cultures. Richard Lee is known for his important research on the indigenous people of Botswana and Namibia in southern Africa. He has especially focused on their way of life and history.

Lee studied at the University of Toronto and the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his Ph.D. (a high-level university degree) 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 position.

Studying People and Cultures

Richard Lee is most famous for his work with the Ju'/hoansi people. They are a group of indigenous people living in the Kalahari Desert. He studied how they lived, found food, and organized their society. His research helped people understand more about hunter-gatherer societies.

In 1966, he helped organize a big meeting called "Man the Hunter" at the University of Chicago. This meeting brought together many experts to discuss early human societies.

Important Books and Discoveries

Lee wrote a very important book called The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society. This book shared his detailed studies of the !Kung San people. For this book, he won the 1980 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. He also received the Herskovits Award in the same year.

He also helped edit The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunter-Gatherers, which came out in 1999. This book is a big collection of information about different hunter-gatherer groups around the world.

In 2011, Richard Lee co-wrote a children's book with Bathseba Opini. It is called Africans Thought of It: Amazing Innovations. This book teaches young readers about cool inventions and ideas that came from Africa.

Research on Health and Society

More recently, Richard Lee has studied how health and culture are connected. He looked at how social factors affect health issues in southern Africa. His work has helped us understand more about these important topics.

Professional Involvement

Richard Lee has been very active in different groups for anthropologists. He helped start a group called Anthropologists for Radical Political Change. He also served as the president of the Canadian Anthropologist Society and the Canadian Ethnology Society. These roles show his dedication to the field of anthropology.

He is also a member of the Royal Society of Canada. This is a very respected group of scholars and artists in Canada. He is also an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Awards and Recognition

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

Selected Publications

• Subsistence Ecology of !Kung Bushmen (1965)
• The !Kung San: Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society (1979)
• The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunter-Gatherers (1999)
• The Dobe Ju/'hoansi (2003)
• Africans Thought of It: Amazing Innovations (2011)
• Collection of publications and pictures by Dr. Lee, Richard B.

See also

In Spanish: Richard Borshay Lee para niños

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