Рэймонд Ферт: Экономист, антрополог және Жаңа Зеландиялық этнограф

Economic anthropologist

Sir Raymond William Firth (25 March 1901 – 22 February 2002) was an ethnologist from New Zealand. As a result of Firth's ethnographic work, actual behaviour of societies (social organization) is separated from the idealized rules of behaviour within the particular society (social structure). He was a long serving professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, and is considered to have singlehandedly created a form of British economic anthropology.

Firth was born to Wesley and Marie Firth in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1901. He was educated at Auckland Grammar School, and then at Auckland University College, where he graduated in economics in 1921. He took his economics MA there in 1922 with a 'fieldwork' based research thesis on the Kauri Gum digging industry, then a diploma in social science in 1923. In 1924 he began his doctoral research at the London School of Economics. Originally intending to complete a thesis in economics, a chance meeting with the eminent social anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski led to him to alter his field of study to 'blending economic and anthropological theory with Pacific ethnography'. Firth's doctoral thesis was published in 1929 as Primitive Economics of the New Zealand Māori.

Firth married Rosemary Firth (née Upcott) in 1936; they had one son, Hugh, who was born in 1946. Rosemary died in 2001. Firth was raised a Methodist then later became a humanist and an atheist, a decision influenced by his anthropological studies. He was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto. The Firths bought a cottage in the West Dorset village of Thorncombe in 1937; it was their second home until Raymond's death in 2002.

Feinberg, Richard and Karen Ann Watson Gegeo (eds) (1996) Leadership and Change in the Western Pacific: Essays Presented to Sir Raymond Firth on Occasion of his 90th Birthday London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology. London: Athlone (third festschrift for Raymond Firth). Foks, Freddy (2020) 'Raymond Firth, Between Economics and Anthropology', in BEROSE – International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology, Paris. Freedman, Maurice (ed) (1967) Social Organization: Essays Presented to Raymond Firth Chicago: Aldine (first festschrift for Raymond Firth). Laviolette, Patrick (2020) 'Mana and Māori culture: Raymond Firth's pre Tikopia years'. History and Anthropology 31(3): 393 409. Macdonald, Judith (2000) 'The Tikopia and "What Raymond Said"' in Sjoerd R. Jaarsma and Marta A. Rohatynskyj (eds), Ethnographic Artifacts: Challenges to a Reflexive Anthropology Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 107–23. Parkin, David (1988) 'An interview with Raymond Firth' Current Anthropology 29(2):327–41. Watson Gegeo, Karen Ann and S. Lee Seaton, (eds) (1978) Adaptation and Symbolism: Essays on Social Organization Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press (second festschift for Sir Raymond Firth). Young, Michael (2003) Obituaries: Raymond William Firth, 1901 2002. Journal of Pacific History 38(2): 277 80.