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A review by luftschlosseule
Undreamed Shores: The Hidden Heroines of British Anthropology by Frances Larson
4.0
trigger warning
misogyny, colonialism, racism, suicide, mental illness, grief, slur against sinti and roma, being hospitalized against ones will
In this book, Frances Larson explores the stories of five women who pioneered in British Anthropology: Katherine Routledge, Barbara Freire-Marreco, Maria Czaplicka, Winifred Blackman and Beatrice Blackwood.
At no point does the author claim to have chosen the most important women, or in general the most important anthropologists. She does not explain her choices, though, but they center around all of them having ties to Oxford so it makes sense. The changes of topic from one person to another are very elegantly managed, too.
So, to sum it up in short, since anthropology was a new field, the teachers were fighting for every student who was interested in getting and education on that topic, and since there was enough space, and the teachers were more liberal minded than others, women were given the opportunity to attend classes, though it took a while till every student was eligible for a degree.
Yes, women suffrage is a topic, but not a big one as these five women had other, more pressing problems.
The main one being that officials didn't deem it safe for an unaccompanied woman to live with natives, and in turn if it was deemed safe, it mostly meant that the villages already were praying in church and had abandoned the traditions that made them so interesting in the first place.
The author chose to not include footnotes, but instead the reader can access a page on her website with further information and the relevant sources.
I was not prepared for how grim some of these stories turned out to be. Two of the five women died by suicide, a third was shut away in a mental hospital in a fight for inherited money.
I can hardly fault the author for things that have happened, it's just unfortunate that I turned to this book to distract me from a bad mental health day.
I liked this book. I will read more from the same author, and more on this topic.
I will seek out the works by these five women, especially those on Egyptian peasantry life.
The arc was provided by the publisher.
In this book, Frances Larson explores the stories of five women who pioneered in British Anthropology: Katherine Routledge, Barbara Freire-Marreco, Maria Czaplicka, Winifred Blackman and Beatrice Blackwood.
At no point does the author claim to have chosen the most important women, or in general the most important anthropologists. She does not explain her choices, though, but they center around all of them having ties to Oxford so it makes sense. The changes of topic from one person to another are very elegantly managed, too.
So, to sum it up in short, since anthropology was a new field, the teachers were fighting for every student who was interested in getting and education on that topic, and since there was enough space, and the teachers were more liberal minded than others, women were given the opportunity to attend classes, though it took a while till every student was eligible for a degree.
Yes, women suffrage is a topic, but not a big one as these five women had other, more pressing problems.
The main one being that officials didn't deem it safe for an unaccompanied woman to live with natives, and in turn if it was deemed safe, it mostly meant that the villages already were praying in church and had abandoned the traditions that made them so interesting in the first place.
The author chose to not include footnotes, but instead the reader can access a page on her website with further information and the relevant sources.
I was not prepared for how grim some of these stories turned out to be. Two of the five women died by suicide, a third was shut away in a mental hospital in a fight for inherited money.
I can hardly fault the author for things that have happened, it's just unfortunate that I turned to this book to distract me from a bad mental health day.
I liked this book. I will read more from the same author, and more on this topic.
I will seek out the works by these five women, especially those on Egyptian peasantry life.
The arc was provided by the publisher.