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An Interview with Alan Macfarlane, Life Fellow of King’S College, University of Cambridge

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An Interview with Alan Macfarlane, Life Fellow of King’S College, University of Cambridge AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY Interview On Visual Technology, Media Archives, and Anthropological Curiosity: An Interview with Alan Macfarlane, Life Fellow of King’s College, University of Cambridge Hunter Snyder Khasis, and also the Nagas, who were famous headhunters. University of Oxford And the second influence was that I was part of the [British] Empire and the fact that I had to be sent home as a young Beginning in 1983, Alan Macfarlane, Professor Emeritus and Life boy shaped my whole life. I had to go back to school in Fellow of King’s College, University of Cambridge, began what England, and 1941, of course, was a very important period. would become one of the most comprehensive visually ethnographic It was in the middle of the war and the Japanese were inquiries into modern thought. An interview series emerged entitled advancing towards Assam, and indeed my father was one of “Interviews with Leading Thinkers,” in which Alan Macfarlane sat the officers who raised some of the regiments which fought down with scholars of anthropology to better understand the dis- in the famous battle of Kohima, which turned the Japanese cipline. The project quickly grew to consider all areas of academic advance. Without that battle, I would now be speaking inquiry outside of the social sciences, from the humanities to biolog- Japanese. ical and physical sciences. Over 200 interviews later—conducted HS: And that particular ancestry—how has that influ- with distinguished anthropologists, several Nobel laureates, and enced your course of study? junior scholars alike—Alan has retired to his office in King’s AM: My 12th-generation grandfather was the first College, Cambridge, but remains as intellectually productive as white child born in Jamaica, and my ancestors—[as] I now ever. discover as I study them with Sarah—were spread all over I visited Alan in King’s for the first time in 2012 on the the British Empire: from other places like China, Burma, recommendation of my mentor and his former mentee, Mark Turin, India, Australia, Canada, into Mexico.1 I’m the last genera- who remained emphatic that Alan be interviewed in a fashion most tion that was born in the greatest empire the world has ever similar to his series, “Interviews with Leading Thinkers.” Reflecting known, and I was destined if the empire hadn’t vanished— on both the history and future of visual anthropology, history, and I was probably destined to do what many generations [of] the role of technology within anthropological inquiry, I sat down my family had done, which is to come back to England, go with Alan in his office replete with mementos—including several through education here, and then to go back and rule the cameras—from his previous interviewees in February of 2014, world. I sometimes joke, as I gradually came towards the during which he and I discussed his upbringing and childhood; age when I’d need a job, that the Empire no longer existed his early years as a university and D.Phil. student; his fieldwork; [so] I did the next best thing and became an anthropologist. his collaborations and inspirations in Nepal, India, and China; HS: Yet, when you went off to University, you were and, most relevant here, his unyielding interest in film and video studying history first, wasn’t it? technology, which he sees as an ethnographic method, a pedagogical AM: Yeah. I started at Worcester College, Oxford, tool, and, most recently, as an area in which to experiment with which is where my uncle Robert [had] been. And, again, I representational strategies in anthropology. was incredibly fortunate. I mean, what I realize looking back is, through accidents, these two schoolmasters at school ***** were the products of the war and [at] a particularly high Alan Macfarlane: I was born on the 20th [of] Decem- point in teaching in public schools. Oxford was the same, in ber 1941, on the borders of Burma and India in a place called that I went to an undistinguished, small, beautiful college, Shillong in Assam. Worcester, but it happened to have in some ways the best Hunter Snyder: What sort of influence did that par- teaching duo in Oxford James Campbell, who taught me for ticular upbringing have on you? the medieval period and Anglo-Saxons, and Harry Pitt, who AM: It changed my whole life. The people who brought taught me for the Modern Period. And, in the middle, Lady [me] up were really hill women. So, my first contact apart Rosalynn Clay, who taught me for the Tudors and Stuarts. [from] my mother was with Hill tribal people like [the] ones I [also] had my first great love affair. I was enormously I [later] worked with [for] many years—the Gharos, the fortunate to have a very beautiful and very sweet Hungarian AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 116, No. 4, pp. 850–861, ISSN 0002-7294, online ISSN 1548-1433. C 2014 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/aman.12157 Visual Anthropology 851 girl as my first girlfriend, who, although she was younger anywhere you want to go?” And I said, “Yes, Assam,” and than me, was much more mature than me. This was an he said, “You should go see [Christoph] von-Furer¨ Haimen- enormously exciting time. It was 1960–63, so the world was dorf. That’s his area.” So, I went see Christoph, and he had coming alight with postwar excitement. She introduced me a huge influence on my life. Christoph was . the end of to Sartre and existentialism and avant garde film, music, and the long, great period [at] the School of Oriental and African the whole Central European tradition. I had these charmed Studies. He was very distinguished. I was almost his last three years, which took me out of a rather austere northern pupil. He’d gone to the LSE himself with Malinowski, and boarding school and began to introduce me to anthropology. he’d rather shocked the people at the LSE and Malinowski I began just towards the end to discover the subject. because he was so interested in visual things. But when he HS: But after you finished university, did you take a job said to Malinowski that he was going to take a camera with at that point? him, Christoph said just a photographic camera, Malinowski AM: I went on and got an award to do a doctorate in was very dismissive and said, “Oh, Thomas Cook-ism!”2 history. I was already getting interested in the anthropo- Christoph came from another tradition—the Austrian logical side, so I went to see one of the famous historians tradition, where visual things are important. So, he took a [Christopher Hill], and I said, “I’d like to study witchcraft, camera during his second trip during the war. So, Christoph sex, and myth.” And he said, “Well, the person you should said [to me], “Ah, my dear, where would you like to go?” I go and see is Keith Thomas.” So again, absolutely magically, said, “Assam.” I went to see this man, Keith Thomas, who was only eight And he said, “Oh, it’s very difficult, but I’ll try.” And years older than me. He became the most distinguished early he tried to get me in, [but there was] a war going on with modern historian of the second half of the 20th century in the Nagas. After awhile, he said, “Ah, my dear, I can’t get Oxford. And he was just beginning to write his great book you there. Where would you like to go?” I said, “Where on religion and the decline of magic. And he took me on would you suggest?” He said, “Nepal.” I said, “Where is to write a D.Phil in witchcraft. So, I had this enormously that?” He said, “Oh, well it’s just a band . above India.” I energetic, erudite, encouraging man to myself. I was his first said, “Ah, yes, that sounds good. Why?” And he said, “Well, student, his only student. Of course, your PhD supervisor it’s an open frontier.” I said, “That sounds good. Where is terribly important as a patron. So, my job in Kings—my would you suggest?” He said, “Well, go to the Gurungs. first real job—was through the fact that he wrote me a good The Gurungs were studied by young French anthropologist, reference to come here. Bernard Pignede.` I had sent Pignede,` and he went there What else was important was that the first thing he said in 1958 and wrote a brilliant book on the Gurungs—Les when I started my D.Phil on witchcraft was “You must go to Gurungs—but, unfortunately, he died a few years ago. So, the Anthropology Department, meet the anthropologists. the book is published but there’s much more work to be Just go to lectures because they know about witchcraft.” done.” Then he said, “You need to take a camera.” So we Again, this influences the interviews because I went to the organized the loan of the camera through the foundation department, and there was the last generation of the great sending me, which was the Cornell Foundation. They paid world of Oxford. There was [E. E.] Evans-Pritchard, above for this visit. And a tape recorder. Because, he said, “You all, who I got to know quite well. [Among others], there must have a tape recorder.” So, I took that as well. And with was Rodney Needham [and] there was David Pocock. There hardly any training, you know—a month or something, no were these great traditions, the last great phase.
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