Adrian Mayer interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 5^th July 1983

[Sound rather poor]

0:00:50 Introduction; born 1922, educated in United States; was in India for a couple of years at the end of the Bengal famine doing famine relief, then in South India; came back to England middle of 1947 hoping to return to India in some capacity after Independence;  went to S.O.A.S. to learn Hindi; Cyril Belshaw suggested he saw Raymond Firth who encouraged him to attend the L.S.E. seminar; as a result took the Diploma which included social anthropology, physical anthropology, linguistics and archaeology; then went on to do fieldwork

0:03:50 Of anthropologists, influenced by Raymond Firth, Nadel; first extended fieldwork in Fiji based on factions rather than groups where he had to work out a new method for analysis

0:06:14 Further fieldwork on Indian caste system in 1954; original conceptions overturned, possibly because he was among the first group of anthropologist to really look at caste, including F.G. Bailey and S.C. Dube

0:09:45 Worked with F.G. Bailey for 6-7 years but not really influenced by anyone else; recently become interested in notions of cultural forms and influenced by Schneider on kinship

0:12:31 Louis Dumont’s work was generally published after own fieldwork in India; did revisit original fieldwork village after thirty years and found many of the village leaders still there as had assumed they were far older than in fact they were; no real structural changes in the village although caste strictures have relaxed somewhat; Harijans now attend village meeting etc.; generally wealthier, has electricity, comfortable

0:17:00 Now there are many more possibilities for young anthropologists in the range of options such as medical anthropology, linguistic anthropology etc.; may not lead to a job but shouldn’t necessarily expect that