Applied Anthropology or the Anthropology of Modernity? Max Gluckman's Vision of Southern African Society, 1939–1947

This article analyses the work of Max Gluckman, the well-known South African-born British social anthropologist during his years in colonial Zambia (Northern Rhodesia). It argues that Gluckman's Northern Rhodesian writings are best understood as an extension of his powerful critique of segregation in South Africa, ‘Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand’. Instead of appearing as a naïve attempt at ‘applied anthropology’, his work from this period in Northern Rhodesia is as an attempt to imagine the many different futures available to Africans, futures that depended upon the way different African societies had been incorporated into the world economic system. This understanding opens up the possibility of viewing British social anthropology from this period not only as a reflection of the ‘colonial encounter’, but also as offering an important contribution to the analysis of the ways that modernity has had an impact upon the lives of Africans and the futures available to them.