Mary Gluckman
Mary Gluckman | |
|---|---|
 Memorial plaque in Hyning Scout Wood | |
| Born | 1917 |
| Died | 1990 Birmingham |
| Education | Wycombe Abbey |
| Alma mater | Oxford University |
| Spouse | Max Gluckman |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Linguist and adult educator |
| Institutions | Freelance for e.g. Movement for Colonial Freedom, V.S.O. in Sierra Leone, |
Mary Gluckman (1917–1990) was a British linguist and political activist, in particular opposing British colonialism in Africa. She was the wife of Professor Max Gluckman at Manchester University and worked at her husband's side for many years.
Early life[edit]
She was born in Rome in 1917, and as a result grew up bilingual in Italian and English. Her father, an Italian architect, died before Mary was born; her mother, an English actress resident in Rome, died when Mary was two years old. As a result, she was brought up by relatives of her mother, a well-to-do family. Mary attended a girl's boarding school, Wycombe Abbey, before going on to study languages at Oxford University. But on New Year's Eve, 1938 she met her future husband Max while on a skiing holiday in the French Alps. After they married, she dropped out of Oxford and travelled to Southern Africa to help him with his field work among the Zulu and later the Barotse.
Life in Africa[edit]
The Gluckman's first son, John, was born on March 12, 1943, in Cape Town. Some of the conflicts of family life and being the wife of a social anthropologist are shown in Lyn Schumaker's account which states that Mary became involved in the work of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute in what was then Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. (RLI).[1] This period of Mary's life is covered in some detail by Professor Robert Gordon's biography.
Life in England after her return from Africa[edit]
Mary was politically active throughout her adult life. What she had seen of racism in South Africa and Colonialism throughout Southern Africa motivated her to engage in movements struggling against Britain's colonial hegemony. Max and Mary were genuinely hospitable: between the early 1950s and early 1960s their overnight visitors included Kenneth Kaunda and Julius Nyerere later to become African Presidents, two men who later became V-Ps, two (later) chief ministers and a dozen cabinet ministers. (Robert Gordon. p.390).
Mary took an active part in the field of community work in the severely disadvantaged Moss Side area of Manchester. She facilitated the placing of a Sierra Leonian social anthropologist, Eyo Bassey Ndem, in a large community project funded by Sir Arthur Lewis.[2] In the mid-1960s, her maternal role(s) fulfilled, she returned to study, obtaining a First at Manchester University in Modern Languages, and then an M.A. there. Furthermore, before going to Sierra Lane for VSO , she was required to obtain a further certificate in the type of work she would be doing in adult literacy for VSO (see below). Mary along with Dr Eugenie Cheesmond, formed the Lifeline Project from 1970-1972. At that time there were very few or no agencies tackling challenges of drug abuse in Manchester and North West England.
After Max's death in 1975, she served with Voluntary Service Overseas working on literacy projects for over two years in Bo, Sierra Leone. While there, on a few occasions she and other Europeans had to lie low during brutal state violence; (according to her letters from Sierra Leone, in the Mary Gluckman archive at the RAI). After her return from West Africa (in late 1978), in the 1980s she worked as a volunteer in the Manchester head office of a small trade-union representing youth workers. Moreover, the wide range of her political activities is shown by the archive of her life which was donated in 2023 to the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI).
Unlike Max Gluckman who was a pioneer in the sociology of sport e.g. giving talks on BBC Third Programme about football crowds, Mary was not interested in sport. Nevertheless, she kept fit by rambling, for example, in the Peak District.
References[edit]
- ^ Richard Handler, ed. (2004), Significant Others: Interpersonal and Professional Commitments in Anthropology, University of Wisconsin Press, p. 112, ISBN 0299194736
- ^ P. Mosley, B. Ingham (2013), Sir Arthur Lewis: A Biography, Springer, p. 121, ISBN 978-1137366436
3 The Enigma of Max Gluckman: The Ethnographic Life of a "Luckyman" in Africa. By Robert Gordon. Publisher: University of Nebraska Press. 2018 ISBN=9780803290839
4 Anthropology after Gluckman: The Manchester School, Colonial and Postcolonial Transformations. By Richard Werbner. Publisher Manchester University Press. 2020. ISBN=9781526138002
Publications[edit]
- Mary and Max Gluckman (1977), "On Drama, and Games and Athletic Contests", Secular Ritual, Uitgeverij Van Gorcum, ISBN 9023214579
Further reading