Wendy James 1940-2024 RIP
John Ashworth
From: Mark Bradbury <mark.b...@riftvalley.net>
Date: Wed, 8 May 2024 at 11:30
Subject: Wendy James 1940-2024
To: Fellows <fel...@riftvalley.net>
Dear RVI Fellows,
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Wendy James 1940-2024
By John Ryle
Wendy James, who died in Oxford on 27 April, was one of the outstanding
anthropologists of her generation. In a trilogy of immaculate field-work based
monographs she chronicled the culture and history of the Uduk people of the
Sudan-Ethiopia borderlands, bringing this intriguing marginalized group into
the written record. And when trouble came to the Uduk during the 1983-2005 war
in Sudan she became an activist in their defence, arguing their corner in
relief and development fora.
Wendy was one of the earliest Fellows of the Rift Valley Institute. She and her husband, Douglas Johnson, the historian (also among the Institute’s first Fellows), were stalwarts of the annual Sudan Course – which became the model for subsequent RVI courses. They were among the contributors to The Sudan Handbook, the first full-length book generated by the Institute.
A vegetarian, with a Quaker family background on her mother’s side, and
rationalism on her father’s, Wendy set an example not only in scholarship and
pedagogy but also in her even-handed and respectful attitude to others. It was
always a pleasure to work with her, first when I was an anthropology graduate
student in her classes at Oxford, then later as an RVI colleague. She brought a
humane and often merry touch to her teaching. Those who attended the Sudan
course, held in its early years in Rumbek, in Lakes State in southern
Sudan, will not forget her performative talk on the social life of the gourd,
or her eloquent plea – successful – to spare the life of a goat donated for
culinary purposes by the local administration.
Wendy was born in 1940 and raised in the Lake District, keeping connections
there all her life. Most of her academic career was at Oxford, where she taught
anthropology from 1972 to 2007 and was Professor of Social Anthropology
from 1996. She was a fellow of the British Academy, President
of the Royal Anthropological Institute from 2001 to 2004, and in 2011
was appointed CBE for services to scholarship.
She died at her home in Oxford after a long illness. She is survived by Douglas, their children Fiona and Roger, and their grandson Soren.
Wendy James, with her fellow teacher Peter Adwok Nyaba and a student on the Rift Valley Institute Sudan Course on the Athi Plains, Kenya, April 2004. Photograph by John Ryle.
Mark Bradbury
Executive Director
Rift Valley Institute
Eastern Africa Regional Office
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John Ashworth
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