Turner, Edith (1921–)

Walter E. Little

As one of the most important proponents of humanistic approaches to anthropology, Edith Turner has influenced how anthropologists think about women's roles within the discipline and how anthropologists write. Her first solo authored book, The Spirit and the Drum , originally written in the 1950s but not published until 1987, cannot easily be located in post-modern and feminist categorizations. In anticipation of postmodernist debates in anthropology, this deeply personal account of her years with the Ndembu of southern Africa challenged anthropologists to rethink both the fieldwork experience and ethnographic writing. For most of Turner's career, she worked in collaboration with and was often overshadowed by her husband Victor Turner, who she ...

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