Colin Murray (anthropologist)

Colin Murray (1948-2013) was a British anthropologist whose research work was for the most part undertaken in southern Africa; in particular in Lesotho. He was for many years a professor of African Sociology at the University of Manchester. His approach has been described as broadly speaking a political-economy one in which the social life of those he studied was examined in terms of the dynamics of land-ownership and livelihood strategies and outcomes intertwined with an examination of their kinship patterns, familial histories and inheritance patterns. ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}

He was for many years an editor of the Journal of Southern African Studies. One major work there was his co-editing with Terence Ranger in 1981 of an issue on “Anthropology and History” . This edition was a compendium of articles drawing on papers presented at a Conference on the Interactions of History and Anthropology in Southern Africa at the University of Manchester in Manchester in September 1980. ^[5] This was to become a noted and influential edition. (James, 2014, p.133)

Selected publications

• Murray, C. (1980). Migrant labour and changing family structure in the rural periphery of Southern Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies, 6(2), 139-156.
• Lye, William F., & Murray, C. (1980). Transformations on the highveld: the Tswana & Southern Sotho. ^{[6] [7]}
• Murray, C. (1981). Families divided: The impact of migrant labour in Lesotho (Vol. 29). Cambridge University Press. ^{[8] [9] [10] [11]}
• Murray, C. (1992). Black Mountain: Land, Class & Power in the Eastern Orange Free State. Edinburgh University Press. ^{[12] [13] [14]}
• Murray, C. (2001). Livelihoods research: some conceptual and methodological issues. Chronic Poverty Research Centre Working Paper, (5).
• Murray, C. (2002). Livelihoods research: transcending boundaries of time and space. Journal of Southern African Studies, 28(3), 489-509.
• Murray, C. and Peter Sanders (2005). Medicine Murder in Colonial Lesotho: the anatomy of a moral crisis. Edinburgh University Press. ^[15]
• Murray, C. (2013). Displaced urbanization: South Africa's rural slums. In Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth Century South Africa (pp. 231-255). Routledge.

References

1. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/colin-murray_1922/
2. James, Deborah (2014) Colin Murray 1948–2013, Anthropology Southern Africa, 37:1-2, 132-134, DOI: 10.1080/23323256.2014.940181
3. https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-colin-murray-anthropologist-and-author-2002903
4. Beinart, William (2014) Obituary: Colin Murray, Journal of Southern AfricanStudies, 40:6, 1377-1378, DOI
5. Ranger, T., & Murray, C. (1981). Introduction. Journal of Southern African Studies, 8(1), 1–15.
6. Cobbe, J. (1981). Transformations on the Highveld: The Tswana and Southern Sotho. By William F. Lye and Colin Murray. Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes and Noble, 180. Pp. 160. $19.50. The Journal of Economic History, 41(3), 690-691.
7. Gump, J. (1981). William F. Lye and Colin Murray. Transformations on the Highveld: The Tswana and Southern Sotho. Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes and Noble Books, 1980. 160 pp. Maps, tables, biblio, index. $19.50, hardcover. African Studies Review, 24(4), 16-17.
8. Rathbone, R. (1982). Colin Murray: Families divided: the impact of migrant labour in Lesotho.(African Studies Series, 29.) xvi, 219 pp. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press, 1981. 18.50. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 45(2), 404-405.
9. Brown, Barbara B. (1983) Families Divided: The Impact of Migrant Labour in Lesotho. The International Journal of African Historical Studies; Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 710-713
10. Beinart. W (1983) Families Divided: The Impact of Migrant Labour in Lesotho. Third world quarterly. 1983;5(2).
11. Atmore, A (1982) Families Divided: the impact of migrant labour in Lesotho, 1468-2621, African affairs. , 1982, Vol.81(324), p.449
12. Crais, C. (1995). Black Mountain: Land, Class, and Power in the Eastern Orange Free State, 1880s-1980s. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 25(3), 564-566.
13. Spiegel, A. D. (1994). Black Mountain: Land, Class and Power in the Eastern Orange Free State 1880s-1980s. Man, 29(2), 525-527.
14. Davenport, T.R.H., (1993). Colin Murray, Black Mountain: land, class and power in the eastern Orange Free State, 1880s to 1980s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press and Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press for the International African Institute, 1992, 354 pp.,£ 35.00, ISBN 0 7486 0344 1. Africa, 63(2), pp.280-282.
15. Ranger, T. O. (2006). Medicine Murder in Colonial Lesotho: The Anatomy of a Moral Crisis. Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute, 76(2), 267-268.