View source for Richard Price (American anthropologist)

{{short description|American anthropologist and historian (born 1941)}}
'''Richard Price''' (born November 30, 1941, in [[New York City]]) is an American [[Anthropology|anthropologist]] and [[History|historian]], best known for his studies of the [[Caribbean]] and his experiments with writing [[ethnography]].
== Career ==
Price grew up in the Riverdale section of the [[Bronx]] and attended the [[Fieldston School]]. He received both Bachelors and Ph.D. degrees from [[Harvard|Harvard University]] (1963, 1970), having conducted fieldwork in [[Peru]], and then with [[Sally Price (anthropologist)|Sally Price]] in [[Martinique]], [[Mexico]], [[Spain]], and for two years among the [[Saramaka|Saramaka Maroons]] of [[Suriname]]. A year studying with [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] in [[Paris]] and another in [[Amsterdam]] working with [[Netherlands|Dutch]] scholars of Maroons preceded his five years of teaching in the Department of Anthropology at [[Yale|Yale University]]. In 1974, he moved to [[Johns Hopkins University]] to found the Department of Anthropology, where he served three terms as chair, before leaving in 1986 for two years of teaching in Paris. A decade of freelance teaching ([[University of Minnesota]], [[Stanford University]], [[Princeton University]], [[University of Florida]], [[Universidade Federal da Bahia]]), while based in Martinique, ended with an appointment as Duane A. and Virginia S. Dittman Professor of [[American Studies]], Anthropology, and History at the [[College of William and Mary]]. He has continued [[field work|fieldwork]] with Maroons, notably in [[French Guiana]] and Suriname, as well as with his Martiniquan neighbors, into the present. Since the 1990s, he has worked with Saramaka Maroons in defense of their [[human rights]], twice testifying as [[expert witness]] on behalf of the Saramakas in cases that they eventually won before the [[Inter-American Court of Human Rights|Inter-American Court for Human Rights]] in [[Costa Rica]].<ref>Richard Price, ''Rainforest Warriors: Human Rights on Trial'', Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011</ref>
== Contributions ==
Price's early contributions, influenced by his teachers [[Clyde Kluckhohn]], [[Evon Z. Vogt]], and [[Sidney Mintz|Sidney W. Mintz]], included the first conceptualization of [[Maroon (people)|Maroon]] (runaway slave) communities throughout the [[Americas]] in a comparative framework.<ref>Richard Price, ''Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas''. New York: Doubleday/Anchor, 1973.</ref> His demonstration that people previously considered largely “without history,” such as Saramaka Maroons (the descendants of runaway slaves), in fact possessed rich and deep historical [[consciousness]] has influenced historians as well as anthropologists.<ref>Eric J. Hobsbawm, “Escaped Slaves of the Forest.” ''New York Review of Books'' 37(19) (1990): 46–48; David Scott, “That Event, This Memory: Notes on the Anthropology of African Diasporas in the New World.” ''Diaspora'' 1(1991):261-284; Michel-Rolph Trouillot, “The Caribbean Region: An Open Frontier in Anthropological Theory.” ''Annual Review of Anthropology'' 21 (1992):19-42.</ref> For this work in what he calls “ethnographic history,” Price's books have won numerous awards: ''First-Time'' won the Elsie Clews Parsons Prize of the [[American Folklore Society]] and ''Alabi’s World'' won the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the [[American Historical Association]], the Gordon K. Lewis Award of the [[Caribbean Studies Association]], and the [[School of American Research|School of American Research's]] prestigious J. I. Staley Prize. An essay originally written in 1973 with Sidney Mintz, ''The Birth of African-American Culture'', has had considerable influence on Afro-Americanist historians and anthropologists, sometimes inciting strong controversy about the extent to which [[Slavery in the Spanish New World colonies|enslaved Africans]] and their descendants “retained” aspects of their home [[culture]]s and [[society|societies]] and the extent to which they created new cultural and social forms in the Americas.<ref>Sidney W. Mintz and Richard Price, The Birth of African-American Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992;  Yelvington, Kevin A. “The Anthropology of Afro-Latin America and the Caribbean: Diasporic Dimensions.” Annual Review of Anthropology 30(2001): 227-260; Richard Price, “On the Miracle of Creolization,” in Kevin A. Yelvington (ed.), ''Afro-Atlantic Dialogues: Anthropology in the Diaspora''. Santa Fe: SAR Press, 2006, pp. 113-145, 206.</ref> Price's ''Travels with Tooy'', an ethnography of the ''imaginaire'' of a Saramaka [[Traditional healer|healer]], attempts to transcend this dichotomy by demonstrating that historical processes of [[creolization]] involved people making creative uses of their varied, specific [[African culture|African heritages]] in the process of [[nation-building]] in the [[New World]]. In 2008, ''Travels with Tooy'' won the [[Victor Turner|Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing]], and in 2009, the Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Award for Caribbean Scholarship and the Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion. Price's ''Rainforest Warriors'' tells the story of the Saramaka struggle to protect their territory against the encroachments of the State of Suriname. In 2012, the book won the Best Book Prize of the American Political Science Association in the field of human rights and the Senior Book Prize of the American Ethnological Society.
Several of Price's books have been written with anthropologist and [[art criticism|art critic]] [[Sally Price (anthropologist)|Sally Price]], including a critical edition of the famous eighteenth-century [[narrative]] of [[John Gabriel Stedman]]<ref>''John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam'' (Newly Transcribed from the Original 1790 Manuscript, Edited, and with an Introduction and Notes, by Richard and Sally Price). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988; David Brion Davis, “The Ends of Slavery.” ''New York Review of Books'' 36(5)(1989):29-34.</ref> and an exploration of the Caribbean paintings of [[African American]] artist [[Romare Bearden]].<ref>Sally Price and Richard Price, ''Romare Bearden: The Caribbean Dimension.'' Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.</ref> Since the 1980s, he has frequently experimented with new forms of writing culture, including experiments with [[typesetting]] and [[page layout]]<ref>Richard Price, ''First-Time: The Historical Vision of an Afro-American People''.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983; Richard Price, ''Alabi's World''.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990; Richard Price and Sally Price, ''Equatoria''. New York: Routledge, 1992.</ref> and authoring books that are in part [[memoir]]s (or highly [[Reflexivity (social theory)|reflexive anthropology]])<ref>Richard Price, ''The Convict and The Colonel''. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998; Frances E. Mascia-Lees, Review of ''The Convict and the Colonel'' in ''American Anthropologist'' 101(1999):217-218; Jennifer Cole, Review of ''The Convict and the Colonel'' in ''American Ethnologist'' 26(1999):1011-1012.</ref> and, in one case, an anthropological [[novel]].<ref>Richard Price and Sally Price, ''Enigma Variations''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995; Raymond Sokolov, “Faking it in the Green Hell.” ''Wall Street Journal'' 226(33)(08 August 1995):pA9.</ref> Despite the label of [[postmodernism|postmodern]] sometimes applied to his work, he prefers to consider himself an ethnographic historian.<ref>Anil Ramdas, “Verraad in de jungle.” NRC Handelsblad. Zaterdags Bijvoegsel, 25 mei, 1-2; Richard Price, “Invitation to Historians: Practices of Historical Narrative.” ''Rethinking History'' 5(2001):357-365.</ref> Most of Price's books continue to draw on his continuing ethnography with Suriname Maroons, but one innovative work, ''The Convict and The Colonel'', centers on his four-decades-long relationship with Martinique, where he and Sally Price live for most of each year.<ref>Greg Dening, Review of ''The Convict and the Colonel'' in ''Rethinking History'' 4(2000):220-223.</ref> And in 2022, he published ''Inside/Outside: Adventures in Caribbean History and Anthropology'', a memoir about his life as a historian and anthropologist.<ref> Richard Price, ''Inside/Outside: Adventures in Caribbean History and Anthropology'', Athens: University of Georgia Press; Peter Hulme, Review of "Inside/Outside" in "ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America", 11 November 2022</ref> His books have been translated into [[French language|French]], [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[Dutch language|Dutch]], [[German language|German]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], and [[Saramaccan]].
In 2014, at a ceremony in Havana, he received the prestigious Premio Internacional Fernando Ortiz (“El Premio Internacional Fernando Ortiz es el más alto reconocimiento otorgado por la Fundación homónima por la actividad de toda una vida”], and the same year in France, he was decorated by France's Minister of Culture as "Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres" for his "contribution déterminante au rayonnement de la recherche anthropologique."
== Books ==
* 1973. ''Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas'' (edited and with an introduction by Richard Price)
* 1975. ''Saramaka Social Structure: Analysis of a Maroon Society in Surinam''
* 1976. ''The Guiana Maroons: A Historical and Bibliographical Introduction''
* 1980. ''Afro-American Arts of the Suriname Rain Forest'' (with Sally Price)
* 1983. ''First-Time: The Historical Vision of an Afro-American People''
* 1983. ''To Slay the Hydra: Dutch Colonial Perspectives on the Saramaka Wars''
* 1988. ''[[John Gabriel Stedman]]'s Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam'' (Newly Transcribed from the Original 1790 Manuscript, Edited, and with an Introduction and Notes, by Richard and Sally Price)
* 1990. ''Alabi's World''
* 1991. ''Two Evenings in Saramaka'' (with Sally Price)
* 1992. ''Stedman's Surinam: Life in an Eighteenth-Century Slave Society'' (with Sally Price)
* 1992. ''The Birth of African-American Culture'' (with [[Sidney W. Mintz]])
* 1992. ''Equatoria'' (with Sally Price)
* 1994. ''On the Mall'' (with Sally Price)
* 1995. ''Enigma Variations'' (with Sally Price)
* 1998. ''The Convict and The Colonel''
* 1999. ''Maroon Arts: Cultural Vitality in the African Diaspora'' (with Sally Price)
* 2003. ''Les Marrons'' (with Sally Price)
* 2003. ''The Root of Roots: Or, How Afro-American Anthropology Got Its Start'' (with Sally Price)
* 2006. ''Romare Bearden: The Caribbean Dimension'' (with Sally Price)
* 2008. ''Travels with Tooy: History, Memory, and the African American Imagination''
* 2010. ''Rainforest Warriors: Human Rights on Trial''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14807.html|title = Rainforest Warriors &#124; Richard Price}}</ref> [[University of Pennsylvania Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0-8122-4300-0}}.
* 2013. ''Fesiten''
* 2017. ''Saamaka Dreaming'' (with Sally Price)
* 2022. ''Maroons in Guyane: Past, Present, Future'' (with Sally Price)
* 2022. ''Inside/Outside: Adventures in Caribbean History and Anthropology''
== References ==
* Cole, Jennifer. Review of ''The Convict and the Colonel'' in ''American Ethnologist'' 26(1999):1011-1012.
* [[David Brion Davis|Davis, David Brion]]. 1989.  “The Ends of Slavery.” ''New York Review of Books'' 36(5):29-34.
* [[Greg Dening|Dening, Greg]]. 2000. Review of ''The Convict and the Colonel'' in ''Rethinking History'' 4(2):220-223.
* [[Eric Hobsbawm|Hobsbawm, Eric J]]. 1990. “Escaped Slaves of the Forest.” ''New York Review of Books'' 37(19):46-48.
* Mascia-Lees, Frances E. Review of ''The Convict and the Colonel'' in ''American Anthropologist'' 101(1999):217-218.
* Price, Richard. 1995. “Executing Ethnicity: The Killings in Suriname.” ''Cultural Anthropology'' 10:437-471.
* Richard Price, “Invitation to Historians: Practices of Historical Narrative.” ''Rethinking History'' 5(2001):357-365.
* Price, Richard. 2006. “On the Miracle of Creolization,” in Kevin A. Yelvington (ed.), ''Afro-Atlantic Dialogues: Anthropology in the Diaspora''. Santa Fe: SAR Press, pp.&nbsp;113–145, 206.
* Ramdas, Anil. 1996  “Verraad in de jungle.” NRC Handelsblad. Zaterdags Bijvoegsel, 25 May, pp.&nbsp;1–2.
* Scott, David. 1991 “That Event, This Memory: Notes on the Anthropology of African Diasporas in the New World.” ''Diaspora'' 1:261-284.
* [[Raymond Sokolov|Sokolov, Raymond]]. 1995. “Faking it in the Green Hell.” ''Wall Street Journal'' 226(33):pA9.
* Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 1992. “The Caribbean Region: An Open Frontier in Anthropological Theory.” ''Annual Review of Anthropology'' 21:19-42.
* Yelvington, Kevin A. 2001 “The Anthropology of Afro-Latin America and the Caribbean: Diasporic Dimensions.” ''Annual Review of Anthropology'' 30: 227-260.
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
== External links ==
* http://www.richandsally.net
* [http://web.wm.edu/history/directory.php?personid=6533 Richard Price at the College of William and Mary]
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[[Category:1941 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:American anthropologists]]
[[Category:Harvard University alumni]]