Dampierre, Éric de (1928-1998)

Ethnologist and sociologist Éric de Dampierre (1928–1998) was one of the main driving forces behind French ethnology from the 1960s to the 1990s. After studying literature, law and political science, he spent two decisive years (1950–1952) at the University of Chicago as a member of the Committee on Social Thought. Back in Paris, he joined the Centre de Sociologie Européenne, founded by Raymond Aron. Assigned by the Office de la recherche scientifique et technique d’Outre-Mer (ORSTOM), he discovered the Nzakara-Zande country in 1954 and set up a sociological mission in Bangassou (now the Central African Republic) in Haut-Oubangui. He returned there almost every year until 1987 and, having mastered the language and its poetry, became the best specialist on Nzakara societies. An outstanding editor and translator, in 1952 he founded the “Recherche en sciences humaines” series (Plon) which published the first French translations of Max Weber. He was one of the co-founders of the trilingual journal Archives européennes de sociologie/European Archives of Sociology. 1964 saw the birth of the famous bilingual “Classiques africains” series, founded by Dampierre, Michel Leiris, Claude Tardits and Gilbert Rouget. After his thesis Un ancien royaume Bandia du Haut-Oubangui (1966), he was appointed professor at the University of Nanterre. He remained there until his retirement in 1995. In 1967, he founded the Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparée (LESC), which he directed until 1980. The curriculum of ethnologie at the University of Nanterre and the LESC, which Dampierre helped to shape in a decisive way, would train generations of French ethnologists.

Keywords: Sociology | Ethnomusicology | History | French Ethnology | Africanism | Second half of the 20^th century | Central Africa | Zande | Nzakara | Poetry | Kingship | Colonial situation | Oral History | Political organization