Hocart, Arthur Maurice (1883-1939)

Arthur Maurice Hocart (1883-1939) is one of the most original ethnographers, anthropologists and theorists in the British school. Having made extensive trips to several Pacific islands in the 1910s, he is the author of a sizeable bibliography, of which Kings and Councillors (1936) is the best-known monograph. Brewing an important ethnographic literature, his work is at the crossroads of studies on psychology, emotions, ritual and modes of government, lending them universal scope. A “cursed” contemporary of Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown, he practically fell into oblivion until the rediscovery of his work in the 1960s by, among others, Rodney Needham.