Josselin de Jong, Jan Petrus Benjamin de (1886-1964)
IRHiS UMR CNRS 8529, Université de Lille
Dutch anthropologist and linguist Jan Petrus Benjamin de Josselin de Jong made his first field trip to North America in the summer of 1910 to the Blackfeet and Piegan Indians of Montana and then, in 1911, to the Odžibwe (Ojibwa/Chippewa) of Minnesota. Curator at the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (National Museum of Ethnology) in Leiden, he carried out research in the Caribbean in 1922 in collaboration with the Danish archaeologist and ethnologist Gudmund Hatt. In the same year, he became the first Dutch chair of general ethnology at Leiden University. After a field trip to the Dutch Indies from 1932 to 1934, De Josselin de Jong was offered the Chair of Ethnology of the Dutch Indies in 1935 and published his inaugural speech De Maleische Archipel als ethnologisch studieveld (The Malay Archipelago, a field of ethnological study) in the same year, laying the foundations for the structuralism of the Leiden School. A major figure in 20th century Dutch anthropology, De Josselin de Jong occupies a place in the history of the discipline that goes far beyond the context of his own country through the influence of his ethnographic and theoretical writings and intellectual dialogues on the international scene.
Keywords: Social and cultural anthropology | Structuralism | Leiden School | 20th century | The Netherlands | Caribbean | United States of America | Algonquin languages | Southeast Asia | Indonesia/Dutch India | Amerindian studies | Mesoamerican studies | Asian studies | Family and kinship | Kinship anthropology | Marriage | Circular connubium
Secondary sources
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« Marcel Mauss et les origines de l’anthropologie structurale hollandaise »
Patrick Edward de Josselin de Jong, 1972
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« Les Danses des Piegan... » | Review |
Emmanuel Désveaux, 2005
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« “Tâche aveugle”. L’absence d’un contrepoint visuel a-t-elle été fatale au “structuralisme” hollandais ? »
Thomas Beaufils, 2009
Primary sources
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Les danses des Piegan
J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong, 1912
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« L’archipel Malais, un champ d’étude ethnologique »
J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong, 1935
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« Manifeste. Au peuple néerlandais… Au peuple indonésien »
J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong, 1946
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« Culture et rêve »
J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong, 1946
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« Un peuple en devenir »
J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong, 1948
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“On Uncivilized Art and Civilized ‘Artistry’. An Ethnological Enquiry”
J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong, s.d.
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