Camilla Hildegarde
Wedgwood
1901-1955

"It may often seem that women in so-called primitive societies play only a very secondary role in the life of their community.  We must be sure, however, that this impression is not due to the fact that most fieldwork has been done by men, who inevitably saw native life from the male side." (Gacs 1988:369).

After completing her ethnological investigation in Manam, Wedgwood accepted an invitation from the government of Nauru to study native arts and crafts and the status of native education, with the goal of reviving native culture.  This was Wedgwood's first applied anthropology assignment, and became a specialized interest.

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Selected works by and about Wedgwood    

Elkin, A. P.
1955   Camilla H. Wedgwood: 1901-1955.  Oceanic 26:172-80

Lutkehaus, Nancy
1986  "She was very Cambridge": Camilla Wedgwood and the History of Women in British Social Anthropology.  American Ethnologist 13(4):776-98.

Wedgwood, Camilla H.
1933  Girls' Puberty Rites in Manam Island, New Guinea.  Oceania 4(1):132-55.                         
1937  Women in Manam.  Oceania 7(4):401-28.
1950  The Recording of Native Tales.  The South Pacific 4(7):146-49.

 

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 British social anthropologist Camilla Hildegarde Wedgwood was known especially for her studies of women and children on the island of Manam, New Guinea, and her efforts to improve secondary education for indigenous women in Oceania.

After high school graduation, Wedgwood proceeded to Bedford College, where she specialized in English.  She continued her training at Newnham College at Cambridge, where she graduated with honors in English, anthropology, and archaeology.  She credited her  mentor at Cambridge, Dr. Alfred Cort Haddon, for making her an anthropologist. 

Upon graduation, Dr. Haddon asked Wedgwood to prepare the fieldnotes of the late Bernard Deacon for publication.  In the introduction of this publication, Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides, (1932) Wedgwood wrote, "My inexperience of the difficulties of such a task led me to accept his offer with enthusiasm" (Deacon 1970:xxxi).

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Three men, Lambumbu?

In that same year, 1932, Wedgwood was awarded a fellowship by the Australian Research Council to conduct fieldwork on Manam Island, New Guinea.  There she studied the lives of women and children, girls' puberty rites, and the effects of culture contact. 

In her writings, Wedgwood was critical of the male bias in anthropological research.   She believed women's roles in non-Western societies were not properly portrayed.

Sources:

Ute Gacs
1988  Camilla Hildegarde Wedgwood.  In Women Anthropologists: A Biographical Dictionary.  Ute Gacs, Aisha Khan, Jerrie McIntyre, and Ruth Weinberg, eds.  Pp. 367-371.  New York: Greenwood Press.

Deacon, Bernard
1970  Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides.  Oosterhout: Anthropological Publications. (Photo:  Three men, Lambumbu)