Alfred Métraux: Difference between revisions

Born in [[Lausanne]], [[Switzerland]], Métraux spent much of his childhood in [[Argentina]] where his father was a well-known surgeon resident in [[Mendoza, Argentina|Mendoza]]. His mother was a [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]]n from Tbilisi. He received his secondary and university education in Europe, at the Classical Gymnasium of Lausanne, the [[École Nationale des Chartes|École nationale des chartes]] in Paris, the [[Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales|École nationale des langues Orientales]] (Diplome, 1925). The [[École pratique des hautes études]] (Diplôme, 1927) and the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]] ([[Docteur ès lettres]], 1928). He also studied in Sweden, in [[University of Gothenburg|Gothenburg's University]] and did research at the well-equipped local anthropological museum.

Métraux's professional career was equally cosmopolitan. His interest for anthropology and original languages, began early in his life when his father a medical doctor took an overseas appointment, relocating his family from Lausanne [[Switzerland]] to Mendoza Argentina. During his research years in Argentina, his work was centred in the study and interpretation of native languages, allowing him to create an extensive record of Argentine native ethnic groups, including: Calchaquí, Guaraní, Chiriguano, Toba & Wichís, and the Uros-Chipaya. While working on this research, he was invited to collaborate in the writing of the Handbook of South American Indians. Eventually, he founded and became the first director (1928 – 1934) of the Institute of Ethnology at the [[University of Tucuman]], in Argentina. During this period, he also published an article for the Universidad Nacional De la Plata Museo of Argentina called "Mitos y cuentos de los Indios Chiriguano" Myths and Stories of the Chiriguano Indians. In 1934-351934–35, he led a French expedition to [[Easter Island]], and in 1936 –38, he was a Fellow of the [[Bishop Museum]] in [[Honolulu]]. In 1939, he returned to Argentina and [[Bolivia]] for field research on a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]]. In 1940, upon his return to the United States from South America, he was in residence at [[Yale University]] with a renewal of his [[Guggenheim Fellowship]]. That next year, he worked with the Cross Cultural Survey (now the [[Human Relations Area Files]]) on South American data and was associated with such people as [[John Dollard]], [[Leonard Bloomfield]], and others of the Institute of Human Relations.

In the early spring of 1945, Métraux went to Europe as a member of the [[United States Bombing Survey]] and he saw the physical and moral desolation of Europe. Although he had by then become a citizen of the United States, this experience seems to have reaffirmed, in a way, his traditional ties with Europe. It also strengthened his belief in the necessity for European unity and for the need of a firm basis for international, inter-cultural, and inter-racial understanding. His early view of war devastated Europe was important in his decision in 1946 to take a post on the secretariat of the United Nations. Thus, from 1946 until 1962, he worked for his ideals of international and inter-cultural understanding within the framework of international organization with only occasional excursions into academic life and into anthropological field research. In 1946 and 1947, he was a member of the [[Department of Social Affairs of the United Nations]], but in 1947 he was assigned to [[UNESCO]], and finally, in 1950, he became a permanent member of UNESCO's Department of Social Science. As an international civil servant, he served the world and his profession well. He took part in the Hylean Amazon project in 1947-19481947–1948, led the UNESCO Marbial Valley (Haiti) anthropological survey from 1948 to 1950 with personnel from the international Labor Office, and studied the internal migrations of the [[Aymara people|Aymara]] and [[Quechua people|Quechua]] Indians in Peru and Bolivia (1954). He edited the series of pamphlets on The Race Question and Modern Thought and The Race Question and Modern Science, published by UNESCO since 1950. He also organized the research that led to a series of volumes on race relations in Brazil, such as "As relações raciais entre negros a brancos em São Paulo," edited by Roger Bastide and Florestan Fernandes (São Paulo, 1955), Race and Class in Rural Brazil, edited by Charles Wagley (UNESCO, Paris, 1952), and others. At UNESCO, he was responsible for the participation of anthropologists in many important projects around the world, and he consistently emphasized the anthropological point of view in all of the many programs with which he was associated. Anthropology lost not only a productive scholar, but an effective translator of anthropological theory and knowledge into action.

[[Category:PeopleScientists from Lausanne]]

[[Category:EthnographersSwiss ethnographers]]

[[Category:Academic staff of the École pratique des hautes études faculty]]

[[Category:SuicideArchaeologists inof theEaster 1960sIsland]]