M. G. Smith
| Michael Garfield Smith | |
|---|---|
| Born | 18 August 1921 |
| Died | 5 January 1993 (aged 71) |
| Nationality | Jamaican |
| Education |
Jamaica College McGill University University College, London (Ph.D in social anthropology) |
| Employer | Professor and Head of the Department of Anthropology, University College, London Franklin M. Crosby Professor Emeritus of the Human Environment, Yale University Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles Senior Research Fellow, Research Institute for the Study of Man, and Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies |
| Known for | Social anthropologist and poet |
| Spouse(s) | Mary F. Smith (née Morrison) |
| Awards | Wellcome Medal for Anthropological Research Curle Bequest Essay Prize Amaury Book Prize (Royal Anthropological Institute) Order of Merit (Jamaica 1972) |
Michael Garfield Smith OM (18 August 1921 - 5 January 1993) was a Jamaican social anthropologist and poet of international repute.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, M.G. Smith was always a brilliant scholar. As a schoolboy at Jamaica College, one of the island's leading secondary schools, his schoolmates claimed him as their "intellectual hero." In 1939 at age seventeen, Smith achieved the highest marks of all Higher Schools Certificate candidates in the entire British Empire. More than a student scholar, he later emerged as a published poet of very considerable promise. His scholarly feats earned him the prestigious Jamaica Scholarship, which did not bring him to Bombay as he had wished, but to Canada, where he went to study English Literature at McGill University. Joining the Canadian army during the war, he served briefly on the frontline in Europe, in France, Holland and Germany. Demobilized in London in 1945, he turned from literature to law, which he studied for a year before the fateful switch to anthropology. As his wife Mary reported, Smith found the law "an ass" and not, as he had hoped, about justice. He took to anthropology quickly and anthropology to him. Soon he became a prize student in Daryll Forde's department at University College London, completed his undergraduate work in short order, and after very successful field research in Northern Nigeria, was awarded the Ph.D. in 1951. He subsequently carried out extensive field research in Northern Nigeria, Jamaica, Grenada, and Carriacou. Smith served as the Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Social and Economic Research University of the West Indies (Jamaica); Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles; Senior Research Fellow, Research Institute for the Study of Man, New York City; Franklin M. Crosby Professor Emeritus, Human Environment at Yale University; and as Professor and Head of the Department of Anthropology, University College, London.
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