The Nuer


The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People is an ethnographical study by the British anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard first published in 1940. The work examined the political and familial systems of the Nuer people in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and is considered a landmark work of social anthropology. It was the first of three books authored by Evans-Pritchard on Nuer culture.

The structure of the book

The first two chapters - 'Cattle' and 'Oecology' - provided an environmental setting for the Nuer, cattle pastoralists who carried on limited horticulture. Evans-Pritchard emphasised the extent to which cattle dominated both their economic activity and their social ideals:
The third chapter, 'Time and Space',
The Nuer was the first of three books which Evans-Pritchard would publish on the Nuer. The others were published as Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer and Nuer Religion.
In the book's introduction, Evans-Pritchard warmly thanked the Nuer for the welcome he felt they gave him:

Reception

The Nuer is considered a landmark work of social anthropology and has been discussed extensively. Audrey Richards considered that the book, though "unsatisfying in some respects, it is a brilliant tonic, and in the best sense of the word, an irritating book". This judgment has been echoed by modern academics. Renaldo Rosaldo has criticised Evans-Pritchard for making invisible, in the subsequent body of The Nuer, the colonial power relations which enabled his ethnography.