Richard Borshay Lee
Anthropologist known for !Kung San fieldwork and traditionalist views in the Kalahari Debate.
Richard Borshay Lee is a Canadian anthropologist whose career has been defined by more than five decades of fieldwork among the Ju/'hoansi, a San people of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana and Namibia. Born in 1937, he completed his undergraduate and master's degrees at the University of Toronto before earning his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1965. His early academic appointments included positions at Harvard University, where he co-founded the Harvard Kalahari Research Group with Irven DeVore, and at Rutgers University. He spent the bulk of his career at the University of Toronto, joining in 1972, becoming a full professor in 1976, and being named University Professor—the institution’s highest rank—in 1999. He retired as University Professor Emeritus in 2007. Lee is best known for his 1979 book *The !Kung San: Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society*, which won both the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and the Herskovits Award. His quantitative data on Ju/'hoansi subsistence, showing they met their needs with roughly fifteen hours of work per week, directly informed Marshall Sahlins's influential "original affluent society" thesis. Lee also co-organized the landmark 1966 "Man the Hunter" symposium at the University of Chicago, whose proceedings became a foundational text in hunter-gatherer studies. His fieldwork, beginning in 1963 and continuing through 2013, initially documented subsistence ecology and social organization, and later addressed AIDS prevention and colonial oral history. He has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences, and an Officer of the Order of Canada.
- field
- Anthropology
Lore & Background
Richard Borshay Lee conducted early and extensive ethnographic research among the !Kung San. In his 1979 book *The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society*, his main goal was to be fully immersed in the !Kung San culture so that he could fully understand their way of life. He was puzzled as to how these people seemed to be living such an easy and happy life that relied heavily on hard work and the availability of food. Most of his studies of the San took place in the Dobe area, near the Tsodilo Hills. He was adopted into a kinship and given the name /Tontah which meant “White-Man.” He claims that the San were an isolated hunter-gatherer society that changed to farming and foraging at the end of the 1970s. Most of Lee's historical data comes from oral stories told by the !Kung San because they did not have anything written down. According to Lee the San were originally afraid of contact with outsiders. Lee reports that the men did the hunting and hard labor while the women did housework. He later found out that the San weren't just hunter-gatherers, but also herders, foragers, and farmers. In his book he states, “I learned that most of the men had had experience herding cattle at some point in their lives and that many men had owned cattle and goats in the past.” He claims that they have learned all of this on their own. The San wanted wage pay for farming and taking care of cattle, goats, and sheep. This was their new way of life.
Reader's Guide
Lee's work is central to the traditionalist side of the Kalahari Debate. He and other traditionalists, including Irven DeVore, consider the San to have been, historically, isolated and independent hunter/gatherers separate from nearby societies. The traditionalists believe that the San have adapted over time but without help from other societies, placing emphasis on the cultural continuity and integrity of the San peoples. Lee's 1979 book details his findings, including that the San were originally afraid of contact with outsiders and that they changed to farming and foraging at the end of the 1970s. Revisionists like Edwin Wilmsen and James Denbow oppose these views, arguing that the San have not always been isolated but have played important economic roles in surrounding communities and have become a dispossessed and marginalized people. The debate continues with scholars critiquing each other's work. For instance, Lee called out Wilmsen for mistaking the word “oxen” for “onins”, which meant “onions” in an old map of the Kalahari region, leading to Lee's article "Oxen or Onions."
Did You Know?
- Lee was adopted into a !Kung San kinship and given the name /Tontah, meaning “White-Man.”
- In his 1979 book, Lee wrote that most !Kung San men had experience herding cattle and many had owned cattle and goats in the past.
- Lee called out Edwin Wilmsen for mistaking the word “oxen” for “onins” (meaning “onions”) on an old map of the Kalahari region.
- Lee's historical data on the !Kung San comes from oral stories because they did not have anything written down.
- According to Lee, the San were originally afraid of contact with outsiders.
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