J. Clyde Mitchell

James Clyde Mitchell ( born June 21, 1918 in Pietermaritzburg, † 15 November 1995) was a British anthropologist (Social Anthropologist ). He was an important representative of the Manchester School.

He explored in the 1940s to 1960s, inter alia, at the Rhodes - Livingstone Institute in Lusaka (Zambia ) relations between the clans of the Lakeside Tonga and the magic act at the Yao. In the Zambian Copperbelt mining region he explored urban innovations great dance performances (The Kalela Dance). His mastery of statistics influenced (even before sociology ) in anthropology tended studies of social networks greatly.

He was Rector of the University in Salisbury (now Harare ), turned after the revolt of the white settlers in Southern Rhodesia (see Zimbabwe's history ) to England where he became director of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Publications

• The Kalela dance: Aspects of social relationships among urban Africans in Northern Rhodesia, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956
• The Yao village: A study in the social structure of a Malawian tribe Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956, 1966, 1971
• Social networks in urban situations: Analyses of personal relationships in Central African towns, Manchester: University Press, 1969
• Networks, norms, and institutions, 1973
• Configurational similarity in three class contexts in British society. In: Sociology, Vol 19, 1985
• Foreword, in: Cities, society, and social perception: A Central African perspective by Bruce Kapferer, Oxford University Press ( 1987)