Elizabeth Colson

Elizabeth Florence Colson (June 15, 1917 – August 3, 2016) was an American social anthropologist and professor emerita of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. which she began in 1956 with Thayer Scudder, 11 years after she obtained her doctorate and while Scudder was a second-year graduate student. the effects of economic pressure on familial relationships, rituals, religious life, and even drinking patterns.

Biography Colson was born in Hewitt, Minnesota on June 15, 1917. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in anthropology from the University of Minnesota and her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology in 1945 from Radcliffe College. Her first experience with field work was at a field laboratory established by Burt and Ethel Aginsky. and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978. While at Radcliffe College, she experienced sex-discrimination in academia and would later work to eradicate this discrimination at the University of California.

Research

Gwembe Tonga Project In 1956, Colson was sent by the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute to study the potential effects that the construction of a dam and hydro-electric power plant would have on the Gwembe Tonga of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). She partnered with Thayer Scudder in order to collect data on the residents of Gwembe. Colson then outlined the social reactions observed during the resettlement of the Gwembe Tonga in her project report titled "The Social Consequences of Resettlement, the Impact of Kariba Resettlement Upon the Gwembe Tonga". The reactions from the Gwembe expressed in Colson's report include: social upheaval, hostility towards the government, loss of legitimacy of local leaders who supported the resettlement of the Gwembe, increase of force on the part of the aforementioned leaders, and general instability in the Gwembe social structure.

This research directly contributed to the academic discussions of resettlement, migration, and refugee communities in applied and development anthropology. Colson's research with Scudder on the Gwembe and the social and political aspects of their resettlement is ongoing.