Olivia Harris

Olivia Jane Harris (26 August 1948 – 9 April 2009) was a British social anthropologist whose work focused on the study of the Bolivian highlands. Her writing includes analyses of fertility, gender, and of time, the relation between law and custom, as well as the Inca and Spanish colonisation of current-day Bolivia.

Early life and education Olivia Jane Harris was born on 26 August 1948 and read classics at St Anne's College, Oxford. She moved on to become a post-graduate student at the London School of Economics (LSE) anthropology department. As part of her studies, she conducted ethnographic fieldwork from 1972 to 1974 among Aymara speaking communities in Potosí, Bolivia.

Work In describing Andean conceptions of work, Harris foregrounded the positive value that the Laymi ascribed to it, the importance of working in groups and the wider relevance that work has beyond material or economic goals. She thereby argues that the question of what makes people work is central to understanding human existence, and that it cannot be understood with neoclassical concepts of economic analysis.

Personal life Harris was born as the fourth child of Julia Harris and Sir Ronald Harris, then a senior civil servant in the Cabinet Office. She spent her childhood in Stoke d'Abernon after losing her mother to cancer at the age of seven. Her father later remarried.