Pauline Wiessner

Pauline Wiessner (Polly W. Wiessner) is an American anthropologist who focused on cultural anthropology. She is currently a professor at University of Utah. Wiessner has held various professor positions at Universities in the United States, Denmark, and France and various positions in Universities and communities across the world. During her research she work with Ju/’hoansi Bushmen of the Kalahari in South Africa to learn about the social networks and Enga of Papua New Guinea to learn about their customs of exchange, ritual and warfare.

Education Polly Wiessner received her bachelor's degree in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence University in 1969. In 1977 she received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her doctoral committee included Henry Wright, Richard Alexander, Kent Flannery, Richard Ford, and Aram Yengoyan.

Career and research Wiessner has conducted ethnographic research as a research associate at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. She has been a professor at the University of Utah, department of Anthropology and Arizona State University and a research professor at the University of Utah. Wiessner has previously been a visiting professor at the University of Aarhus in Denmark and Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris, France.

Polly Wiessner worked with the Ju/’hoansi (!Kung Bushmen). She focused on why hunters aimed to kill large game knowing the meat will feed more than enough people.

Wiessner has spent 40 years studying the effects of modern technology on traditional cultural practices, in particular the Kalahari San people of Southern Africa and the Enga of Papua New Guinea. From 1973 to 1977, her early research focused on the change in social connections and unproductive social time among the Kalahari foragers as they transition from hunter-gatherers to a mixed economy. For the past 30 years, she has studied how modern weaponry has affected the war traditions and the relationships of the Egna.

Wiessner has researched how the use of firelight in prehistoric human populations led to increased chances for socialization after dark. While researching firelight she looked at how the extended awake time shifted circadian rhythms and led to an extended work day, causing unproductive economic hours and productive social hours.

In addition to her research, Wiessner heads various philanthropic efforts, mostly to secure continued food and water resources for the cultures she has worked with. In Papua New Guinea, she founded the Tradition and Transition Centre to preserve Egna traditions and artifacts in their original context and keep the knowledge of their cultural heritage alive. Prize Winner, Spanish Geographical Society, Madrid (2014) Queen's Jubilee Medal from Papua New Guinea Government for service in preserving cultural knowledge through the Tradition and Transition Centre (2019)