Wendy James

Wendy Rosalind James, (4 February 1940 – 27 April 2024) was a British social anthropologist and academic. She was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford from 1996 to 2007, and President of the Royal Anthropological Institute from 2001 to 2004.

Early life and education James was born on 4 February 1940 to William Stanley James and Isabel James (née Lunt). She was educated at Kelsick School, a grammar school in Ambleside, Cumbria. She studied geography at St Hugh's College, Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in 1962.

James's interest in Africa was developed through the stories her father told her about his time working in Uganda and her interest in anthropology was sparked during a "'hands-on' introductory course at the Pitt Rivers Museum" in Oxford during her undergraduate degree. She therefore changed direction and remained at St Hugh's College studying anthropology, completing a Bachelor of Letters (BLitt) degree in 1964.

Academic career From 1964 to 1969, James was a lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Khartoum in Sudan. In 2007, she retired from full-time academia and was appointed an Emeritus Fellow of St Cross College.

Honours James was awarded the Amaury Talbot Prize for African Anthropology by the Royal Anthropological Institute for her monograph The Listening Ebony: Moral Knowledge, Religion and Power among the Uduk of Sudan in 1988. In 2005, she was awarded an honorary Dr Scientiarum Anthropologicarum (DSc) degree by the University of Copenhagen.

In 1999, James was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences. In the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) "for services to scholarship".

Selected works