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National Anthropological Archives
Francis P. Conant Papers
Summary
- Collection ID:
- NAA.2012-13
- Creators:
-
Conant, Francis
- Dates:
-
1946-2011bulk 1953-2008
- Languages:
-
PrimarilyEnglish. Some field notes and recordings are inHausa,Bankal(also known as Baranci or Jaranci), andPökoot(Pokot).
- Physical Description:
-
20 Linear feet(43 boxes) plus 25 digital storage media and 5 map folders
- Repository:
The papers of Francis P. Conant document his anthropological work and, to a lesser extent, his previous career as a journalist and photographer. Francis Paine Conant was a cultural anthropologist who pioneered the use of satellite data in anthropology. He conducted fieldwork in Nigeria and Kenya, and his research interests spanned cultural ecology, AIDS, malaria, and sex and gender studies. He was also Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Hunter College, where he taught from 1962 to 1995.
Scope and Contents
Scope and Contents
The papers of Francis P. Conant document his anthropological work and, to a lesser extent, his previous career as a journalist and photographer. The bulk of the collection consists of his field work in Africa, specifically his doctoral research among the Barawa in Nigeria during the 1950s; his work among the Pokot in Kenya for Walter Goldschimdt's Culture and Ecology in East Africa Project during the 1960s; and his later research among the Pokot during the 1970s incorporating remote sensing tools. These materials include his dissertation, field notes, kinship charts, maps, correspondence, photographs, and sound recordings. The collection also contains photographs, correspondence, and writings relating to the Bernheim-Conant expedition through Africa. Among the photos are Polaroids of Mohammad Naguib, first president of Egypt. Also present in the collection are his published and unpublished academic writings, his writings and correspondence as a news correspondent in Finland, and files from courses that he taught. In addition, the collection contains some of Conant's digital files, which have not yet been examined. Overall there is little correspondence in the collection, aside from some letters scattered throughout the collection relating to his research and writings (both as an academic and a journalist).
Arrangement
Arrangement
Collection is organized into 9 series: 1) Nigeria, 1956-1960, undated; 2) Kenya, 1961-1974, undated; 3) Remote Sensing, 1967, 1971, 1976-1984, 1991-1992, 2002; 4) Bernheim-Conant Expedition, 1953-1956; 5) Writings, 1960-1966, 1974-1995, 2000-2006, undated; 6) University Files, 1956-1957, 1961, 1970, 1972, 1982-1995, undated; 7) Biographical Files and Letters, circa 1940, CIRCA 1946-1947, 1951, 1955, 1979, 1989-1991, 1996-2000, 2007-2011, undated; 8) Sound Recordings, 1956-1965, 1971, 1977-1978, undated; 9) Digital Files
Biographical / Historical
Biographical / Historical
Francis Paine Conant was a cultural anthropologist who pioneered the use of satellite data in anthropology. He conducted fieldwork in Nigeria and Kenya, and his research interests spanned cultural ecology, AIDS, malaria, and sex and gender studies. He was also Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Hunter College, where he taught from 1962 to 1995.
Conant was born on February 27, 1926 in New York City. After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy, he deferred college to enlist in the U.S. Army in 1944. He served as a field artillery observer for the 294th Field Artillery Battalion and helped liberate two concentration camps during World War II. After he was honorably discharged in 1946, he attended Cornell University, where he obtained his B.A. in 1950. While at Cornell, a Finnish student invited Conant to Finland to help relocate families, farms, and livestock further from the Russian border, a protective measure against another Russian invasion. Conant accepted his invitation and took time off from his academic studies to spend several months in Finland in 1947, as well as a summer in 1949.
After graduating from Cornell, Conant attended University of Iowa's graduate writing program for a short time. Dissatisfied with the program, he worked briefly for the Carnegie Endowment, during which time he occasionally served as a personal driver for Alger Hiss. In 1951, he returned to Finland to pursue a career in journalism. He worked for United Press International until 1953.
From December 5, 1953 to May 26, 1954, Conant traveled throughout Africa as part of the Bernheim-Conant Expedition for the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). The expedition was led by Claude Bernheim, the father of his first wife, Miriam. They traveled 16,000 miles through Northern Central and Eastern Africa, collecting film footage and material culture for the museum. Conant served as the writer and photographer for the expedition, publishing illustrated articles in the New York Times and Natural History Magazine.
He later returned to Africa as a doctoral student at Columbia University, where he earned his PhD in Anthropology in 1960. After studying the Hausa language at the International African Institute in London, he traveled to Nigeria as a Fellow of the Ford Foundation to carry out his fieldwork in Dass Independent District, Bauchi Province. Working among the Barawa that live in the mountains of Dass, he focused on their religion and its impact on the technology, social and political organization, and structure of their society. His dissertation was titled "Dodo of Dass: A Study of a Pagan Religion of Northern Nigeria." During his fieldwork, he also collected data on rock gongs, which were first identified and written about by Bernard Fagg in 1955.
In 1961 to 1962, Conant was a research associate for Walter Goldschmidt's Culture and Ecology in East Africa Project. The purpose of the project was to conduct a controlled comparison of four different East African societies and the farmers and pastoralists within each tribe. Conant was assigned to conduct ethnographic research among the Pokot in West Pokot District in Kenya. This research would form the basis of his remote sensing work in the same area more than a decade later. Conant was first introduced to remote sensing data in 1974 when his colleague Priscilla Reining showed him Landsat imagery of one his former fieldwork sites. He was inspired by the potential applications of satellite data to study cultural and ecological relationships. In 1975, he and Reining organized a workshop on "Satellite Potentials for Anthropological Studies of Subsistence Activities and Population Change." He incorporated remote sensing tools in his 1977 to 1980 study of the changing cultivation patterns and management of livestock in West Pokot District. His research combined traditional fieldwork (which included data he had collected in the 1960s), LANDSAT data, and geospatial data collected from the ground.
Later in his career, Conant's research interests expanded to include the spread of diseases, specifically AIDS and malaria. He, along with Priscilla Reining, John Bongaarts, and Peter Way found that uncircumcised men were 86% more likely to contract HIV than circumcised men. Their findings were published in their paper "The Relationship Between Male Circumcision and HIV Infection in African Populations" (1989). His research on malaria focused on the spread of the disease during African prehistory.
Conant taught briefly at Columbia University and was an Assistant Professor at University of Massachusetts, at Amherst in 1960-1961. Most of his academic career was spent at Hunter College, where he served as Chair of the Anthropology Department several times. He also founded and headed the college's Research Institute in Aruba.
Conant was a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University's Pitts Rivers Museum in 1968-1969. He was also a fellow of the American Anthropological Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the International African Institute, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Anthropological Institute. In addition, he was actively involved with the Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal.
Conant died at the age of 84 on January 29, 2011.
Sources Consulted
Bates, Daniel G. 2011. Francis P. Conant: A Tribute to a Friend of Human Ecology. Human Ecology 39(2): 115.
Bates, Daniel and Oliver Conant. Francis P. Conant. Anthropology News. 52(5): 25.
Conant, Veronika. Email message to Lorain Wang, October 22, 2013.
[Curriculum Vitae], Series 7. Biographical Files and Letters, Francis Conant Papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Francis P. Conant. http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/anthropology/faculty-staff/in-remembrance/francis-p.-conant [accessed August 23, 2013].
1926
Born February 27 in New York City, New York
1944-1946
Enlists in Army and serves in World War II as a flash ranger in 294th Field Artillery Battalion
1950
Earns B.A. from Cornell University in English and Russian, minor in Engineering
1953-1954
AMNH Bernheim-Conant Expedition to northern Africa
1957
Conducts language studies at the International African Institute
1957-1959
Conducts fieldwork in northern Nigeria
1960
Earns PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University
1960-1961
Assistant Professor, Anthropology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
1961-1962
Research Associate for Culture and Ecology in East Africa Project directed by Walter Goldschimdt
1962
Joins faculty at Hunter College
1968-1969
Fulbright Senior Research Fellow, Oxford University, Pitt-Rivers Museum
1977-1980
Sets up remote sensing monitoring area in West Pokot district in Kenya. Studies changing cultivation patterns and management of livestock
1995
Retires from Hunter College; Emeritus Professor
2011
Dies on January 29 at the age of 84
Administration
Author
Lorain Wang
Sponsor
The papers of Francis P. Conant were processed with the assistance of a Wenner-Gren Foundation Historical Archives Program grant awarded to Veronika Conant. Digitization and preparation of these materials for online access has been funded through generous support from the Arcadia Fund.
Processing Information
The papers of Francis P. Conant were received mostly organized. The processing archivist kept existing groupings and arrangement and organized the collection into nine series. Original folder titles were retained with titles assigned by the archivist placed within square brackets. Oversized materials were separated and replaced with notes indicating original and new locations. A few files containing social security numbers were redacted.
The archivist would like to thank Andrea Briggs for her assistance in processing the collection.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Francis Conant's widow Veronika Conant in 2012.
Using the Collection
Conditions Governing Access
The Francis P. Conant Papers are open for research. Access to the Francis P. Conant Papers requires an appointment.
Preferred Citation
Francis P. Conant Papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Conditions Governing Use
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Related Materials
Related Materials
For additional materials at the National Anthropological Archives relating to Francis Conant, see the papers of Priscilla Reining and John Lawrence Angel. His film collection is at the Human Studies Film Archives.
Artifacts and film collected during the Bernheim-Conant Expedition, his doctoral research in Nigeria, and his fieldwork in Kenya during the 1960s and 70s are at the American Museum of Natural History. He also deposited collections at the Pitts River Museum at the University of Oxford.
More Information
Bibliography
- 1960 Rocks that ring: their ritual setting in Northern Nigeria. NY Academy of Sciences, Transactions 23(2): 155-162.
- 1960 with H.D. Gunn. Peoples of the Middle Niger Region, Northern Nigeria. Ethnographic Survey of Africa 15. London: International African Institute.
- 1961 Jarawa kin systems of reference and address: a componential comparison. Anthropological Linguistics 3(2): 19-33.
- 1965 Korok: a variable unit of physical and social space among the Pokotof East Africa. American Anthropologist 67(2): 429-434.
- 1974 with Daniel Bates and A. Kidat. Introduction, Kidnapping and Elopement as Alternative Systems of Marriage. A Special Issue of Anthropological Quarterly 47(3): 233-238.
- 1974 Frustration, marriage alternatives and subsistence risks among the Pokot of East Africa: impressions of covariance. Anthropological Quarterly 47(3): 314-327.
- 1978 The Use of Landsat data in Ecological Anthropology. Report of aWenner-Gren Symposium. Current Anthropology 19(2): 382-384.
- 1982 Thorns paired, sharply recurved: Cultural controls and rangeland quality in East Africa. In Anthropology and Desertification. B. Spooner, ed., pp. 111-123. London: Academic Press.
- 1989 The Pokot Way with Thorny Shrubs. In The biology and utilization of shrubs. C. Mckell, ed., pp. 593-602. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
- 1989 with Priscilla Reining, John Bongaarts, and Peter Way. The Relationship Between Male Circumcision and HIV Infection in African Populations. AIDS 3: 373-377.
- 1994 Human Ecology and Space Age Technology: Some Predictions. Human Ecology 22(3): 405-413.
- 1995 Regional HIV prevalence and ritual circumcision in Africa. Health Transition Review 5(1): 108-112.
Bibliography
Keywords
Repository Contact
National Anthropological Archives
Museum Support Center
4210 Silver Hill Road
Suitland, Maryland 20746
naa@si.edu
