The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People

Edward Evans Evans-Pritchard (usually referred to as E. E. Evans-Pritchard) was a noted British anthropologist whose work in the first half of the 20th century helped establish the field of social anthropology. He is associated with the cultural-analysis model known as structural functionalism (developed by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown), which posits the development of stable functions in societies as an effect of the complex interconnections between tradition, ritual, politics, kinship, and other social systems.

Evans-Pritchard came to the forefront of social anthropology circles upon the 1937 publication of Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. This work, which focuses on another people group who, like the Nuer, live on the northern edge of sub-Saharan Africa, gained attention due to its relativistic and nonjudgmental approach to Azande customs. Whereas previous works of colonialist anthropology would have assumed the falsity of Azande cultural beliefs regarding causation and the relationship between the natural and supernatural, Evans-Pritchard’s work refrained from such reflexive judgments. The positive reception of this work led to his commission from the government of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to conduct anthropological surveys among the Nuer, one of the most populous and culturally dominant people groups in central Sudan (now northern South Sudan).

Evans-Pritchard’s extensive work with the Nuer culminated in the publication of three volumes on Nuer culture from 1940 to 1956, of which The Nuer is the first.