LEACH (Leach), Edmund

(p. 1910) - English. social anthropologist, best known for his research societies South. and South-Vost. Asia, as well as studies of symbolism and mythology. He studied engineering and mathematics at Cambridge and then to London School of Economics and policy, science, switched to the study of anthropology, was strongly influenced by Malinowski. Before the Second World. War conducted field research in Burma, on the basis of-cerned has written a book 'Paulette, a mountain system of Burma' (1954), dedicated to the social structure and political, institutions Kachin, this book became his doctor. dis. and brought him fame, and in it he made an unorthodox shaving. School of Social Anthropology theor. positions; OCH. the object of his interest - the social structure and the possibility of applying mathematics to study it, Thich. models (A. called his approach 'etnogr. algebra '). In particular, the study of kinship terminology, he developed a hypothetical. model of social structure, based on seven principles, and attempted to consider the totality of the empirical. facts as a modification of this model. In early. 50-ies. L. held a number of field studies in Kurdistan, in Ceylon and Borneo, publishing etnogr. Reports. In 1953-79 he taught at Cambridge (Prof.. social anthropology), was the rector of the Royal College.
In 1961 L. published one of his most important works 'Rethinking anthropology', which criticized the dominant in English. Anthropology of Radcliffe-Brownian version of structural functionalism, to emphasize the concept of social integration and social equilibrium, he believed that the theor. approach denies the ability of the Society to change. As an alternative, he proposed to use the achievements of French. structuralism. L. played an important role in promoting in England works of Levi-Strauss and the 60-ies. published several works, which were studied under such theor. angle of kinship, mythology and symbolism. In 1975 he was elevated to knighthood.