Nomination: Professor Eduardo Viana Vargas, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences, UFMG
Period: October 18th to 26th, 2009
Marilyn Strathern is one of the main anthropologists working in the world, and also one of the most creative. Her work rigorously and innovatively considers themes and topics as diverse as gender relations in Papua New Guinea and kinship in the United Kingdom, reproductive technologies and intellectual and cultural property, scientific production, technological diffusion and social life. This work, whose impact goes far beyond the field of anthropology, although it is even more notable there, is widely recognized in the United Kingdom, the United States and several European countries, especially France. The impact of her work in Brazil, where she was once more than ten years ago, is already considerable, although little has been translated here (apart from a few articles, just O Gênero da Dádiva – problems with women and problems with society in Melanesia, was recently translated and published in Brazil). In addition to the anthropology that is done at UFMG, her work is a reference in the field of contemporary anthropology in the main centers of postgraduate production in the country, notably at the National Museum – UFRJ, at USP and at UNICAMP.