Maria Czaplicka

This biography of the Polish British anthropologist Maria Czaplicka (1884-1921) is also a cultural study of the dynamics of the anthropological collective presented from a researcher-centric perspective. Czaplicka, together with Bronisaw Malinowski, studied anthropology in London and later at Oxford, then she headed the Yenisei Expedition to Siberia (1914-15) and was the first female lecturer of anthropology at Oxford. She was an engaged feminist and an expert on political issues in Northern Asia and Eastern Europe. But this remarkable woman’s career was cut short by suicide. Like many women anthropologists of the time, Czaplicka journeyed through various academic institutions, and her legacy has been dispersed and her field materials lost.