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{{Short description|German anthropologist (1943–2020)}}
{{Infobox academic
| honorific_prefix = 
| name = Georg Pfeffer
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| birth_date = {{birth date|1943|01|17}}
| birth_place = Berlin, Germany
| death_date = {{death date and age|2020|05|20|1943|01|17}}
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| nationality =
| citizenship = Germany
| other_names =
| occupation = Anthropologist
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| parents = {{br separated entries|Margaret Wainman Kirby (mother)|[[:de:Karl Heinz Pfeffer|Karl Heinz Pfeffer]] (father)}}
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| education = [[Doctor of Philosophy]]
| alma_mater = [[University of Freiburg]] (Ph.D.)
| thesis_title = Pariagruppen des Pandschab (Ph.D.)
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| thesis_year = 1970
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| discipline = [[Anthropology]]
| sub_discipline = {{br separated entries|Ethnography|Ethnology}}
| workplaces = Former professor, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology of [[Free University of Berlin]]
| doctoral_students = 
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| main_interests = {{br separated entries|Power relations|Anthropology of kinship|Anthropology of religion}}
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'''Georg Pfeffer''' (17 January 1943 — 20 May 2020) was a German anthropologist. Born in 1943 in Berlin to a German sociologist father and a British mother, he was schooled in [[Hamburg]]. In 1959, he moved to [[Lahore]] with his family, and studied at the city's [[Forman Christian College]] for 3 years. Later, he moved back to Germany and studied at the [[University of Freiburg]] where he also completed his Ph.D.

He served for 1 year as lecturer and for nearly 6 years as a professor of [[ethnology]] at the [[Heidelberg University]]. Later, he joined the [[Free University of Berlin]] and served as a professor at its Institute of Ethnology for nearly 23 years until his retirement in 2008. He had done fieldwork among the [[Adivasis]] of India's central regions, and in the eastern state [[Odisha]]. He also did field research in Pakistan. He was a co-founder of the [[European Association of Social Anthropologists]] and had worked at various editorial positions in a few anthropological journals. He died at the age of 77 years after a grave illness.

==Early life and family==
Georg Pfeffer was born on 17 January 1943 at Berlin in Germany to [[:de:Karl Heinz Pfeffer|Karl Heinz Pfeffer]] and Margaret Wainman Kirby.<ref name="FI"/><ref name="GA"/> His father was a sociologist. His mother was a Briton. He had to leave his native place because of bombing during the second world war's end. During his early childhood years, he lived in village in [[Hesse]] where he came in touch with refugees and experienced the "social structures" of Germany's countryside areas. In 1949, the Pfeffer family shifted to Hamburg where he completed his schooling.<ref name="GA">{{cite web |title=Short Portrait: Georg Pfeffer |editor-first=Dieter |editor-last=Haller |website=German Anthropology |place=Bochum, Germany |url=http://www.germananthropology.com/short-portrait/georg-pfeffer/75 |accessdate=September 10, 2020}}</ref>

==Education==
When Georg Pfeffer was 16 years old, the Pfeffer family shifted to [[Lahore]] in [[Pakistan]]. From 1959 to 1962, he studied at the [[Forman Christian College]]. During that time, he also learned about the culture, society, and language of Pakistan. Later, he returned to Germany. In 1966, he started to study history of religion, sociology, and ethnology at the University of Freiburg. His teachers at the university included [[:de:Rolf Herzog|Rolf Herzog]] and [[Heinrich Popitz]]. In 1970, he completed his Ph.D. at the university.<ref name="GA"/> For his doctorate, he presented a [[monograph]]ic dissertation titled ''Pariagruppen des Pandschab (Pariah Groups of Punjab)''.<ref name="FUB2">{{cite web |title=Publikationen: Prof. Dr. Georg Pfeffer |trans-title=Publications: Prof. Dr. Georg Pfeffer |website=Free University of Berlin |date=19 February 2008 |place=Berlin, Germany |url=https://www.polsoz.fu-berlin.de/ethnologie/personen/ehemalige_professor_innen/pfeffer/publ_pfeffer.html |accessdate=September 10, 2020 |language=de}}</ref>

==Academic career and research==
The subjects of Pfeffer's research included the study of power relations, anthropology of kinship, and [[anthropology of religion]]. He carried out field studies in India and Pakistan since 1968.<ref name="GA"/> He had studied the indigenous social groups and caste system of India and Pakistan. In the later half of the 1960s, he did his first [[ethnographic]] field study, and the subjects of the study were Lahore's "untouchable sweepers".<ref name="UoG"/>

In 1971, he joined the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University as an assistant.<ref name="GA"/> In the 1970s, he also performed his career's second field study on the role of the [[Vedic priests|Vedic Brahmins]] in [[Jagannath Temple, Puri|Jagannath Temple]] at [[Puri]] in Odisha, India.<ref name="UoG"/> In Odisha{{refn|group=note|Odisha was known as Orissa before 2011.}}, he had done fieldwork solely at the beginning. Later, he conducted research there with a group of scholars from India and Germany. He had been among the people of Odisha nearly each year for a few decades.<ref name="FI">{{cite web |title=Prof. Dr. Georg Pfeffer (17 January 1943 — 20 May 2020) |first=Roland |last=Hardenberg |website=[[Frobenius Institute]] |place=Frankfurt, Germany |url=https://www.frobenius-institut.de/en/research/61-new/682-obituary-for-prof-dr-georg-pfeffer |accessdate=September 10, 2020 |archive-date=30 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210530063956/https://www.frobenius-institut.de/en/research/61-new/682-obituary-for-prof-dr-georg-pfeffer |url-status=dead }}</ref>

At the Heidelberg University,<ref name="GA"/> he also presented a monographic thesis titled ''Puris Sasana–Dörfer, Basis einer Regionalen Elite (Puris Sasana Villages, Basis of Regional Elite)'' for his [[habilitation]] in 1976,<ref name="FUB2"/> and worked as a lecturer at the university in 1978.<ref name="FUB1">{{cite web |title=Prof. Dr. Georg Pfeffer |first1=Hansjörg |last1=Dilger |first2=Birgitt |last2=Röttger-Rössler |website=[[Free University of Berlin]] |date=21 February 2008 |place=Berlin, Germany |url=https://www.polsoz.fu-berlin.de/ethnologie/personen/ehemalige_professor_innen/pfeffer/index.html |accessdate=September 10, 2020 |language=de}}</ref> From 1979 to 1985, he worked as a professor of ethnology at the Heidelberg University.<ref name="GA"/> From 1985 to his retirement in 2008, he worked as a professor at the Free University of Berlin's Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology<ref name="GA"/>{{refn|group=note|The Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology was known as the Institute of Ethnology till 2015.<ref name="FUB1"/>}} and also supervised the [[Asian studies]] at the institute.<ref name="FUB1"/> Since the 1980s, central India's Adivasi people had been the main focus of his field research, specially the study of their kinship, rituals, and religion.<ref name="UoG"/> From 1984 to 1988, he was the co-editor of the ''South Asian Social Scientist''{{refn|group=note|A journal published by the [[University of Madras]]'s Department of Anthropology.<ref>{{cite book |title=South Asian Social Scientist |oclc=635790824 }}</ref>}}.<ref name="FUB2"/> In 1989, he co-founded the European Association of Social Anthropologists.<ref name="UoG">{{cite web |title=Prof. Dr. Georg Pfeffer (17 January 1943 — 20 May 2020) |first=Peter |last=Berger |website=[[University of Groningen]] |place=Groningen, Netherlands |url=https://www.rug.nl/research/centre-for-religious-studies/centre-religion-culture-asia/news/prof.-dr.-georg-pfeffer-(17-january-1943-20-may-2020) |date=May 28, 2020 |accessdate=September 10, 2020}}</ref>

Since 1990, he was a member of the editorial staff of the ''[[:de:Zeitschrift für Ethnologie|Zeitschrift für Ethnologie]]'' for its South Asia and Symbolic Classification subject. From 1993 to 1995, he along with [[:de:Bernhard Hänsel|Bernhard Hänsel]], served as the co-editor for the publications of the ''[[Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte]]''.<ref name="FUB2"/> Between 1996 and 2006, he headed the [[Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft]]-funded ''[[:de:Schwerpunktprogramm|Schwerpunktprogramm]] Orissa''{{refn|group=note|''Priority Programme Orissa''}} at the Institute of Ethnology of the Free University of Berlin under which a number of long-term research projects were executed in the state.<ref name="FUB1"/> He was also an associate fellow of the [[University of Groningen]]'s Centre for the Study of Religion and Culture in Asia for its 2 research projects — ''Religion, Culture and Society of Indian "Tribal"'' and ''Communities and History and Theory of the Anthropology of India''.<ref name="UoG"/>

Peter Berger noted that Pfeffer compared "worldviews and social structures" of the American, Australian and Central Indian autochthonous peoples. According to Berger, Pfeffer's "most important contribution lies in his comparative endeavor, as he worked out the general patterns of social structure and ideology that are shared by the various Central Indian indigenous peoples and at the same time constitute different distinctive cultural sub-complexes."<ref name="UoG"/>

From 1993 to 1995 Pfeffer was the President of the [[Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory]].<ref>[[Nils Seethaler]], Markus Schindlbeck: Nachruf Georg Pfeffer. In: Mitteilungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, vol. 41 (2020): 15.</ref>

==Other interests==
Pfeffer was also interested in literature, art, music, sports, and the current political events.<ref name="FI"/>

==Death==
Pfeffer died on 20 May 2020 at the age of 77 because of severe illness.<ref name="FI"/>

==Works==
Pfeffer wrote 4 monographs, 93 research papers, 22 reviews, 12 [[Serial (publishing)|serials]] and 13 other [[miscellanea]].<ref name="FUB2"/>

===Books===
Some of the books authored by Pfeffer are as follows:
*{{cite book |title=Lewis Henry Morgan's Comparisons Reassessing Terminology, Anarchy and Worldview in Indigenous Societies of America, Australia and Highland Middle India |last=Pfeffer |year=2019 |publisher=[[Berghahn Books|Berghahn]] |place=New York, USA |isbn=978-1789203189 |lccn=2019980482 |oclc=1105557052}}
*{{cite book |title=Verwandtschaft als Verfassung: unbürokratische Muster öffentlicher Ordnung |trans-title=Relationship as a Constitution: Unbureaucratic Models of Public Order |edition=illustrated |first=Georg |last=Pfeffer |year=2016 |publisher=Nomos |place=Baden-Baden, Germany |isbn=978-3848724215 |lccn=2016418426 |oclc=944086186}}
*{{cite book |title=Hunters, Tribes, Peasants: Cultural Crisis and Comparison |series=The Dr. Ambedkar Memorial Lecture Series |first=Georg |last=Pfeffer |year=2003 |publisher=National Institute of Social Work and Social Sciences–Centre for Development Education and Communication (NISWASS–CEDEC) Press |place=[[Bhubaneswar]], India |oclc=918437559}}
*{{cite book |title=Status and Affinity in Middle India |series=Beiträge zur Südasienforschung, Volume 76 |first=Georg |last=Pfeffer |year=1982 |publisher=F. Steiner |place=Wiesbaden, Germany |isbn=978-3515039130 |oclc=9750736}}

===Selected papers===
*{{cite book |title=Contemporary Society: Tribal Studies |series=Structure and Process, Volume 1 |year=1997 |pages=3–27 |publisher=Concept |place=New Delhi, India |article=The Scheduled Tribes of Middle India as a Unit: Problems of Internal and External Comparison |first=Georg |last=Pfeffer |editor1-first=Georg |editor1-last=Pfeffer |editor2-first=Deepak Kumar |editor2-last=Behera |isbn=978-8170226413 |lccn=97905535}}
*{{cite book |title=Jagannath Revisited: Studying Society, Religion, and the State in Orissa |series=Studies in Orissan Society, Culture, and History, Volume 1 |edition=illustrated |year=2001 |pages=123–148 |publisher=Manohar |place=New Delhi, India |article=A Ritual of Revival among the Gadaba of Koraput |first=Georg |last=Pfeffer |editor1-first=Hermann |editor1-last=Kulke |editor2-first=Burkhard |editor2-last=Schnepel |editor1-link=Hermann Kulke |isbn=978-8173043864 |lccn=2001358932 |oclc=1129466261}}
*{{cite journal |journal=[[Contributions to Indian Sociology]] |volume=17 |issue=1 |year=1983 |publisher=[[Sage Journals]] |title=Generation and Marriage in Middle India: The Evolutionary Potential of 'Restricted Exchange' |first=Georg |last=Pfeffer |pages=87–121 |doi=10.1177/006996683017001004|s2cid=144073747}}
*{{cite journal |journal=Anthropos |volume=99 |issue=2 |year=2004 |pages=381–409 |publisher=[[:de:Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH|Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH]] |title=Order in Tribal Middle Indian 'Kinship' |first=Georg |last=Pfeffer |jstor=40466388 |jstor-access=free}}
*{{cite journal |journal=Zeitschrift für Ethnologie |volume=122 |issue=2 |year=1997 |pages=183–208 |publisher=[[:de:Dietrich Reimer Verlag GmbH|Dietrich Reimer Verlag GmbH]] |title=Die Haardebatte: Gender, Glatzen und Gewalt der Bondo |first=Georg |last=Pfeffer |jstor=25842502 |jstor-access=free |language=de}}
*{{cite journal |journal=Zeitschrift für Ethnologie |volume=117 |year=1992 |pages=41–54 |publisher=Dietrich Reimer Verlag GmbH |title=Zur Verwandtschaftsethnologie |first=Georg |last=Pfeffer |jstor=25842240 |jstor-access=free |language=de}}

==See also==
*[[Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf]]
*[[Paul Hockings]]
*[[Stephen Fuchs]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite book |title=The Anthropology of Values: Essays in Honour of Georg Pfeffer |edition=illustrated |publisher=[[Longman]] |place=Delhi |editor-first=Peter |editor-last=Berger |others=Ellen Kattner |year=2010 |url=https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/4937231 |isbn=978-8131728208}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pfeffer, Georg}}

[[Category:1943 births]]
[[Category:Social scientists from Berlin]]
[[Category:Forman Christian College alumni]]
[[Category:University of Freiburg alumni]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Heidelberg University]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the Free University of Berlin]]
[[Category:Social anthropologists]]
[[Category:20th-century German anthropologists]]
[[Category:Anthropology educators]]
[[Category:Anthropology writers]]
[[Category:21st-century German anthropologists]]
[[Category:2020 deaths]]
[[Category:German Indologists]]
[[Category:German expatriates in India]]
[[Category:Academic staff of South Asia Institute Heidelberg]]

Georg Pfeffer - Revision history

Aman064 at 06:23, 17 August 2025