Martha Ann Chowning (born 18 April 1929 in

Little Rock ( The "Little Rock") , government_type = Council-manager , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_party = D , leader_title2 = Council , leader_name2 ...

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

; died 25 September 2016 in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

) was an

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

and

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

known for her work on the peoples, languages, cultures and histories of

Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a region, geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern Hemisphere, Eastern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of ...

Biography

Born and raised in

, Chowning studied Spanish at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...

and anthropology at

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

, Columbia, before beginning her PhD in anthropology at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1952. There she was taught by

Ward Goodenough Ward Hunt Goodenough II (May 30, 1919 – June 9, 2013) was an American anthropologist, who has made contributions to kinship studies, linguistic anthropology, cross-cultural studies, and cognitive anthropology. Biography and major works Go ...

, who engaged her in a project on the Lakalai people of

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

. After finishing her PhD in 1957, Chowning subsequently revisited the Lakalai many times between the 1960s and 1990s, and carried out comparative fieldwork on Molima, Sengseng, and Kove. Chowning held an assistant professorship in anthropology at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, from 1960 to 1965, and was Senior Research Fellow in

social anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

from 1965 to 1970. In 1970 she was appointed Associate Professor of anthropology at the

University of Papua New Guinea The University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) is a university located in Port Moresby, capital of Papua New Guinea. It was established by ordinance of the Australian administration in 1965. This followed the Currie Commission which had enquired ...

, before moving to the

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington ( mi, Te Herenga Waka) is a university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. The university is well know ...

to take up a position as Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology in 1977. Chowning retired in 1995.

Research

Chowning's work was interdisciplinary, bridging language, ethnography and history. She has made substantial contributions to Oceanic comparative linguistics, and her Lakalai-English dictionary is perhaps the largest dictionary of any Western Oceanic language.

Selected works

* Chowning, Ann, and Ward H. Goodenough. 1965. Lakalai political organization. ''Anthropological Forum: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Comparative Sociology'' 1 (3-4), 412-473 * Chowning, Ann. 1969. The Austronesian languages of New Britain. ''Papers in linguistics of Melanesia'' 2, 17–46. * Chowning, Ann. 1973. ''An introduction to the peoples and cultures of Melanesia''. Addison-Wesley. Second edition 1977, published by Cummings. * Chowning, Ann. 1979. Leadership in Melanesia. ''The Journal of Pacific History'' 14 (2), 66–84. * Blust, Robert, David F. Aberle, N. J. Allen, R. H. Barnes, Ann Chowning, Otto Chr. Dahl, Jacques Faublée, James J. Fox, George W. Grace, Toichi Mabuchi, Kenneth Maddock, and Andrew Pawley. 1980. Early Austronesian Social Organization: The Evidence of Language. ''Current Anthropology'' 21 (2), 205–226. * Chowning, Ann, and Ward H. Goodenough. 2016 954- ''A dictionary of the Lakalai (Nakanai) language of New Britain, Papua New Guinea''. Asia-Pacific Linguistics Open Access

Awards and other honours

In 2005, Chowning was honoured with a

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

, ''A Polymath Anthropologist: Essays in Honour of Ann Chowning''. Chowning was awarded an Honorary Life Membership of the Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa/New Zealand (ASAA/NZ). Iris 'Ann Chowning' is a beardless iris, described as having "intense, velvety red flowers with deep yellow highlights", bred by Chowning's father, lawyer Frank Chowning, and presumably named in her honour.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chowning, Ann 1929 births 2016 deaths American anthropologists American women anthropologists Linguists of Austronesian languages Women linguists Victoria University of Wellington faculty University of Pennsylvania alumni American archaeologists American women archaeologists American women academics 21st-century American women