Louis Charles Jean Dumont (11 August 1911 – 19 November 1998)
was a French
anthropologist.
Dumont was born in
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
, in the
Salonica Vilayet of the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
. He taught at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
during the 1950s, and was then director of the ''
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (french: École des hautes études en sciences sociales; EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The ...
'' (EHESS) in Paris. A specialist on the cultures and societies of
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, Dumont also studied
western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
social philosophy and ideologies.
Works
His works include ''
Homo Hierarchicus: Essai sur le système des castes'' (1966), ''From Mandeville to Marx: The Genesis and Triumph of Economic Ideology'' (1977) and ''Essais sur l'individualisme: Une perspective anthropologique sur l'idéologie moderne'' (1983), in which he contrasts
holism with
individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-reli ...
.
Dumont died, aged 87, in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
.
See also
*
Alliance theory
The alliance theory, also known as the general theory of exchanges, is a structuralist method of studying kinship relations. It finds its origins in Claude Lévi-Strauss's ''Elementary Structures of Kinship'' (1949) and is in opposition to the ...
References
External links
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*
*
1911 births
1998 deaths
Writers from Thessaloniki
People from Salonica vilayet
French anthropologists
French Indologists
Academics of the University of Oxford
20th-century anthropologists
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