The Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG; sv, Svenska Sällskapet för Antropologi och Geografi) is a scientific
learned society
A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and science. Membership ...
founded in December 1877. It was established after a rearrangement of various sections of the Anthropological Society, which was formed in 1873 by
Hjalmar Stolpe
Knut Hjalmar Stolpe (23 April 1841 – 27 January 1905), was a Swedish entomologist, archaeologist, and ethnographer. He was the first director and curator of the Museum of Ethnography, Sweden. He is best known for his meticulous archaeological e ...
Oscar Montelius
Gustav Oscar August Montelius, known as Oscar Montelius (9September 18434November 1921) was a Swedish archaeologist who refined the concept of seriation, a relative chronological dating method.
Biography
Oscar Montelius refined the concept ...
, and Gustaf Retzius.
The society functions as a link between science and the public, especially in the subjects of
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
and
geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...
. It awards research fellowships, organizes excursions and lectures, and hands out awards including the Vega Medal and Retzius Medal. In 1880, the society published the first edition of the Swedish yearbook ''Ymer'', and it has published the international journal '' Geografiska Annaler'' since 1919, a publication that is divided between
physical geography
Physical geography (also known as physiography) is one of the three main branches of geography. Physical geography is the branch of natural science which deals with the processes and patterns in the natural environment such as the atmosphere ...
and
human geography
Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of geography that studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment. It analyzes spatial interdependencies between social ...
ethnography
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 ...
Northeast Passage
The Northeast Passage (abbreviated as NEP) is the Arctic shipping routes, shipping route between the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, Pacific Oceans, along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Russia. The western route through the islands o ...
. Since then, the Vega Medal has been awarded to an outstanding physical geographer roughly every three years. In the intervening years, the society has awarded the Anders Retzius Medal to a geographer or anthropologist.
In 2015, the Society decided that awarding a medal named after Retzius was inappropriate; his racial studies—including a collection of skulls of indigenous peoples—are viewed with disapproval by modern anthropologists. Thereafter, the Retzius Medal was renamed the SSAG medal, and it was given to Didier Fassin in 2016. The society's awards are handed out by the King of Sweden on 24 April, the anniversary of Nordenskiöld's return to Stockholm.
Recipients
The following people are among the recipients of the society's awards:
Henry Morton Stanley
Sir Henry Morton Stanley (born John Rowlands; 28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904) was a Welsh-American explorer, journalist, soldier, colonial administrator, author and politician who was famous for his exploration of Central Africa and his sear ...
* 1884:
Nikolai Przhevalsky
Nikolay Mikhaylovich Przhevalsky (or Prjevalsky;; pl, Nikołaj Przewalski, . – ) was a Russian geographer of Polish descent (he was born in a Polish noble family), and a renowned explorer of Central and East Asia.
Although he never reac ...
* 1888:
Wilhelm Junker
Wilhelm Junker ( rus, Василий Васильевич Юнкер; 6 April 184013 February 1892) was a Russian explorer of Africa. Dr. Junker was of German descent.
Born in Moscow, he studied medicine at Dorpat (now called University of T ...
* 1889:
Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen (; 10 October 186113 May 1930) was a Norwegian polymath and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He gained prominence at various points in his life as an explorer, scientist, diplomat, and humanitarian. He led the team t ...
* 1890:
Emin Pasha
185px, Schnitzer in 1875
Mehmed Emin Pasha (born Isaak Eduard Schnitzer, baptized Eduard Carl Oscar Theodor Schnitzer; March 28, 1840 – October 23, 1892) was an Ottoman physician of German Jewish origin, naturalist, and governor of the Egyp ...
Ferdinand von Richthofen
Baron Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen (5 May 18336 October 1905), better known in English as was a German traveller, geographer, and scientist. He is noted for coining the terms "Seidenstraße" and "Seidenstraßen" = "Silk Road(s)" or "Silk ...
Robert Falcon Scott
Captain Robert Falcon Scott, , (6 June 1868 – c. 29 March 1912) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the ''Discovery'' expedition of 1901–1904 and the ill-fated ''Terra Nov ...
Johan Peter Koch
Johan Peter Koch (15 January 1870 – 13 January 1928) was a Danish captain and explorer of the Arctic dependencies of Denmark, born at Vestenskov. He was the uncle of the geologist Lauge Koch
Career
J.P. Koch participated in Amdrup's expediti ...
* 1910:
Ernest Shackleton
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age o ...
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen beg ...
Albrecht Penck
Albrecht Penck (25 September 1858 – 7 March 1945) was a German geographer and geologist and the father of Walther Penck.
Biography
Born in Reudnitz near Leipzig, Penck became a university professor in Vienna, Austria, from 1885 to 1906, a ...
Roy Chapman Andrews
Roy Chapman Andrews (January 26, 1884 – March 11, 1960) was an American explorer, adventurer and naturalist who became the director of the American Museum of Natural History. He led a series of expeditions through the politically disturbed ...
Hans Pettersson
Prof Hans Petterson FRSFor HFRSE RSAS (1888–1966) was a 20th century Swedish physicist and oceanographer.
Early life
Hans Petterson was born in Forshalla near Gothenburg on 26 August 1888, the son of the chemist and oceanographer Otto P ...
Tor Bergeron
Tor Bergeron (15 August 1891 – 13 June 1977) was a Swedish meteorologist who proposed a mechanism for the formation of precipitation in clouds. In the 1930s, Bergeron and W. Findeisen developed the concept that clouds contain both supercoole ...
Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl KStJ (; 6 October 1914 – 18 April 2002) was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in zoology, botany and geography.
Heyerdahl is notable for his ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000& ...
* 1963:
Louis Leakey
Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey (7 August 1903 – 1 October 1972) was a Kenyan-British palaeoanthropologist and archaeologist whose work was important in demonstrating that humans evolved in Africa, particularly through discoveries made at Olduvai ...
Filip Hjulström
Henning Filip Hjulström (6 October 1902 – 26 March 1982) was a Swedish geographer. Hjulström was professor of geography at Uppsala University from 1944, and in 1949, when the subject of geography was split, he became professor of Physical ...
*
Sigurður Þórarinsson
Sigurdur Thorarinsson ( Icelandic: Sigurður Þórarinsson) (January 8, 1912 – February 8, 1983) was an Icelandic geologist, volcanologist, glaciologist, professor and lyricist. He is considered a pioneer in the field of tephrochronology, an ...
Cesare Emiliani
Cesare Emiliani (8 December 1922 – 20 July 1995) was an Italian-American scientist, geologist, micropaleontologist, and founder of paleoceanography, developing the timescale of marine isotope stages, which despite modifications remains in ...
* 1984:
Hubert Lamb
Hubert Horace Lamb (22 September 1913 in Bedford – 28 June 1997 in Holt, Norfolk) was an English climatologist who founded the Climatic Research Unit in 1972 in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia.
Caree ...
Gösta Hjalmar Liljequist
Gösta Hjalmar Liljequist (1914–1995) was a Swedish meteorologist.
In Sweden, radio broadcast weather forecasts begun in 1926, and, starting in 1941, Liljequist was one of the recurrent meteorologists appearing in Swedish radio for many year ...
Terry Callaghan
Terence Vincent Callaghan (born 1945) is a British biologist specialized in the ecology of the Arctic. Much of his work on arctic plants has taken place in Abisko in northernmost Sweden, based at the Abisko Scientific Research Station where he s ...
* 2014: Compton J. Tucker
* 2015:
Lesley Head
Lesley Head is an Australian geographer specialising in human-environment relations. She is active in geographical debates about the relationship between humans and nature, using concepts and analytical methods from physical geography, archaeo ...
David R. Montgomery
David R. Montgomery is a Professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he is a member of the Quaternary Research Center.
Montgomery received his B.S. in geology from Stanford University in 1984, and hi ...
* 2021: Anssi Paasi
Retzius Medal
* 1913:
Oscar Montelius
Gustav Oscar August Montelius, known as Oscar Montelius (9September 18434November 1921) was a Swedish archaeologist who refined the concept of seriation, a relative chronological dating method.
Biography
Oscar Montelius refined the concept ...
Aurel Stein
Sir Marc Aurel Stein,
( hu, Stein Márk Aurél; 26 November 1862 – 26 October 1943) was a Hungarian-born British archaeologist, primarily known for his explorations and archaeological discoveries in Central Asia. He was also a professor at ...
* 1925:
Johan Gunnar Andersson
Johan Gunnar Andersson (3 July 1874 – 29 October 1960)"Andersson, Johan Gunnar" in ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 385. was a Swedish archaeologist, paleontologist and ge ...
* 1930:
Erland Nordenskiöld
Baron Nils Erland Herbert Nordenskiöld (19 July 1877 – 5 July 1932) was a Swedish archeologist and anthropologist. Nordenskiöld's research focused on the ethnography and prehistory of South America.
Biography
He was born in Stockholm, t ...
Akin Mabogunje
Akinlawon Ladipo "Akin" Mabogunje (18 October 1931 – 4 August 2022) was a Nigerian geographer. He was the first African president of the International Geographical Union. In 1999, he was the first African to be elected as a Foreign Associate ...
Jack Goody
Sir John Rankine Goody (1919–2015) was an English social anthropologist. He was a prominent lecturer at Cambridge University, and was William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology from 1973 to 1984.
Among his main publications were ''Death ...
Tim Ingold
Timothy Ingold (born 1 November 1948INGOLD, Prof. Timothy ''Who's Who 2014'', ...
* 2006: Gunnar Törnqvist
* 2007:
John
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Secon ...
and
Jean Comaroff
Jean Comaroff (born 22 July 1946) is Professor of African and African American Studies and of Anthropology, Oppenheimer Fellow in African Studies at Harvard University. She is an expert on the effects of colonialism on people in Southern Africa ...
* 2009:
Allen J. Scott
Allen John Scott (born 1938) is a professor of geography and public policy at University of California, Los Angeles.
Biography
Scott was born in Liverpool, England in 1938 and was raised in Carlisle. Scott graduated from St John's College, Oxfor ...
* 2010:
Ulf Hannerz
Ulf Hannerz, (born June 9, 1942, in Malmö) is a Swedish anthropologist. He is currently an emeritus professor of social anthropology at Stockholm University.Don Mitchell
* 2013:
Paul Stoller
Paul Stoller (born January 25, 1947) is an American cultural anthropologist. He is a professor of anthropology at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Biography
Stoller received his B.A. in political science at the Universi ...
''Kritisk Etnografi'' ( Swedish for "critical ethnography"), subtitled ''Swedish Journal of Anthropology'', is a bi-annual
peer-reviewed
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...
academic journal
An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and ...
on the subjects of anthropology and
ethnography
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 ...
, owned and published by the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography in collaboration with DiVA, an online archive maintained by Uppsala University. Its first issue was launched on 15 August 2018.
List of geography awards
This list of geography awards is an index to articles about notable awards for geography, the field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of the Earth and planets. The list is organized by the region an ...