Reo Franklin Fortune (27 March 1903 – 25 November 1979) was a New Zealand-bornsocial anthropologist. Originally trained as a psychologist, Fortune was a student of some of the major theorists of British and American social anthropology includingAlfred Cort Haddon,Bronislaw Malinowski andAlfred Radcliffe-Brown.[1] He lived an international life, holding various academic and government positions: in China, at Lingnan University from 1937 to 1939; in Toledo, Ohio, USA from 1940 to 1941; at theUniversity of Toronto, from 1941 to 1943; in Burma, as government anthropologist, from 1946 to 1947;[1] and finally, atCambridge University in the United Kingdom from 1947 to 1971, as lecturer in social anthropology specialising inMelanesian language and culture.[2]
He was first married toMargaret Mead in 1928, with whom he undertook field studies inNew Guinea from 1931 to 1933.[3] They divorced in 1935.[4] Fortune subsequently married Eileen Pope, also a New Zealander, in 1937.[5]
Fortune provided significant insights into the consequences ofmatrilateral and patrilateral cross-cousin marriage in advance of work byClaude Levi-Strauss. He is also known for his contribution to mathematics with his study ofFortunate numbers innumber theory.[6]
The 2014 novelEuphoria byLily King is a fictionalized account of the relationships between Fortune, Mead andGregory Bateson in pre-WWII New Guinea.[7]
Many of the easily accessible images of Fortune include his one-time wife Margaret Mead, who was known for her interest in photography as an ethnographic method.[8]
The National Library of New Zealand (Māori:Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa) holds a large collection of family and fieldwork photos of Reo and Eileen Fortune's lives in China, North America, and England.[9]
In 1959 and again in 1970–71, Fortune revisited Dobu, the island community he made famous in his 1932 book,The Sorcerers of Dobu.[10]
^abThomas, Caroline (2009) "Rediscovering Reo: Reflections on the life and anthropological career of Reo Franklin Fortune,"Pacific Studies, vol. 32, nos. 2/3; June–Sept
^Gray, Geoffrey "Being honest to my science: Reo Fortune and JHP Murray, 1927–1930",The Australian Journal of Anthropology, vol. 10 (1), 1999, pp. 56–76
Abrahams, R. and H. Wardle. 2002. "Fortune's Last Theorem",Cambridge Anthropology 23:1, 60–2
Bashkow, Ira and Lise M. Dobrin. 2013. "Reo Fortune." In R. Jon McGee and Richard L. Warms (eds.),Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia, pp. 272–274. Sage Publications.
