The Nuer By Ivans Pritchard Summary

In Evans-Pritchard’s, The Nuer, the text is an examination of the political structure of a society that is seemingly without political institutions, in simpler terms, how they maintain order (Evans-Pritchard 1940:4). In order to understand the political realities of their society, the author, explores other questions about Nuer life, such as: how they subsist, interact with their environment, as well as noting how the Nuer identify kinship patterns among themselves. The following essay seeks to summarize the answers given to the questions presented, evaluate the data in support of those answers, analyze the organization of the text, and finally reflect on the effectiveness of Evans-Pritchard’s seminal work. In regard to answering his questions about
The structure of The Nuer is such that Evans-Pritchard includes contextual information about the life of the Nuer before addressing the main thesis, so that the central argument can be made with the reader well aware of common themes in Nuerland; this allows the reader to follow the argument with a deeper understanding of it. The chapters that follow “Political Structures” further supports Evans-Pritchard’s claims about Nuer politics by examining how kinship and age relations solidify the political atmosphere described. However, I feel that the amount of detail present in the first part of the book is unnecessary and could have been incorporated into the main argument without difficulty, while preserving the strength of his argument. Even in the light of these criticisms though I felt as if Evans-Pritchard has achieved a good example of an ethnography as it is states a clear question and then answers them with the greatest detail possible. Lastly, the majority of the data he presents does support his argument, however, as has been previously stated the data is insufficient to completely support his