Famine The Anthropological Account- An Evaluation of the Work of Raymond Firth

Famine: The Anthropological Account An Evaluation of the Work of Raymond Firth Amrita Rangasami Analyses of famines have generally (ended to rely on macro data on food production and demographic changes affecting large populations spread over vast geographical or agri-meteorological region. Macro famines, such as those confined to a district or a village or affecting populations practising a single craft or occupation, etc, have received far less attention. Raymond Firth's work on famine in Tikopia, a Polynesian island with a small population is important because apart from brief examinations of 'hunger periods' by Malinowski and Richards, there have been hardly any investigations of such situations by anthropologists. This paper evaluates Firth's study on famine, its nature and causes and also tests his explanation for famine against his own postulates on the economic basis of society.