Paul Hockings

Paul Hockings (born February 23, 1935) is an anthropologist whose prime areas of focus are the Dravidian languages, social, visual and medical anthropology.[1]

Paul Hockings
Born (1935-02-23) February 23, 1935
Hertford, England
NationalityBritish
OccupationAnthropologist
Known forEthnographic documentaries
AwardsNilgiris Lifetime Achievement Award (2015)
Academic background
EducationDoctor of Philosophy
Alma materUniversity of Sydney
University of California, Berkeley
Academic work
DisciplineAnthropology
Sub-disciplineSocial anthropology
Visual anthropology
Medical anthropology
InstitutionsDean, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at the United International College
Notable worksThe Man Hunters (documentary); The Village (documentary)

He studied archaeology and anthropology at the University of Sydney, the University of California, Berkeley, and at the universities of Chicago, Stanford and Toronto. He taught anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Illinois at Chicago, and he has been the dean of the United International College's Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities. He is the editor-in-chief of Visual Anthropology.

Early life and family

Hockings was born on 23 February 1935 at Hertford and was raised in Hampshire, England.[2][3][4] At the age of ten years, he developed interest in prehistory and museums. His father Arthur Hockings, a Londoner, was a cricketer and an engineer, who worked as a personal assistant for Henry Royce. Later he helped design landing-craft for D-Day. In 1952 Paul migrated to Australia with his parents.[4]

Education

Hockings studied Near-Eastern archaeology at the University of Sydney, and completed two majors in the subjects of archaeology and anthropology at that university. In 1962, after receiving a grant for field studies from American Institute of Indian Studies, he moved to the Nilgiris in India and did research on the Badagas of the Nilgiris, completing a Ph.D. on this subject in 1965.[4][5] He also studied anthropology at the universities of Chicago, Stanford, Toronto, and finally at University of California, Berkeley, where he studied under Aldous Huxley, amongst others.[6]

Career and research

In 1968 he completed THE VILLAGE, the first film in the style of Observational Cinema. Then in 1969 he was signed as an anthropologist by the MGM Studios for making a film on mankind's origins, titled "The Man Hunters", for the NBC television which drew a large audience.[4] He also worked as a research director for MGM Documentary.[7] Since 1991 Hockings has been the editor of Visual Anthropology, and the University of Oslo describes him as "a pioneer in the fields of ethnographic film and visual anthropology".[8]

Hockings is a professor emeritus of anthropology from the University of Illinois at Chicago.[1] He worked at the University of California, Berkeley as a research assistant for David G. Mandelbaum, and taught anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. In those days he was also the research assistant for Ruth St. Denis in her final year. He has worked at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, and as a script writer, journalist and librarian in New Zealand and Canada.[4] In China he served as the dean of Social Sciences and Humanities at the United International College in Xiangzhou District, Zhuhai, and in Chicago as a Field Museum of Natural History's adjunct curator of anthropology.[4][2]

He has studied the cultures of South India,[9][4] and has been working with them for more than 50 years.[6][10] He has researched their medical anthropology, culture and language.[4]

Awards

In 2015 he was awarded the Nilgiris Lifetime Achievement Award by the Nilgiri Documentation Centre;[2] and in 2016 a Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for Visual Anthropology. Other awards included the 1993 Prize of the International School of Dravidian Linguistics and, in 2004, being enshawled as a Pandit of Dravidian Languages at Berkeley. The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film The Man Hunters, on which he worked, was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1970.

Works

Hockings made several documentaries and published about 20 books and more than 200 papers.[10]

Books
  • Hockings, Paul (2013). So Long a Saga: Four Centuries of Badaga Social History. New Delhi: Manohar. OCLC 860865948.
  • Hockings, Paul (2012). Encyclopaedia of the Nilgiri Hills. New Delhi: Manohar. OCLC 794592439.
  • Hockings, Paul (1999). Kindreds of the Earth: Badaga Household Structure and Demography. New Delhi: Sage. OCLC 468432193.
  • Hockings, Paul (1989). Blue Mountains: The Ethnography and Biogeography of a South Indian Region. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. OCLC 716653588.
  • Hockings, Paul (1975). Principles of Visual Anthropology. The Hague: Mouton. OCLC 500590678.

Selected papers

Documentaries

See also

References
  1. "Paul Hockings". University of Illinois at Chicago. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
  2. "Father of Nilgiriology: Prof Paul Hockings". One Earth Foundation. Retrieved July 8, 2020.
  3. "Hockings, Paul Edward (1935-....)". Identifiants et Référentiels pour l'Enseignement supérieur et la Recherche (in French). Retrieved July 7, 2020.
  4. "Encounter with Visual Anthropology" (PDF). University of Cambridge. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
  5. "Paul Hockings Collection, 1962-1976". Chicago Film Archives. Retrieved July 8, 2020.
  6. "Ankündigung Hockings" (PDF). Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
  7. Newsletter. 1–2. Program in Ethnographic Film (American Anthropological Association). The Program. 1970. p. 10. Paul Hockings, an anthropologist who had earlier made THE VILLAGE, and who taught at the UCLA film school, was hired by MGM Documentary as research director on a regular monthly salary.CS1 maint: others (link)
  8. "Paul Hockings: "Documentary film, commercial cinema, and the slow growth of ethnographic filming"". University of Oslo. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
  9. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. The Institute. 2002. p. 790. Paul Hockings has a long history of research among various groups in south India, including most importantly the Badagas of the Nilgiri Hills in Tamilnadu.CS1 maint: others (link)
  10. "Structuring an ethnographic film in relation to social theory" (PDF). Ca' Foscari University of Venice. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
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