Name Ralph Bulmer | ||
Books Cultural Diversity and National Unity: Past and Future Contexts for Anthropology and Sociology in New Guinea | ||
Ralph Neville Hermon Bulmer (3 April 1928 – 18 July 1988) was a leading twentieth-century ethnobiologist.
Contents
Career
Bulmer earned his B.A. at the University of Cambridge (1953) and his Ph.D. at Australian National University (1962). His doctorate was based on field-work in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea, where he documented the social and political life of the Kyaka-Enga people in the Baiyer Valley.
His later work, as lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Auckland, was in the field of Ethnobiology, particularly documenting the Kalam people's interaction with, and beliefs about, birds.
Bulmer also served as Foundation Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Papua New Guinea (1968-73).
A memorial volume was published, Man and a Half: Essays in Pacific Anthropology and Ethnobiology in Honour of Ralph Bulmer, edited by Andrew Pawley (University of Hawaii Press, 1993).
Writings
Bulmer is best known for his collaborations with Ian Saem Majnep:
Towards the end of his life, Bulmer also considered biblical ethnoornithology, leading to the publication of The Unsolved Problems of the Birds of Leviticus (1986).