The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People

The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People is a 1940 book by the British anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard and is considered a foundational work of social anthropology. The Nuer is the first of three books Evans-Pritchard wrote on Nuer culture, along with Kinship and Marriage among the Nuer (1951) and Nuer Religion (1956). Evans-Pritchard, later an Oxford professor, had already established a reputation as a leading anthropologist through his work among the Azande people, and his cultural surveys of the Nuer were undertaken at the request of the government of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, whose territory encompassed the Nuer homeland. The Nuer examines the political, kinship, and age-set systems of Nuer society and places those structures in the context of the ecological influences and structural features of Nuer culture.

This study guide uses the 1968 edition from Oxford University Press, a reprint of the original 1940 edition.

Content Warning: The Nuer comes from a context of European colonial ventures in Africa, and the book represents an outsider’s depiction of an Indigenous society. Certain observations of Nuer culture might thus be marked by Eurocentric biases and outdated anthropological perspectives. Some editions of The Nuer contain photographs depicting Indigenous people in a state of nudity, including some underage individuals.