Organisation social des Dogon
Femmes d'Afrique Noire
Denise Paulme (4 May 1909 – 14 February 1998) was a French Africanist and anthropologist.[1] Her role in African literary studies, particularly in regards to the importance of Berber literature, was described as "pivotal".[2]
Career
Paulme initially studied law, and after a brief and unsatisfying stint as a secretary, went back to college in 1929 to finish her degree.[3] She became interested in anthropology due to Marcel Mauss.[4]
L'organisation sociale des Dogon (1940) is the first monographic book of Denise Paulme. She wrote it at the same period the World War II hence its success was not recognize. Nevertheless, in the 1960s, Georges Balandier quote it as a rare example of a balanced monography of social anthropology.[6] Indeed, Denise Paulme presented this work as a dissertation of law, hence the book contains a very structured guideline.
Despite the date of publication, Jean-Claude Muller recommend this book[7] for every people who want to make a work of the Dogon People. There is also the monography of Jacky Bouju which deals with the economy of the Dogon which is interesting on the topic.
Denise Paulme describe with subtlety the kindship of the dogon people, which also implied the role of women in this society. Subsequently, she regretted not having worked with women's point of view. Later, she wrote another work called Femmes d'Afrique noire (1960).
During her first fieldwork, Denise Paulme made a very interesting methodological work by writing letters to Deborah Lifchitz. This correspondence is a tool to understand the reality of fieldwork and progress of reflexion.[8] Indeed, by writing letters, the anthropologist made a real reflexive work which let us understand the reality of the search.
Publications by Paulme
In English
Women of Tropical Africa, Psychology Press, 1963 - 308 pages.[9]
^Merolla, Daniela (2017). "Beyond 'two Africas' in African and Berber literary studies". In van Beek, Wouter; Damen, Jos; Foeken, Dick (eds.). The Face of Africa: Essays in Honour of Ton Dietz. pp. 215–34.