Henry Ling Roth's and George Kingsley Roth's Pacific Anthropology

Abstract

This paper surveys the contribution to Pacific Studies of the Roth family, especially George Kingsley Roth (1903-60), who served the colonial administration in Fiji, and his father Henry Ling Roth (1818-91); and it probes the question why their achievements, particularly in research on material culture, are now not widely recognised. The authors argue that the Roths' reputations suffered, first, from association with the racial typologies that were rejected during the course of the 20th century but characterised the intellectual world of Ling Roth, and endured in the domains of colonial administration where his son later worked; and secondly, from a shift in anthropology away from a focus on material culture. George Kingsley Roth's commitment to neo-traditional, Fijian communalism was also out of favour with the influential advocacy, by some of his successors, of increasing Fijian individualism. A reassessment of the Roths' 'Pacific anthropology' is warranted, and suggests potential for, among other things, fruitful alliances of research with indigenous identity and heritage interests.