{{short description|US social anthropologist}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Elizabeth Colson | birth_date = {{birth date|1917|6|15}} | birth_place = Hewitt, Minnesota, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|2016|8|3|1917|6|15}} | death_place = Monze, Zambia | residence = | fields = Social anthropology | alma_mater = University of Minnesota<br>Radcliffe College | doctoral_advisor = Clyde Kluckhohn | known_for = Study of the Gwembe Tonga | prizes = American Association of University Women fellowship, (1942-1943) <br> Lewis Henry Morgan Lecturer, University of Rochester (1973)<br>AAA Distinguished Lecture (1975)<br>Honorary Degrees, Brown University, University of Rochester<br>National Academy of Sciences (1977) }}

'''Elizabeth Florence Colson''' (June 15, 1917 &ndash; August 3, 2016) was an American social anthropologist and professor emerita of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.<ref name="IU-bio"/> She was best known for the classic long-term study of the Tonga people of the Gwembe Valley in Zambia and Zimbabwe,<ref name=gwembe-tonga-project>{{cite web|title=The Gwembe Tonga Research Project|year=2008|author=Lisa Cliggett|url=http://www.uky.edu/~cligget/gwembe.htm|publisher=University of Kentucky|accessdate=8 November 2013}}</ref> which she began in 1956 with Thayer Scudder, 11 years after she obtained her doctorate and while Scudder was a second-year graduate student.<ref name="IU-bio"/> Colson focused her research on the consequences of forced resettlement on culture and social organization,<ref>{{cite book|author= Elizabeth Colson|title=Social Organization of the Gwembe Tonga|publisher=Berg Pub Ltd|year=1995|isbn=978-0854962860}}</ref> the effects of economic pressure on familial relationships, rituals, religious life, and even drinking patterns.<ref name=colson-autobio>{{cite journal|title=Overview|year=1989|author=Elizabeth Colson|journal=Annual Review of Anthropology|volume=18|pages=1–17|publisher=Annual Reviews|doi=10.1146/annurev.an.18.100189.000245|doi-access=free}}</ref>

==Biography== Colson was born in Hewitt, Minnesota on June 15, 1917.<ref name=IU-bio>{{cite web|title=BIOGRAPHIES: Elizabeth Florence Colson|date=May 1998|author=Jennifer Cash|url=http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/theory_pages/Colson.htm|publisher=Indiana University|accessdate=8 November 2013}}</ref> She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in anthropology from the University of Minnesota and her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology in 1945 from Radcliffe College. Her first experience with field work was at a field laboratory established by Burt and Ethel Aginsky.<ref name="colson-autobio" /> Colson received a fellowship from the American Association of University Women in 1942–1943. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1977<ref name=NAS>{{cite web|title=Elizabeth F. Colson|url=http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/56793.html|website=National Academy of Sciences|accessdate=July 26, 2014|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808062318/http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/56793.html|archivedate=August 8, 2014}}</ref> and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978.<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter C|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterC.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|accessdate=July 25, 2014}}</ref> While at Radcliffe College, she experienced sex-discrimination in academia and would later work to eradicate this discrimination at the University of California.<ref name= "Cash"/> Her work was based on ethnography and focused on long-term, data supported research. Colson later became a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.<ref name="Cash"/> She died in Monze, Zambia in August 2016 at the age of 99.<ref>[http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2016/08/19/elizabeth-florence-colson/ In Memoriam: Elizabeth Florence Colson] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826104230/http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2016/08/19/elizabeth-florence-colson/ |date=2016-08-26 }}</ref>

==Research==

===Gwembe Tonga Project=== In 1956, Colson was sent by the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute to study the potential effects that the construction of a dam and hydro-electric power plant would have on the Gwembe Tonga of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). She partnered with Thayer Scudder in order to collect data on the residents of Gwembe. Colson then outlined the social reactions observed during the resettlement of the Gwembe Tonga in her project report titled "The Social Consequences of Resettlement, the Impact of Kariba Resettlement Upon the Gwembe Tonga".<ref name= "Cash">Jennifer Cash, [http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/theory_pages/Colson.htm#Gwembe Elizabeth Colson's Indiana.edu Biography], "Indiana University", May 1998</ref> The reactions from the Gwembe expressed in Colson's report include: social upheaval, hostility towards the government, loss of legitimacy of local leaders who supported the resettlement of the Gwembe, increase of force on the part of the aforementioned leaders, and general instability in the Gwembe social structure.<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Colson | first1 = Elizabeth | title = The Social Consequences of Resettlement: The Impact of the Kariba Resettlement Upon the Gwembe Tonga | location = Manchester, England | publisher = University of Manchester | pages = 1–3 | date = 1971 | isbn = 0-7190-1032-2 }}</ref>

This research directly contributed to the academic discussions of resettlement, migration, and refugee communities in applied and development anthropology. Colson's research with Scudder on the Gwembe and the social and political aspects of their resettlement is ongoing.<ref name= "Cash"/>

==Bibliography== * ''Autobiographies of Three Pomo Women''. Archeological Research Facility. Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley (1974).

==References== {{reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Colson, Elizabeth}} Category:1917 births Category:2016 deaths Category:American anthropologists Category:American women anthropologists Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Category:People from Todd County, Minnesota Category:Radcliffe College alumni Category:Social anthropologists Category:University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Category:University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts alumni Category:People associated with the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute Category:21st-century American women