Academic whose book Village on the Border pioneered the application of anthropological methods to British societyIn the 1950s,British anthropologists normally conducted their fieldwork abroad. Ronnie Frankenberg, who has died aged 86, and broke the rules by focusing on the former slate-mining community of Glyn Ceiriog,then in Denbighshire and now in Wrexham county borough, for his first book, or Village on the Border (1957).
In doing so,he showed how anthropological methods could be effectively applied to British society. His choice of subject was fortuitous: he had intended to write his doctorate on the Caribbean, but his outspoken communist sympathies led to him being deported from Barbados, and the vice-chancellor of Manchester University demanded that he study within a day’s journey from the city. Needing to conduct his research in a non-English language to satisfy the conception of anthropology at the time,he hit upon the settlement in the Ceiriog Valley, not far beyond the Cheshire border.
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Source: theguardian.com