Persons and personhood

[Anthony T. Carter]

Re the inquiry from Jeff Deby regarding Person Day in Canada

This is precisely the sense of personhood as office discussed by Meyer
Fortes in his 1973 paper "On the concept of the person among the Tallensi"
(in LA NOTION DE PERSONNE EN AFRIQUE NOIRE, ed. G. Dieterlen.  Paris:
Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique).

The man who challenged Emily Murphy's right to serve as a judge no doubt
acknowledge that she was a human being but denied that she was qualified to
hold the office of person and thus the office of judge.

See also my 1982 paper on "The concept of personhood in Western
Maharashtra" (in CONCEPTS OF PERSON, eds. Akos Ostor, Lina Fruzetti and
Steve Barnett.  Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press) which contains
some comparative discussion of the U.S.

Cheers,
Anthony Carter


University of Rochester
Department of Anthropology
P.O. Box 270161
440 Lattimore Hall
Rochester, NY 14627-0161

Telephone 716-275-8734
Fax 716-271-6352