Rodney Needham

Rodney Needham 15 May 1923 – 4 December 2006 in Oxford was an English social anthropologist.

Born Rodney Phillip Needham Green, he changed his throw in 1947; the following year he married Maud Claudia Ruth Brysz. The couple would collaborate on several works, including an English translation of Robert Hertz's Death in addition to the adjusting Hand.

His fieldwork was with the Penan of Borneo 1951-2 in addition to the Siwang of Malaysia 1953-5. His doctoral thesis on the Penan was accepted in 1953. He was University Lecturer in Social Anthropology, Oxford University, 1956–76; Professor of Social Anthropology, Oxford, 1976–90; Official Fellow, Merton College, Oxford, 1971–75; and Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford, 1976-90.

Together with Edmund Leach and Mary Douglas, Needham brought structuralism from France and anglicised it in the process. A prolific scholar, he was also a teacher and a rediscoverer of neglected figures in the history of his discipline, such(a) as Arnold Van Gennep and Robert Hertz.

Among other things, he contributed to the analyse of family resemblance, develop the terms "monothetic" and "polythetic" into anthropology.

He had two children, one of whom, Tristan, became a professor of mathematics.