Susan Drucker-Brown obituary
My mother, Susan Drucker-Brown, who has died aged 87, was a distinguished anthropologist whose warmth and humour lasted throughout her life.
Susan began field research in Mexico – in Jamiltepec, Oaxaca – in the early 1960s, after graduating from the National School of Anthropology and History in Mexico City. She learned the local language, Nahuatl, and studied the transition of villagers to Spanish-speaking Mexicans. Her work on changing clothing styles was the subject of an exhibition held last year in Oaxaca. In later life, given a guitar and some wine, Susan would sing songs about electrification in rural Mexico.
From Mexico, in 1962 Susan went to Newnham College, Cambridge to study with Professor Meyer Fortes. Her anthropological focus shifted to northern Ghana, and she was awarded her PhD (1975) for her thesis on Ritual Aspects of Mamprusi Kingship, published by the university’s African Studies Centre. Her ties to Ghana yielded many friendships and visits there with her work proving influential in studies of West African kingship. From 1980 to 2011 she was on the editorial board for Cambridge Anthropology and oversaw more than 70 issues.
Susan was born in New York, in the Sunnyside neighbourhood of Queens. Her family came originally from Russia. Her father, David Drucker, was the first US-born family member. Her grandparents, Sarah and Nathan, fled the Russian anti-Jewish pogroms in the 1890s. Esther Milgram, her mother, came from Poland and it is from her that Susan inherited her musicality.
David was a communist lawyer and in the early 1950s Susan experienced the anti-red and antisemitic currents that washed through the US. She recounted being abused and called a “Rosenberg” (the name of the couple accused of being Soviet spies) on the subway as she travelled to her high school, New York Music and Art.
In the era of McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee the family fled to Mexico City. Susan said her father once escaped the FBI by leaping over a hedge in the neighbourhood where they lived, near the artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. FBI papers, released in 1983, show that the family was under surveillance until the late 1960s.
In 1965, in Cambridge, Susan married Mick Brown, a Canadian physicist. Their children – my sisters Sarah and Isabel, and me – grew up in a house full of debate, art and warmth. Our household welcomed family and friends from Mexico, Ghana, New York and Canada.
Throughout her life Susan had mental health problems and would occasionally be hospitalised. She always retained her intellect and humour, from which her family benefited immensely.
Her early training as an artist continued and she gained pleasure from studying at the Royal Drawing School in London. She exhibited paintings and etchings. In retirement Susan and Mick spent time in Snettisham, where Norfolk skies and local flora provided artistic inspiration as well as more opportunities for entertaining.
She is survived by Mick and her children, and by six grandchildren, Isaac, Sabina, Elliot, Noah, Edith and Florence.