Louis Dumont Fund

Aid fund for research in social anthropology
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Fonds Louis Dumont

The Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (FMSH) manages and awards various prizes funded by donations from late scientists, as well as the direct support of associations, who approach the FMSH secure in the knowledge that their contributions will be handled with the utmost rigour and the recipients carefully selected.

Created in 1988, the Louis Dumont Prize for research awards one-off grants each year to support field research projects.

The prize is aimed at young ethnologists and anthropologists, holding and MA, a PhD or a post doctorate, without any condition of nationality but based and enrolled in France.

The candidates must have studied a course in anthropology before.

The support of the fund is only for social anthropology projects, encouraging the collection of a descriptive material and the development of a monographic perspective.

The candidates may be contacted for a personal interview.

The fund provides additional resources to the laureate, for transportation and/or accommodation costs on the terrain. This aid is worth between 2000 and 3000 euros.

Le jury du prix est composé de :

  • Jean-Claude Galey (EHESS), Président
  • Catherine Capdeville-Zeng (INALCO)
  • Caterina Guenzi (EHESS)
  • André Itéanu (CNRS,EPHE)
  • Ismaël Moya (CNRS)
  • Camille Riverti (CNRS)

Louis Dumont

Louis Dumont (1911–1998) was a French anthropologist specialising in India. His research also involved comparative analyses in relation to Western societies.

Dumont’s work spans all areas of the social sciences: philosophy, history, law, political sciences, sociology, and anthropology, to which he made major contributions during his lifetime, offering a new way of understanding the many faces of modernity.

Louis Domont was a student of Marcel Mauss at the Institute of Ethnology. In 1945, he joined the Musée National des Arts et des Traditions Populaires where he continued his education and research activities.

In 1948, he left for South India to study the Pramalai Kallar society. He then went on to write his doctoral thesis, which was published in 1957, ‘Une sous-caste de l’Inde du Sud’ (A South Indian subcaste). Before his departure for Asia, Dumont had written a monograph entitled ‘La Tarasque,’ a Provençal legend that he analysed through the lens of local religious practices, which he published in 1951.

From 1951 to 1955, Dumont taught at the Institute of Social & Cultural Anthropology in Oxford. In 1995, he became head of the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris where he created, in collaboration with the economist Daniel Thorner, the Centre for Indian Studies, and founded the journal Contributions to Indian sociology with D. Podock.

 

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Louis Dumont Prize

Fieldwork funding in social anthropology
Application deadline: January 31, 2025
Fonds Louis Dumont
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Grantees

VARGAS HELM Luis Anthropologie Arakmbut Amazonie Sud du Pérou

Luis Vargas Helm

Laureate of the 2024 Louis Dumont Fund
Margherita Rasulo Fonds Louis Dumont 2024

Margherita Rasulo

Laureate of the 2024 Louis Dumont Fund
Pascale-Marie Milan Fonds Louis Dumont 2024

Pascale-Marie Milan

Laureate of the 2024 Louis Dumont Fund
David Low Fonds Louis Dumont 2024

David Low

Laureate of the 2024 Louis Dumont Fund
Zixuan Han Fonds Louis Dumont 2024

Han Zixuan

Laureate of the 2024 Louis Dumont Fund
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Projects

Les oasis du Wādī Ṭīwī. Palmiers, dattes et organisation sociale dans le nord d’Oman

The Oases of Wādī Ṭīwī

Palm Trees, Dates and Social Organisation in Northern Oman
En attendant le « développement » : le nouvel aéroport international de Cusco et la communauté paysanne de Yanacona (Cusco, Pérou)

Waiting for ‘development’

Cusco’s new international airport and the Yanacona farming community (Cusco, Peru)
Espaces sociaux à l’interface entre l’océan et la terre habitée à Guet Ndar, quartier de Saint-Louis du Sénégal

Social Spaces at the Interface Between the Ocean and Inhabited Land in Guet Ndar

A Neighbourhood of Saint-Louis, Senegal
Se soucier des objets victimes de catastrophe : ethnographie d’une recyclerie dans la préfecture de Fukushima

Caring for Objects Affected by Disaster

An Ethnography of a Recycling Centre in Fukushima Prefecture
Les trames de la confiance : histoire, altérité et amitié formelle chez les Awajun du haut-Cahuapanas (Amazonie du Nord péruvien)

The Fabric of Trust

History, Otherness, and Formal Friendship among the Awajun of the Upper Cahuapanas (Northern Peruvian Amazon)
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Activities

Lauréats 2025 du Fonds Louis Dumont
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Awarded Projects | Louis Dumont Fund 2025

Discover the 2025 awarded projects of the Social Anthropology Research Fund
Image page des laureats 2024
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Awarded Projects | Louis Dumont Fund 2024

Discover the 2024 awarded projects of the Social Anthropology Research Fund
Alessandra Fiorentini
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Interview with Alessandra Fiorentini

The Tahajara of the Khalwatiyya among the Tuaregs of the Aïr
lauréate 2023 fonds Louis Dumont bannière
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Awarded Projects | Louis Dumont Fund 2023

Discover the 2023 awarded projects of the Social Anthropology Research Fund
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