Colin Murray (1948–2013) was a British anthropologist whose research work was for the most part undertaken in southern Africa; in particular in Lesotho. He was for many years a professor of African Sociology at the University of Manchester. His approach has been described as broadly speaking a political-economy one in which the social life of those he studied was examined in terms of the dynamics of land-ownership and livelihood strategies and outcomes intertwined with an examination of their kinship patterns, familial histories and inheritance patterns.https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/colin-murray_1922/James, Deborah (2014) Colin Murray 1948–2013, Anthropology Southern Africa, 37:1–2, 132–134, DOI: 10.1080/23323256.2014.940181https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-colin-murray-anthropologist-and-author-2002903Beinart, William (2014) Obituary: Colin Murray, Journal of Southern AfricanStudies, 40:6, 1377–1378, DOI
He was for many years an editor of the Journal of Southern African Studies. One major work there was his co-editing with Terence Ranger in 1981 of an issue on “Anthropology and History” . This edition was a compendium of articles drawing on papers presented at a Conference on the Interactions of History and Anthropology in Southern Africa at the University of Manchester in Manchester in September 1980.Ranger, T., & Murray, C. (1981). Introduction. Journal of Southern African Studies, 8(1), 1–15. This was to become a noted and influential edition. (James, 2014, p. 133)
Selected publications Murray, C. (1980). Migrant labour and changing family structure in the rural periphery of Southern Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies, 6(2), 139–156. Lye, William F., & Murray, C. (1980). Transformations on the highveld: the Tswana & Southern Sotho.Cobbe, J. (1981). Transformations on the Highveld: The Tswana and Southern Sotho. By William F. Lye and Colin Murray. Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes and Noble, 180. Pp. 160. $19.50. The Journal of Economic History, 41(3), 690–691.Gump, J. (1981). William F. Lye and Colin Murray. Transformations on the Highveld: The Tswana and Southern Sotho. Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes and Noble Books, 1980. 160 pp. Maps, tables, biblio, index. $19.50, hardcover. African Studies Review, 24(4), 16–17. Murray, C. (1981). Families divided: The impact of migrant labour in Lesotho (Vol. 29). Cambridge University Press.Rathbone, R. (1982). Colin Murray: Families divided: the impact of migrant labour in Lesotho.(African Studies Series, 29.) xvi, 219 pp. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press, 1981. 18.50. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 45(2), 404–405.Brown, Barbara B. (1983) Families Divided: The Impact of Migrant Labour in Lesotho. The International Journal of African Historical Studies; Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 710–713Beinart. W (1983) Families Divided: The Impact of Migrant Labour in Lesotho. Third world quarterly. 1983;5(2).Atmore, A (1982) Families Divided: the impact of migrant labour in Lesotho, 1468–2621, African affairs, 1982, Vol.81(324), p. 449 Murray, C. (1992). Black Mountain: Land, Class & Power in the Eastern Orange Free State. Edinburgh University Press.Crais, C. (1995). Black Mountain: Land, Class, and Power in the Eastern Orange Free State, 1880s–1980s. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 25(3), 564–566.Spiegel, A. D. (1994). Black Mountain: Land, Class and Power in the Eastern Orange Free State 1880s–1980s. Man, 29(2), 525–527.Davenport, T.R.H., (1993). Colin Murray, Black Mountain: land, class and power in the eastern Orange Free State, 1880s to 1980s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press and Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press for the International African Institute, 1992, 354 pp.,£ 35.00, ISBN 0 7486 0344 1. Africa, 63(2), pp.280–282. Murray, C. (2001). Livelihoods research: some conceptual and methodological issues. Chronic Poverty Research Centre Working Paper, (5). Murray, C. (2002). Livelihoods research: transcending boundaries of time and space. Journal of Southern African Studies, 28(3), 489–509. Murray, C. and Peter Sanders (2005). Medicine Murder in Colonial Lesotho: the anatomy of a moral crisis. Edinburgh University Press.Ranger, T. O. (2006). Medicine Murder in Colonial Lesotho: The Anatomy of a Moral Crisis. Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute, 76(2), 267–268. Murray, C. (2013). Displaced urbanization: South Africa's rural slums. In Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth Century South Africa (pp. 231–255). Routledge.
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