Andrew P. Vayda papers
name: label: Creator
content: Vayda, Andrew Peter (1931)
place: label: Place
content: Cook Islands.
label: Place
content: Indonesia
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: The Andrew P. Vayda papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Vayda's daughter, Andi Vaida, in 2023.
creator: label: Creator
content: Vayda, Andrew Peter (1931)
culture: label: Culture
content: Maori
label: Culture
content: Maring (Papua New Guinean people)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Andrew P. Vayda papers
bioghist: label: Biographical Note
content: Andrew P. "Pete" Vayda was an anthropologist and ecologist who founded the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers University, and throughout his long career conducted field work in the Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia. Long standing concerns were interaction between people and the environment, and issues in anthropological methodology and causal explanation.

Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1931, Vayda came to the United States in 1939 with his mother, settling in New York City. Vayda attended Columbia Univerity for both undergraduate and graduate degrees, earning his PhD in 1956. 

Vayda's dissertation fieldwork was archival, and he spent 1954-1955 in New Zealand libraries conducting research on Maori warfare. His dissertation was published as Maori Warfare (1960), now considered a classic and an authoritative work on Maori Warfare prior to it being altered by European influences. 

Vayda spent 1956-1957 in the coral atolls of the Cook Islands. This work did not result in a major monograph but several articles ensued, including "Love in Polynesian Atolls" (1961).

From 1958-1960, Vayda was employed as a lecturer at the University of British Columbia, and in 1960 he joined the anthropology faculty at Columbia University.

From 1961-1967 Vayda's social and ecological field studies centered on the Maring people of Papua New Guinea. Following the award of a 1961 NSF research grant for the project "Culture and Environment in the New Guinea Rainforest," Vayda and his student assistants Roy and Ann Rappaport, Cherry Lowman (Vayda), and Allison and Marek Jablonko conducted field work among the Maring people in the Simbai valley of the western New Guinea highlands. Initial fieldwork was finished in 1963, however Vayda and Cherry returned in 1966 to continue studies in the Jimi Valley, neighboring the Simbai Valley.

In 1972, Vayda moved to Rutgers University, where he founded the Department of Human Ecology. Also in 1972, Vayda founded the Journal Human Ecology, and was on the editorial boards for other journals over the years including Anthropological Theory,  American Anthropologist, and  Advances in Human Ecology.

In the 1970s and 1980s Vayda become involved with research in Indonesia through UNESCO's Man and Bioshere Program, where he directed or co-directed interdisciplinary projects on the causes of deforestation in East Kalimantan, Borneo. Other Indonesia projects looked at causes of forest and peat fires, integrated pest management, and relocation of settlers from a national park. Vayda was a senior research associate of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), as well as an adjunct  professor at the University of Indonesia in Bogor, and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Vayda's Indonesia research was also notable for his conceptual and methodological innovations. Breaking with anthropological tradition of conducting holistic studies of communities or societies within which the activities of interest occurred, the projects concentrated on explaining the activities by relating them to the specific contexts in which they were occurring and by making the contexts themselves the objects of research to make them broader or denser in explanation-relevant ways.  The methodology, as set forth in Vayda's article, "Progressive Contextualization; Methods for Research in Human Ecology," (1983) has been adopted by many anthropologists and others doing applied research.  

Vayda's long and varied career is evident through hundreds of articles, books, and other publications. Vayda retired in 2002 from Rugers. He died on January 15, 2022, in New York City.

Sources consulted

Andrew P. Vayda papers

1931, December 7 -- Born in Budapest, Hungary

1939 -- Came to United States

1949-1952 -- Columbia University, BA

1952-1956 -- Columbia University, PhD

1954-1955 -- Fulbright scholarship to the University of Aukland, New Zealand

1956-1957 -- Research on cultural change in the coral atolls of the Cook Islands

1958-1960 -- Lecturer in anthropology at the University of British Columbia

1960-1964 -- Assistant professor, Columbia University

1962-1963 and 1966 -- Research on the human ecology of the New Guinea rainforest

1962-1976 -- Married to Cherry Lowman

1964 -- Daughter Andi is born

1964-1968 -- Associate professor, Columbia University

1964 -- visiting professor, University of Colorado

1966 -- Visiting professor, University of Hawaii

1968-1972 -- Professor, Columbia University

1972 -- Joins faculty at Rutgers University Founds the Journal Human Ecology Visiting professor, University of Zurich

1972-1975 -- Associate Dean, Cook College, Rutgers University

1976-2004 -- Feasibility studies in human ecology in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, China, Nepal, and Thailand

1979 -- Visiting professor, Mulawarman University

1981-1990 -- Visiting professor, University of Indonesia

1983 -- Visiting professor, Padjadjaran University

1985-1986 -- Visiting professor, City University of New York

1991-1997 -- Married to Indah Setyawati

1994 -- Visiting professor, Leiden University

1999-2001 -- Visiting professor, University of Bergen

2002 -- Retires from Rutgers University

2022, January 15 -- Dies in New York City
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 24 Linear feet (59 boxes)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1949-2019
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.2023-11
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The Andrew P. Vayda papers are arranged in 9 series: 1) Education; 2) Correspondence; 3) Research; 4) Writings; 5) Professional Activities; 6) Teaching; 7) Cherry Lowman; 8) Audio recordings; and 9) Photographs.
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: The collection arrived at the archives in a semi-organized state. The archivist maintained original order of the materials where possible, but assigned the series organization to pull together natural groupings of material. Even so, there is overlap between the series; for instance, correspondence appears in most of the series, and there are related or similar files between the Research and Writings series. Some of the folders lacked clear identification so some related material may have been organized into separate series.
scopecontent: label: Content Description
content: The papers of Andrew P. Vayda document his research interests in ecological anthropology as well as his concerns and critiques about anthropological methods. The papers comprise correspondence, field notes, writings, photographs, sound recordings, and other documents from the 1950s through the 2010s, providing an overview of his career and reflecting the evolution of his thinking. 

The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence, research documentation, and writings. To a lesser degree, professional activities, teaching, and Vayda's own education are documented. Also included is a small set of papers of Vayda's former wife and colleague Cherry Lowman.

Regarding Vayda's research in Papua new Guinea, researchers are encouraged to also consult the papers of Cherry Lowman (held by the National Anthropological Archives) as there is much overlap and shared notes; for instance the bulk of the photographs from that trip are in Lowman's papers, while sound recordings are in Vayda's papers.
label: Sensitivity statement
content: Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: The National Anthropological Archives holds the  papers of Cherry Lowman , Vayda's first wife, which document their fieldwork in Papua New Guinea and Lowman's subsequent doctoral work. Lowman and Vayda's papers both include mutual correspondence, field notes, and writings, so both collections should be consulted with respect to the Papua New Guinea research.

The National Anthropological Archives also holds the papers of a number of Vayda's research collaborators and correspondents, including the Anthony Leeds papers and the Marvin Harris papers.

The University of California San Diego's Tuzin archive for Melanesian Anthropology holds the Papua New Guinea field research documentation of Roy A. and Ann Rappaport.