Education
At Malinowski"s direction she spent her time in Uganda studying social change, returning to the United Kingdom in 1932 to submit her dissertation and receive her Doctor of Philosophy.
At Malinowski"s direction she spent her time in Uganda studying social change, returning to the United Kingdom in 1932 to submit her dissertation and receive her Doctor of Philosophy.
She wrote on the subject of social organization, and contributed to the involvement of anthropological research in governance and politics. Mair read Classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, graduating with a Bachelor in 1923. In 1927 she joined the London School of Economics, studying social anthropology under Bronisław Malinowski, and commenced ethnographic fieldwork in Uganda in 1931.
She began lecturing at London School of Economics the same year, but joined the Royal Institute for International Affairs with the outbreak of World World War World War II In 1943 she moved to the Ministry of Information, then at the war"s end took a job training Australian administrators for work in Papua New Guinea.
In 1946 Mair returned to London School of Economics as reader in colonial administration, commencing a second readership (in applied anthropology) in 1952. In 1963 she became a professor, a post she held until retirement in 1968.
In 1964 she was made president of Section North of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. She gave the 1967 Frazer Lecture at Cambridge University.
After her death, the instituted the Lucy Mair Medal for Applied Anthropology in 1997 to commemorate her.