Dr. Jane Isabel Guyer, professor emerita in the Department of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, died Jan. 17 in Davis, California, after a long decline due to dementia.
The longtime Tuscany-Canterbury resident and Kol HaLev congregant, who was a renowned anthropologist and specialist on economic transformation in West Africa, was 80.
“Jane was a brilliant thinker, accomplished academic and published author,” read her family’s memorial post on the website of Sol Levinson & Bros. “Her contributions to her field and community are both broad and deep, each outstanding in its own way.”
Dr. Guyer was born to Walter and Isabel Mason in Scotland while her father served in the Royal Navy during World War II. She grew up on Merseyside, near the northwestern English city of Liverpool, and was the second eldest of four children.
Dr. Guyer attended the Birkenhead High School Academy, where she was an honors student and captain of the tennis team.
In 1963, she met her American-born future husband, Bernard Guyer, while he was a pre-med student in Edinburgh.
Two years later, Dr. Guyer received her undergraduate degree in sociology from the London School of Economics. After graduation, she immigrated to the United States to begin graduate studies at the University of Rochester, where Bernard Guyer was a medical student. They married in 1966.
In 1972, Dr. Guyer received her doctorate in anthropology from the University of Rochester. Post-graduate positions brought she and her husband to Nashville, Cameroon and Brookline, Massachusetts, before eventualy settling down in Baltimore in 1989.
Dr. Guyer traveled frequently during those years, attending conferences, conducting field research, delivering speeches, and visiting friends, family and associates.
Prior to her appointment at Hopkins, Dr. Guyer was a professor of anthropology and director of the program of African studies at Northwestern University. Earlier faculty positions include Harvard, Boston University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
At the time of her death, she was professor emerita at Hopkins in the Department of Anthropology, where she served as the George Armstrong Kelly Professor of Anthropology from 2002 until her retirement in 2015.
“An innovative leader at Johns Hopkins and in the profession, Guyer was also a beloved teacher to many students and mentor to younger faculty colleagues,” the university’s Department of Anthropology posted in memoriam. “On the eve of her retirement, anthropology graduate students at Johns Hopkins organized a conference called ‘Possibilities’ in her honor. The proceedings were inspired by Guyer’s understanding of possibility as ‘an ethical stance, demanding courage … an aesthetic of coexistence, demanding discernment,’ and ‘a vision of politics, demanding study and steadfastness.’ …
“Guyer’s capacity for optimism was remarkable, her compassion a gift. … We remain grateful for all that she made possible, within our department and field, and the world beyond.”
In 2008, Dr. Guyer was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences the following year. Her career primarily focused on economic transformations in West Africa, particularly the economy, division of labor and management of money.
Among the books she authored were “Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa,” “Legacies, Logics, Logistics: Essays in the Anthropology of the Platform Economy,” “Feeding the African Cities: Essays in Regional Social History; Money Matters,” and a new translation of Marcel Mauss’ “The Gift, Expanded Edition.”
Dr. Guyer served in several national and international organizations, including the International Advisory Group to the World Bank and the governments of Chad and Cameroon on the Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project. She also served on the Lost Crops of Africa Panel published by the National Academy, and on the board and executive committee of the African Studies Association.
Among the awards she received were an honorary doctoral degree from Birmingham University, the Africanist Scholar of the Year Award in 2012 by the African Studies Association, and an honorary tribal chieftaincy designation from Idere, the Nigerian town in which she conducted much of her field work.
In her spare time, Dr. Guyer enjoyed reading, sewing, cooking, music, traveling, tending her English rose garden, and spending evenings by the ocean at Rehoboth Beach with her husband and a cup of Pimm’s, the English gin-based fruit cup.
Dr. Guyer is survived by her husband; her children, Samuel Zev Guyer, Nathan David (Amanda) Guyer and Katherine Isabel (Bill) Fennell; her grandchildren, Hannah Isabel Guyer, William Joseph Fennell VI, Owen Wright Guyer, Jonah Solomon Guyer and Grace Isabel Fennell; her brother Peter (Christine) Mason; her sister-in-law Marilyn (Michael) Rice; and many cousins, nieces, nephews, and their children. She is also survived by many dear friends and colleagues, whom she regarded as family.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her parents-in-law Sydney and Anna Guyer; her brother Timothy Mason and his wife Simonetta; her sister Elizabeth Mason; her siblings-in-law Benoit and Evelyn Gorge; her daughter-in-law Elizabeth Guyer; and her niece and nephew Karen and Marshal Gorge.
Funeral services will be at Sol Levinson’s Chapel, 8900 Reisterstown Road, on Thursday, Jan. 25, at noon, with Rabbi Geoff Basik officiating. Interment will follow at Serenity Ridge Natural Burial Cemetery and Arboretum, 2406 Ridge Road in Windsor Mill.
Shiva will be held at the Pikesville Doubletree Hotel, 1726 Reisterstown Road, after interment until 7 p.m. and again on Friday 1-5 p.m. ending with the Shabbat service at 7 p.m. at Kol Halev 130 West Seminary Avenue in Timonium.
Memorials or donations may be sent to Kol HaLev Synagogue, 130 West Seminary Avenue, Suite 100, Timonium, Maryland 21093; Congregation Bet Haverim, 1715 Anderson Road, Davis, California 95616; the Guyer Virmani Fellowship, Program of African Studies at Northwestern University, african-studies@northwestern.edu or 847-491-7323; or a charity of your choice.
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