Raymond Firth

Ethnologist from New Zealand

Sir Raymond William Firth CNZM FRAI FBA (25 March 1901 – 22 February 2002) was an ethnologist from New Zealand.As a result of Firth's ethnographic work, actual behaviour of societies (social organization) is separated from the idealized rules of behaviour within the particular society (social structure).

He was a long serving Professor of Anthropology at London School of Economics, and is considered to have singlehandedly created a form of British economic anthropology.