Andrew Gray (anthropologist)

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Andrew Gray (21 July 1955 in Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom - 7 May 1999, near Vanuatu) was a British anthropologist and activist for the rights of indigenous peoples.

Gray graduated from Edinburgh University in 1973 and received a PhD from the University of Oxford in 1983 for his work studying the Arakmbut people of the Peruvian Amazon.^[1]

He then became director of the International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs, a post he held for six years. After leaving the IWGIA in 1989, he continued to act as a consultant for them and for related organisations such as the World Rainforest Movement, the International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Forest Peoples, the Gaia Foundation and Anti-Slavery International.^[1]

Although he lectured at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Oxford, Gray avoided a conventional academic career and never took up a full-time research post. He continued to publish academic work, most notably The Arakmbut of Amazonian Peru (three vols, 1996-1997). He also spent a large amount of time on fieldwork, visiting and talking to indigenous groups worldwide.^[1]

At the time of his death, he had become vice-chair of the IWGIA, and was beginning work in the Pacific. Whilst travelling in the region, the light aircraft he was in came down in the sea off Vanuatu; he survived the crash, but was separated from the group of survivors before they made it to shore, and was presumed dead. ^[1]