Erika Bourguignon

Who is Erika Bourguignon?

Erika Eichhorn Bourguignon is an American anthropologist known primarily for her work on possession trance and other altered states of consciousness. She is “considered the premier anthropological authority on trance, possession, and altered states of consciousness” and "one of the founders of the field of anthropology of consciousness." She was born in Vienna, Austria, but left with her parents in 1938. After receiving a B.A. from Queens College in 1945, she began graduate studies at Northwestern University, working there under Melville J. Herskovits and Alfred Irving Hallowell. She did field research among the Chippewa in Wisconsin and in Haiti.

After returning from Haiti Bourguignon joined the faculty of The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where she taught for over 40 years. From 1971 to 1976 she served as Chair of Ohio State’s Anthropology Department. Throughout her career she was an active member in several academic organizations, and was especially prominent in the Society for Psychological Anthropology and the Central States Anthropological Society.