Vansina, Jan (Maria Jozef) (1929– )

US historian, cultural anthropologist, and linguist, of Belgian origin. His fieldwork in Africa yielded studies of Bushoong grammar (1959) and historical studies of Rwanda (1962) and the Kuba of Zaire (1963, 1964). He pioneered in developing the field of oral history, based on interviews with people whose recollections can be recorded, and described the method in De la Tradition Orale (1961), subsequently revised and published in English as Oral Tradition as History (1985). His later works include Paths in the Rainforests (1990).

Vansina was born in Antwerp, Belgium. He came to the USA to join the University of Wisconsin faculty in 1960.