John Mack FBA FSA (born 10 July 1949[1] in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a British social anthropologist and art historian specialising in African arts and cultures (particularly Equatorial African and the western Indian Ocean).
[2] John Mack attended Campbell College, Belfast before studying for BA (Hon) in Social Anthropology (1971) and MA in The History of Ideas (1972) both at the University of Sussex.
He obtained his D.Phil at Merton College, University of Oxford (1975) for a thesis entitled “WHR Rivers and the contexts of anthropology”.
[4] At the University of East Anglia, he has also served on the Sainsbury Research Unit Advisory Board (1999-2015), on the Board of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (2009-2018) and he co-founded with Anne Haour UEA's Centre for African Art and Archaeology in 2009.
[11] In May 2022 a conference celebrating John's distinguished career, contribution to scholarship and support of colleagues and students was organised at the University of East Anglia.