Aadel Marie Brun was born in China in 1909 where she spent her childhood till she was 14 years old. Her parents were missionaries. She married cand.theol. Stephan Tschudi in 1933.
Before she got married, she studied at UiO. She started with English, history, and Norwegian, before choosing human geography as her field. After marrying, she was a stay-at-home mom for 14 years. During this period she had three children while active in organizations and as a translator. Among other things, in 1945 she became the head of Oslo's branch of the National Association for Women Academics. After the war, she continued her studies at UiO and became a cand.philol in 1951, majoring in Geography. She got the, up til then, best grade.
Tschudi studied Chinese at Havard University from 1951-1952. She became known as a radio presenter on foreign policy with China and East Asia as her speciality from 1948 and the following 15 years. Her broadcasts were always rooted in solid historical and geographical knowledge. She made an extensive series about East Asia for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation in 1957. In 1960 she was employed at UiO as an assistant professor in Geography. From 1970 to 1972 she was an assistant professor in Sinology at the East-Asian Department, UiO, before returning to the Department of Geography at the Faculty of History and Philosophy in 1973, now as a professor. Her position was earmarked for so-called non-European studies. Tschudi was the only permanent academically employed woman in human geography in the period from when the subject was formally institutionalized with the establishment of the Department of Geography in 1917 until the next woman was employed in the 1990s.
Tschudi started the branch of development geography at UiO, first in Norway, in 1973. Development geography seeks to increase our insight into the causes of the persistently poor living conditions in developing countries. It soon became a popular part of human geography, with over half of the graduate students majoring in it at times. Several research fellows were employed in the branch. Tschudi was actively involved in the preparations of research projects related to aid in Botswana and Sri Lanka. While her research focused primarily on China and Norwegian agriculture. Although she got cancer in 1975, she went on a field visit in 1976 to Botswana and another to Sri Lanka in 1977. In China, she conducted several trips of fieldwork. Noteworthy are her studies of the People's communes in China.
Tschudi was the editor of the Norwegian Journal of Geography from 1967 to 1973. She was elected to The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 1977. She left the University of Oslo in 1979 and died the following year.
Tschudi's publications are of a wide range. Alongside the scientific works, she published several popular science books and articles, mainly about China and Japan. Her early work on the abandonment of hill farms in Southern Norway, which later became her main thesis, was based on her fieldwork and was published in a longer article in the Norwegian Geographical Journal in 1934. At that time she was only 24 years old! A review from 1956 states: "Her study of the depopulation of Western-Agder is an intelligent and very meritorious piece of work". Or as Myklebost writes about the same work in 1982: "... her work was a pioneer achievement".
Tschudi's research topics were mainly related to Norwegian agriculture, China's politics and development, rural development in developing countries, and the geography of cultural landscape.
References
Hesselberg, J. 1982. Aadel Brun Tschudis bibliografi. Norsk geografisk tidsskrift, Vol. 36, No. 1. 5-7.
Myklebost, H. 1982. Aadel Brun Tschudi. Norsk geografisk tidsskrift, Vol. 36, No. 1. 1-4.