Bronisław Malinowski | |
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 Malinowski, c. 1930 | |
| Born | Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (1884-04-07)7 April 1884 |
| Died | 16 May 1942(1942-05-16) (aged 58) |
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| Known for | Father ofsocial anthropology, popularizing fieldwork,participatory observation,ethnography andpsychological functionalism |
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| Children | 3 |
| Father | Lucjan Malinowski |
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| Thesis | On the Principle of the Economy of Thought (1908) |
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Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (Polish:[brɔˈɲiswafmaliˈnɔfskʲi]; 7 April 1884 – 16 May 1942) was aPolish[a]anthropologist andethnologist whose writings on ethnography,social theory, andfield research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of anthropology.[10]
Malinowski was born and raised in what was part of theAustrian partition of Poland,Kraków. He graduated fromKing John III Sobieski 2nd High School. In the years 1902–1906 he studied at the philosophy department of theJagiellonian University and received his doctorate there in 1908. In 1910, at theLondon School of Economics (LSE), he worked on exchange and economics, analysingAboriginal Australia through ethnographic documents. In 1914, he travelled to Australia. He conducted research in theTrobriand Islands and other regions inNew Guinea andMelanesia where he stayed for several years, studyingindigenous cultures.
Returning to England afterWorld War I, he published his principal work,Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), which established him as one of Europe's most important anthropologists. He took posts as a lecturer and later as chair in anthropology at the LSE, attracting large numbers of students and exerting great influence on the development of Britishsocial anthropology. Over the years, he guest-lectured at several American universities; whenWorld War II broke out, he remained in the United States, taking an appointment atYale University. He died in 1942 while at Yale and was interred in a grave in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1967 his widow,Valetta Swann, publishedhis personal diary kept during his fieldwork in Melanesia and New Guinea. It has since been a source of controversy, because of its ethnocentric and egocentric nature.
Malinowski's ethnography of the Trobriand Islands described the complex institution of theKula ring and became foundational for subsequent theories of reciprocity and exchange. He was also widely regarded as an eminent fieldworker, and his texts regarding anthropologicalfield methods were foundational to early anthropology, popularizing the concept ofparticipatory observation. His approach to social theory was a form ofpsychological functionalism that emphasised how social and cultural institutions serve basic human needs—a perspective opposed toA. R. Radcliffe-Brown'sstructural functionalism, which emphasised ways in which social institutions function in relation to society as a whole.
Malinowski, a scion of the Polishszlachta (nobility),[11]: 1013 was born on 7 April 1884 inKraków, in theAustrian Partition of the formerPolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – then part of theAustro-Hungarian province known as theKingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.[12]: 332 His father,Lucjan Malinowski, was a professor ofSlavicphilology atJagiellonian University, and his mother was the daughter of a landowning family.[13] As a child he was frail, often in ill health, but excelled academically. On 30 May 1902 he passed hismatura examinations (with distinction) at theJan III Sobieski Secondary School, and later that year began studying at the College of Philosophy of Kraków's Jagiellonian University, where he initially focused on mathematics and the physical sciences.[12]: 332 [14]: 137
While attending the university he became severely ill (possibly withtuberculosis), and while he recuperated his interest turned more toward thesocial sciences as he took courses in philosophy and education.[12]: 332–333 In 1908 he received a doctorate in philosophy from Jagiellonian University; histhesis was titledOn the Principle of the Economy of Thought.[12]: 333 [14]: 137
During his student years he became interested in travel abroad, and visitedFinland,Italy, theCanary Islands, western Asia, and North Africa; some of those travels were at least partly motivated by health concerns.[12]: 333 He also spent three semesters at theUniversity of Leipzig (c. 1909–1910), where he studied under economistKarl Bücher and psychologistWilhelm Wundt, and examined the works of anthropologistHeinrich Schurtz.[12]: 333 [14]: 137 After readingJames Frazer'sThe Golden Bough, he decided to become an anthropologist.[15]: 9 [14]: 137
In 1910 he went to England, becoming apostgraduate student at theLondon School of Economics (LSE), where his mentors includedC. G. Seligman andEdvard Westermarck.[12]: 333 [16]: 162 [8]
In 1911 Malinowski published, in Polish, his first academic paper, "Totemizm i egzogamia" ("Totemism and Exogamy"), inLud. The following year he published his first English-language academic paper,[b] and in 1913 his first book,The Family among the Australian Aborigines. In the same year he gave his first lectures at LSE, on topics related topsychology of religion andsocial psychology.[12]: 333
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In June 1914 he departed London, travelling to Australia, as the first step in his expedition toPapua (in what would later becomePapua New Guinea).[12]: 333 The expedition was organised under the aegis of theBritish Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS).[12]: 333 Initially Malinowski's journey to Australia was supposed to last only about half a year, as he was mainly planning on attending a conference there, and travelled there in the capacity of secretary toRobert Ranulph Marett. Shortly afterward, his situation became complicated due to the outbreak ofWorld War I. Being a subject ofAustria-Hungary, which was at war with the United Kingdom, Malinowski riskedinternment. He nonetheless decided not to return to Europe, and after intervention by a number of his colleagues, including Marett as well asAlfred Cort Haddon, the Australian authorities allowed him to stay in the region and even provided him with new funding.[12]: 333 [14]: 138 [18]: 4–5 [19]: 136
His first field trip, lasting from August 1914 to March 1915, took him to the Toulon Island (Mailu Island) and theWoodlark Island.[12]: 333 This field trip was described in his 1915 monographThe Natives of Mailu.[12]: 333 Subsequently, he conducted research in theTrobriand Islands in theMelanesia region.[12]: 334 He organized two larger expeditions during that time; from May 1915 to May 1916, and October 1917 to October 1918, in addition to several shorter excursions.[12]: 334 It was during this period that he conducted his fieldwork on theKula ring (a ceremonial exchange system conducted by the natives he studied) and advanced the practice ofparticipant observation, which remains the hallmark of ethnographic research today.[14]: 139 The ethnographic collection of artifacts from his expeditions is mostly held by theBritish Museum and theMelbourne Museum.[12]: 334 During the breaks in between his expeditions he stayed inMelbourne, writing up his research, and publishing new articles, such asBaloma; the Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands. In 1916 he received the title ofDoctor of Sciences.[12]: 333–334 [14]: 138
In 1919, he returned to Europe, staying atTenerife for over a year before coming back to England in 1920 and finally to London in 1921.[12]: 334 [14]: 138 [8] He resumed teaching at the LSE, accepting a position as a lecturer, declining a job offer from the PolishJagiellonian University.[12]: 334 The following year, his bookArgonauts of the Western Pacific, often described as his masterpiece, was published.[13][20][21]: 7 [22]: 72 For the next two decades, he would establish the LSE as Europe's main centre of anthropology. In 1924 he was promoted to areader, and in 1927, a full professor (foundation Professor of Social Anthropology).[12]: 334 [8] In 1930 he became a corresponding foreign member of thePolish Academy of Arts and Sciences.[12]: 334 In 1933, he became a foreign member of theRoyal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[23] In 1934 he travelled toBritish East Africa andSouthern Africa, carrying out research among several tribes such as theBemba,Kikuyu,Maragoli,Maasai and theSwazi people.[12]: 334 [8] The period 1926-1935 was the most productive time of his career, seeing the publications of many articles and several more books.[12]: 334
Malinowski taught intermittently in the United States, which he first visited in 1926 to study theHopi.[12]: 334 [24] WhenWorld War II broke out during one of his American visits, he stayed there.[12]: 334 He became an outspoken critic ofNazi Germany, arguing that it posed a threat to civilization, and he repeatedly urged US citizens to abandon their neutrality; his books duly became banned in Germany.[8][25] In 1941 he carried out field research among the Mexican peasants inOaxaca.[12]: 335 He took up a position atYale University as a visiting professor, where he remained until his death.[12]: 334 In 1942 he co-founded thePolish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, of which he became its first president.[12]: 335
In addition to his work in academia, he has been described as a "wittily entertaining pundit" who wrote and spoke in media of the day on various issues, such as religion and race relations, nationalism, totalitarianism, and war, as well asbirth control andsex education. He was a supporter of theBritish Social Hygiene Council,Mass-Observation, and theInternational African Institute.[8]
Malinowski died inNew Haven, Connecticut on 16 May 1942, aged 58, of a stroke[12]: 336 while preparing to resume his fieldwork in Oaxaca. He was interred atEvergreen Cemetery in New Haven.[26]: 241
Except for a few works from the early 1910s, all of Malinowski's research was published in English.[12]: 333 His first book,The Family among the Australian Aborigines, published in 1913, was based on materials he collected and wrote in the years 1909–1911. It was well-received not only by contemporary reviewers but also by scholars generations later. In 1963, in his foreword to its new edition,John Arundel Barnes called it an epochal work, and noted how it discredited the previously held theory thatAustralian Aborigines had no institution of family.[12]: 333
Published in 1922,Argonauts of the Western Pacific, about the society and economy of Trobriand people who live on the smallKiriwana island chain northeast of the island ofNew Guinea, was widely regarded as a masterpiece and significantly boosted Malinowski's reputation in the world of academia.[13][20][21]: 7 [22]: 72 His later books includedCrime and Custom in Savage Society (1926),Myth in Primitive Psychology (1926),Sex and Repression in Savage Society (1927),The Father in Primitive Psychology (1927),The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (1929), andCoral Gardens and Their Magic (1935).[12]: 334 The works tackled issues such as reciprocity and quasi-legal sanctions (inCrime...),psychoanalysis of ethnographic findings (inSex and Repression...) courtship, sex, marriage, and the family (inThe Sexual Life...), and perceived connections between agriculture and magic (inCoral Gardens...).[8]
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His paper "Psycho-Analysis and Anthropology" (1924) is believed to be the first use of the term "nuclear family".[27][28] He incorporated the paper into hisSex and Repression in Savage Society (1927).[29]
A number of his works were published posthumously or collected in anthologies:A Scientific Theory of Culture and Others Essays (1944),Freedom & Civilization (1944),The Dynamics of Culture Change (1945),Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays (1948),Sex, Culture, and Myth (1962), the controversial[30]A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term (1967), andThe Early Writings of Bronislaw Malinowski (1993).[12]: 335
Malinowski's personal diary, along with several others written inPolish,[12]: 335 was discovered in his Yale University office after his death. First published in 1967, covering the period of his fieldwork in 1914–1915 and 1917–1918 in New Guinea and the Trobriand Islands, it set off a storm of controversy and whatMichael W. Young called a "moral crisis of the discipline".[8][31] Writing in 1987,James Clifford called it "a crucial document for the history of anthropology".[32]: 97
Many of Malinowski's works enteredpublic domain in 2013.[33]
Already a year after his deathClyde Kluckhohn described his influence in the field as significant if somewhat controversial, noting that to some he "was a major prophet", and that "no anthropologist has ever had so wide a popular audience".[34] In 1974Witold Armon described many of his works as "classics".[12]: 335 Michael W. Young outlined Malinowski's major contributions as the comparative study of concepts ofkinship, marriage, the family; magic,mythology, andreligion. His work impacted numerous fields such aseconomic anthropology;comparative law; andpragmaticlinguistic theory.[8]
Malinowski is considered one of anthropology's most skilled ethnographers, especially because of his highly methodical and well-theorised approach to the study of social systems. He is often referred to as the first researcher to bring anthropology "off the verandah" (a phrase that is also the name ofAndré Singer's 1986 documentary about his work[c]), that is, stressing the need for fieldwork enabling the researcher to experience the everyday life of his subjects along with them. Malinowski emphasized the importance of detailedparticipant observation and argued that anthropologists must have daily contact with their informants if they are to adequately record the "imponderabilia of everyday life" that are so important to understanding a different culture.[15]: 10 [36][37]: 22 [38]: 74 He stated that the goal of the anthropologist, or ethnographer, is "to grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realizehis vision ofhis world".[39] Because of the influence of his argument, he is sometimes credited, particularly in the United Kingdom,[40] with having invented the field ofethnography.[41]: 2 J. I. (Hans) Bakker says that Malinowski "wrote at least two of the 100 most significant ethnographies of all time".[42]
Malinowski in his pioneering[d] research set up a tent in the middle of villages he studied, in which he lived for extended periods of time, weeks or months.[14]: 138 [47]: 20 [43]: 361 His argument was shaped by his initial experiences as an anthropologist in the mid-1910s in Australia and Oceania, where during his first field trip he found himself grossly unprepared for it, due to not knowing the language of the people he set to study, nor being able to observe their daily customs sufficiently (during that initial trip, he was lodged with a local missionary and just made daily trips to the village, an endeavor which became increasingly difficult once he lost his translator).[48]: 1182–1183 His pioneering decision to subsequently immerse himself in the life of the natives represents his solution to this problem, and was the message he addressed to new, young anthropologists, aiming to both improve their experience and allow them to produce better data.[37]: 22
He advocated that stance from his very first publications, which were often harshly critical of those of his elders in the field of anthropology, who did most of their writing based on second-hand accounts.[12]: 335 [15]: 10–14 [49] This could be seen in the relation between Frazer - an influential early anthropologist, nonetheless described as the classicarmchair scholar[38]: 17 - and Malinowski, which was complex; Frazer was one of Malinowski's mentors and supporters, and his work is credited with inspiring young Malinowski to become an anthropologist.[15]: 9 At the same time, Malinowski was critical of Frazer from his early days, and it has been suggested that what he learned from Frazer was not "how to be an anthropologist" but "how not to do anthropology".[49]Ian Jarvie wrote that many of Malinowski's writing represented an "attack" on Frazer's school of fieldwork,[50]: 43 althoughJames A. Boon suggested this conflict has been exaggerated.[15]: 10–14
His early works also contributed toscientific study of sex, previously restricted due to Euro-Americanprudery and views on morality. Malinowski's interest in the topic has been attributed to hisSlavic background having made him less concerned with "Anglo-Saxonpuritanism".[8]
Malinowski has been credited with originating, or being one of the main originators of, the school ofsocial anthropology known as functionalism.[12]: 335 It has been suggested that he was here inspired by the views ofWilliam James.[14]: 137 In contrast toAlfred Radcliffe-Brown'sstructural functionalism, Malinowski'spsychological functionalism held that culture functioned to meet the needs of individuals rather than the needs of society as a whole. He reasoned that when the needs of individuals, who comprise society, are met, then the needs of society are met.[8][24][51]: 166 [52]: 386 Malinowski understood basic needs as arising from the necessities of biology; and culture, as group cooperation – as a way of addressing the basic needs. Thus, biological needs include metabolism, reproduction, bodily comforts, safety, movement, growth, and health; and the corresponding cultural responses are a food supply, kinship, shelter, protection, activities, training, and hygiene.[24]
The development of Malinowski's theory of psychological functionalism was intimately tied to his focus on the importance of fieldwork: the anthropologist must, via empirical observation, investigate the functions of the customs observed in the present.[8] To Malinowski, people's feelings and motives were crucial to understanding the way their society functioned, which he outlined as follows:[53]
Besides the firm outline of tribal constitution and crystallized cultural items which form the skeleton, besides the data of daily life and ordinary behavior, which are, so to speak, its flesh and blood, there is still to be recorded the spirit—the natives' views and opinions and utterances.
— Argonauts, p. 22.
Malinowski, in what is considered an important contribution tocross-cultural psychology, challenged the claim, touniversality, ofFreud's theory of theOedipus complex.[42] Malinowski initiated a cross-cultural approach inSex and Repression in Savage Society (1927), demonstrating that specific psychological complexes are not universal.[54]: 28
In 1920 he published his first scientific article on the Kula ring.[14]: 138 [55] In reference to the Kula ring, he later wrote:
Yet it must be remembered that what appears to us an extensive, complicated, and yet well ordered institution is the outcome of so many doings and pursuits, carried on by savages, who have no laws or aims or charters definitely laid down. They have no knowledge of thetotal outline of any of their social structure. They know their own motives, know the purpose of individual actions and the rules which apply to them, but how, out of these, the whole collective institution shapes, this is beyond their mental range. Not even the most intelligent native has any clear idea of the Kula as a big, organised social construction, still less of its sociological function and implications...The integration of all the details observed, the achievement of a sociological synthesis of all the various, relevant symptoms, is the task of the Ethnographer... the Ethnographer has toconstruct the picture of the big institution, very much as the physicist constructs his theory from the experimental data, which always have been within reach of everybody, but needed a consistent interpretation.[56]
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In these two passages, Malinowski anticipated the distinction between description and analysis, and between the views of actors and analysts. This distinction continues to inform anthropological methods and theories.[14]: 141 [57]: 200–221 His research on the Trobriandtraditional economy, with its particular focus onmagic and magicians, has been described as a substantial contribution toeconomic anthropology.[14]: 138–139
Overall, Malinowski has been credited with "contesting existing stereotypes", such as dismissals of "primitive economics", through his study of the Kula ring, which demonstrated how economics was embedded in culture. He criticized the term "primitive superstition", demonstrating complex relations among magic, science, and religion. Likewise his study of sexuality undermined simplistic views of "primitive sexuality".[40]
Malinowski influencedAfrican studies, serving as academic mentor toJomo Kenyatta, the father and first president of modernKenya. Malinowski wrote the introduction toFacing Mount Kenya, Kenyatta's ethnographic study of theKikuyu.[58] Many of Malinowski's students worked in Africa, likely due to his involvement with theInternational African Institute.[40]
Malinowski is considered to have raised the next generation of anthropologists, particularly British.[12]: 335 Many of his students adopted his functionalist approach.[8] As a teacher, he preferred lectures to discussions;[12]: 335 his seminars have been called "electrifying".[8] He has been praised for his friendly and egalitarian attitude towards women students.[1] Among his students were such future social scientists asHilda Beemer Kuper,[1][59]Edith Clarke,[1]Kazimierz Dobrowolski,[12]: 335 Raymond Firth,[1]Meyer Fortes,[60]: x Feliks Gross,[12]: 335 Francis L. K. Hsu,[61]: 13 Phyllis Kaberry,[62]Jomo Kenyatta,[63]Edmund Leach,[64]: 1 Lucy Mair,[1]Z. K. Matthews,[65]Józef Obrębski,[12]: 335 Maria Ossowska,[12]: 335 Stanisław Ossowski,[12]: 335 Ralph Piddington,[66]: 67 Hortense Powdermaker,[1]E. E. Evans-Pritchard,[1]Margaret Read,[1]Audrey Richards,[1]Isaac Schapera,[1]Andrzej Jan Waligórski,[12]: 335 Camilla Wedgwood,[1]Monica Wilson[1] andFei Xiaotong.[12]: 335
TheMalinowski Memorial Lecture, an annual anthropology lecture series at the LSE, inaugurated in 1959, is named after him.[12]: 336 A student-led anthropology magazine at the LSE,The Argonaut, took its name from Malinowski'sArgonauts of the Western Pacific.[67]
TheSociety for Applied Anthropology established theBronislaw Malinowski Award in his honor in 1950. The award was awarded only until 1952, then went on hiatus until being re-established in 1973; it has been awarded annually since.[68]: 1 [69]
Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz based a character, Duke of Nevermore, from his novelThe 622 Downfalls of Bungo or The Demonic Woman (written in the 1910s but not published until 1972) on Malinowski.[12]: 336
In 1957 Raymond Firth edited a book dedicated to the life and work of Malinowski,Man and Culture.[70] Other works about Malinowski have appeared since, such asMichael W. Young'sMalinowski: Odyssey of an Anthropologist, 1884–1920 (2004).[71]
He is portrayed byTom Courtenay in theYoung Indiana Jones TV movieTreasure of the Peacock's Eye.[72]
The life and work of Malinowski is the subject of adocumentary filmTales From The Jungle: Malinowski aired byBBC Four channel in 2007.[73]
In his youth he was a close friend of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, a Polish artist; this friendship had much impact on Malinowski's early life.[8][74][75][76] They had a romantic triangle withZofia Romernée Dembowska.[77] Throughout his life he gained the reputation of aphilanderer.[8]
His other friends from his student times includedMaria Czaplicka, the first female lecturer in anthropology at Oxford University.[78]: 172
In 1919 Malinowski marriedElsie Rosaline Masson, an Australian photographer, writer, and traveler (daughter ofDavid Orme Masson), with whom he had three daughters: Józefa (born 1920), Wanda (born 1922), and Helena (born 1925). Elsie died in 1935, and in 1940 Malinowski married the English painterValetta Swann.[12]: 336 [14]: 138 Malinowski's daughter Helena Malinowska Wayne wrote several articles on her father's life and a book about her parents.[79][80]
While Malinowski was brought up in theCatholic faith, after his mother's death he described himself asagnostic.[1]
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