Tuesday, April 27, 2010

B. Malinowski, one of the fathers of anthropology


Greetings again in this post I will talk about one of the most important anthropologists of the twentieth century, the creator of the ethnographic method and passionate scientist: Bronislaw Malinowski.
First of all I will give a brief biographical: Malinowski was born in Krakow, Poland on April 7, 1884 - later died in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, May 16, 1942. Malinowski despite a degree in physics and mathematics at the University of Cracow, study and later worked at the London School of Economics (where he earned a Ph.D. in anthropology). In 1914 he traveled to Papua (now Papua New Guinea), where he conducted a fieldwork in Mailu and the Trobriand Islands. whose field experience would generate its major works as "The Argonauts of the Western Pacific" where he developed his views on anthropology and the work of the anthropologist.
Others works are:

-The Trobriand Islands (1915)
-Myth in Primitive Society (1926)
-Crime and Custom in Savage Society (1926)
-Sex and Repression in Savage Society (1927)
-The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (1929)
-Coral Gardens and Their Magic: A Study of the Methods of Tilling the Soil and of Agricultural Rites in the Trobriand Islands (1935)
-The Scientific Theory of Culture (1944)
-Freedom and Civilization (1944)
-Magic, Science, and Religion (1948)
-The Dynamics of Culture Change (1945)
-A Diary In the Strict Sense of the Term (1967)

However, because think of Malinowski as one of my favorite inspirational and anthropologists, I think mainly because of its contribution to the methodology and systematization of ethnographic methods. many of their ideas as well as objectivity and its possibility in anthropology, a description of the Kula Ring, etc. generating a reflection that lasts until today.

4 comments:

  1. Malinowski is one of the great anthropologists, not only for its functionalist theory, and ethnography strong.
    data freak: He liked look at her body in the mirror. He constant discussion with margaret mead. In his daily, He hate their daily living with the natives.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Malinowski =)

    I think that he was an important anthropologist!, his work is very interesting and it influenced a lot the anthropology.

    Well, is true that he hated to do ethnographies...but this diary was not writing for to be published...his wife published the diary after the Malinowsky died xD

    ReplyDelete
  3. Excellent, Ruth.

    2 points.

    Paula

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Ruth,

    I did comment on your last post (the 4 of May, in the morning, before the class.) I gave you 2 points, it was excellent.

    How strange you couldn´t see my comment.

    Paula

    ReplyDelete