Bronisław Malinowski

For the Olympic athlete, see Bronisław Malinowski (athlete).

Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (Polish: [brɔˈɲiswaf maliˈnɔfskʲi]; 7 April 1884 – 16 May 1942) was a Polish-British^[a] anthropologist and ethnologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of anthropology.^[10]

Bronisław Malinowski
Bronisław Malinowski
Born	Bronisław Kasper Malinowski 7 April 1884 Kraków, Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary
Died	16 May 1942(1942-05-16) (aged 58) New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Nationality	Polish
Citizenship	Austro-Hungarian, Polish, British
Alma mater	Jagiellonian University (PhD, 1908) London School of Economics (D.Sc., 1916)
Known for	Father of social anthropology, popularizing fieldwork, participatory observation, ethnography and psychological functionalism
Spouse(s)	Elsie Rosaline Masson, Valetta Swann
Children	3
Parent	Lucjan Malinowski (father)
Scientific career
Institutions	London School of Economics, Yale University
Thesis	On the Principle of the Economy of Thought (1908)
Doctoral students	Edmund Leach Hilda Kuper Audrey Richards Ralph Piddington Francis L. K. Hsu
Other notable students	Jomo Kenyatta Raymond Firth E. E. Evans-Pritchard Z. K. Matthews H. Powdermaker Meyer Fortes Fei Xiaotong
Influences	James Frazer William James Émile Durkheim Charles Gabriel Seligman Edvard Westermarck Wilhelm Wundt
Influenced	Virtually all subsequent social anthropology

Malinowski was born in what was part of the Austrian partition of Poland, and completed his initial studies at Jagiellonian University in his birth city of Kraków. From 1910, at the London School of Economics (LSE), he studied exchange and economics, analysing Aboriginal Australia through ethnographic documents. In 1914 he travelled to Australia. He conducted research in the Trobriand Islands and other regions in New Guinea and Melanesia where he stayed for several years, studying indigenous cultures.

Returning to England after World 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 British social anthropology. Over the years, he guest-lectured at several American universities; when World War II broke out, he remained in the United States, taking an appointment at Yale University. He died in 1942 and was interred in the United States. In 1967 his widow, Valetta Swann, published his 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 the Kula ring and became foundational for subsequent theories of reciprocity and exchange. He was also widely regarded as an eminent fieldworker, and his texts regarding anthropological field methods were foundational to early anthropology, popularizing the concept of participatory observation. His approach to social theory was a form of psychological functionalism that emphasised how social and cultural institutions serve basic human needs—a perspective opposed to A. R. Radcliffe-Brown's structural functionalism, which emphasised ways in which social institutions function in relation to society as a whole.

Biography

Early life

Malinowski, scion of Polish szlachta (nobility),^[11]: 1013 was born on 7 April 1884 in Kraków, in the Austrian partition of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth—then part of the Austro-Hungarian province known as the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.^[12]: 332 His father, Lucjan Malinowski, was a professor of Slavic philology at the Jagiellonian University, and his mother was the daughter of a landowning family.^[13] As a child he was frail, often suffering from ill health, but excelled academically. On 30 May 1902 he passed his matura examinations (with distinction) at the Jan 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 with tuberculosis) and, while he recuperated, his interest turned more toward the social sciences as he took courses in philosophy and education.^{[12]: 332–333} In 1908 he received a doctorate in philosophy from the Jagiellonian University; his thesis was titled On the Principle of the Economy of Thought.^{[12]: 333 [14]: 137}

During his student years he became interested in travel abroad, and visited Finland, Italy, the Canary 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 the University of Leipzig (ca. 1909-1910), where he studied under economist Karl Bücher and psychologist Wilhelm Wundt.^{[12]: 333 [14]: 137} After reading James Frazer's The Golden Bough, he decided to become an anthropologist.^{[15]: 9 [14]: 137}

In 1910 he went to England, becoming a postgraduate student at the London School of Economics (LSE), where his mentors included C. G. Seligman and Edvard Westermarck.^{[12]: 333 [16]: 162 [8]}

Career

In 1911 Malinowski published, in Polish, his first academic paper, "Totemizm i egzogamia" ("Totemism and Exogamy"), in Lud. The following year he published his first English-language academic paper,^[b] and in 1913 his first book, The Family among the Australian Aborigines, and gave his first lectures at the LSE, on topics related to psychology of religion and social psychology.^[12]: 333

 

Plate I photo, Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), showing a village and Malinowski's tent

In June 1914 he departed London, travelling to Australia, as the first step in his expedition to Papua (in what would later become Papua New Guinea).^[12]: 333 The expedition was organized under the aegis of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS).^[12]: 333 In fact, 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 a capacity of a secretary to Robert Ranulph Marett. Shortly afterward, his situation became complicated due to the outbreak of World War I as although Polish by ethnicity, he was a subject of Austria-Hungary, which was in a state of war with the United Kingdom. Malinowski, at risk of internment, nonetheless decided not to return to Europe from the British-controlled region and after intervention by a number of his colleagues, including Marett as well as Alfred Cort Haddon, British authorities allowed him to stay in the Australian 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 the Woodlark Island.^[12]: 333 This field trip was described in his 1915 monograph The natives of Mailu.^[12]: 333 Subsequently, he conducted research in the Trobriand Islands in the Melanesia 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 the Kula ring (a ceremonial exchange system conducted by the natives he studied) and advanced the practice of participant observation, which remains the hallmark of ethnographic research today.^[14]: 139 The ethnographic collection of artifacts from his expeditions is mostly held by the British Museum and the Melbourne Museum.^[12]: 334 During the breaks in between his expeditions he stayed in Melbourne, writing up his research, and publishing new articles, such as Baloma; the Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands. In 1916 he received the title of Doctor of Sciences.^{[12]: 333–334 [14]: 138}

In 1919, he returned to Europe, staying at Tenerife 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 Polish Jagiellonian University.^[12]: 334 The following year, his book Argonauts 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 a reader, and in 1927, a full professor (foundation Professor of Social Anthropology).^{[12]: 334 [8]} In 1930 he became a corresponding foreign member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[12]: 334 In 1933, he became a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[23] In 1934 he travelled to British East Africa and Southern Africa, carrying out research among several tribes such as the Bemba, Kikuyu, Maragoli, Maasai and the Swazi 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 the Hopi Indians.^{[12]: 334 [24]} When World War II broke out during one of his American visits, he stayed there.^[12]: 334 He became an outspoken critic of Nazi Germany, arguing that it posed a threat to civilization, and he repeatedly urged U.S. 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 in Oaxaca.^[12]: 335 He took up a position at Yale University as a visiting professor, where he remained until his death.^[12]: 334 In 1942 he co-founded the Polish 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 as birth control and sex education. He was a supporter of the British Social Hygiene Council, Mass-Observation, and the International African Institute.^[8]

Malinowski died in New Haven, Connecticut on 16 May 1942, aged 58, of a stroke^[12]: 336 while preparing to resume his fieldwork in Oaxaca. He was interred at Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven.^[26]: 241

Works

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 that Australian 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 small Kiriwana island chain northeast of the island of New 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 included Crime 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), and Coral Gardens and Their Magic (1935).^[12]: 334 The works tackled issues such as reciprocity and quasi-legal sanctions (in Crime...), psychoanalysis of ethnographic findings (in Sex and Repression...) courtship, sex, marriage, and the family (in The Sexual Life...), and perceived connections between agriculture and magic (in Coral Gardens...).^[8]

 

Bronislaw Malinowski with natives on Trobriand Islands; between October 1917 and October 1918.

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^[27] A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term (1967), and The Early Writings of Bronislaw Malinowski (1993).^[12]: 335

Malinowski's personal diary, along with several others written in Polish,^[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 "a moral crisis of the discipline".^[8][28] The year it was published Clifford Geertz called it "gross" and "tiresome", and wrote that it portrayed Malinowski as "a crabbed, self-preoccupied, hypochondriacal narcissist, whose fellow-feeling for the people he lived with was limited in the extreme."^[28] Two decades later, however, he praised it as "backstage masterpiece of anthropology, our The Double Helix".^[29]: 75 Writing in 1987, James Clifford called it "a crucial document for the history of anthropology".^[30]: 97

Many of Malinowski's works entered public domain in 2013.^[31]

Ideas and influences

Already a year after his death Clyde 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".^[32] In 1974 Witold Armon described many of his works as "classics".^[12]: 335 Michael W. Young outlined Malinowski's major contributions as the comparative study of concepts of kinship, marriage, the family; magic, mythology, and religion. His work impacted numerous fields such as economic anthropology; comparative law, and in pragmatic linguistic theory.^[8]

Ethnography and fieldwork

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 of a André 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 detailed participant 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 [34][35]: 22 [36]: 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 realize his vision of his world".^[37] Because of the influence of his argument, he is sometimes credited, particularly in the United Kingdom,^[38] with having invented the field of ethnography.^[39]: 2 J. I. (Hans) Bakker says that Malinowski "wrote at least two of the 100 most significant ethnographies of all time".^[40]

 

A mwali, one of the two main kinds of objects in Melanesia's Kula ritual. Photo in Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922).

Malinowski in his pioneering^[d] research literally 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 [45]: 20 [41]: 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).^{[46]: 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.^[35]: 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-handed accounts.^{[12]: 335 [15]: 10–14 [47]} This could be seen in the relation between Frazer - an influential early anthropologist, nonetheless described as the classic armchair scholar^[36]: 17 - and Malinowski 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".^[47] Ian Jarvie wrote that many of Malinowski's writing represented an "attack" on Frazer's school of fieldwork,^[48]: 43 although James A. Boon suggested this conflict has been exaggerated.^{[15]: 10–14}

His early works also contributed to scientific study of sex, previously restricted due to Euro-American prudery and views on morality. Malinowski's interest in the topic has been attributed to his Slavic background having made him less concerned with "Anglo-Saxon puritanism".^[8]

Functionalism and other theories

Malinowski has been credited with originating, or being one of the main originators of, the school of social anthropology known as functionalism.^[12]: 335 It has been suggested that he was here inspired by the views of William James.^[14]: 137 In contrast to Radcliffe-Brown's structural functionalism, Malinowski's psychological 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][49]: 166 [50]: 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:^[51]

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 to cross-cultural psychology, challenged the claim, to universality, of Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex.^[40] Malinowski initiated a cross-cultural approach in Sex and Repression in Savage Society (1927), demonstrating that specific psychological complexes are not universal.^[52]: 28

In 1920 he published his first scientific article on the Kula ring.^{[14]: 138 [53]} 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 the total 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 to construct 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.^[54]

 

Malinowski with Trobriand Islanders, 1918

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 [55]: 200–221} His research on the Trobriand traditional economy, with its particular focus on magic and magicians, has been described as a substantial contribution to economic 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”.^[38]

Malinowski influenced African studies, serving as academic mentor to Jomo Kenyatta, the father and first president of modern Kenya. Malinowski wrote the introduction to Facing Mount Kenya, Kenyatta's ethnographic study of the Kikuyu.^[56] Many of Malinowski's students worked in Africa, likely due to his involvement with the International African Institute.^[38]

Teacher

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 as Hilda Beemer Kuper,^[1][57] Edith Clarke,^[1] Kazimierz Dobrowolski,^[12]: 335 Raymond Firth,^[1] Meyer Fortes,^[58]: x Feliks Gross,^[12]: 335 Francis L. K. Hsu,^[59]: 13 Jomo Kenyatta,^[60] Edmund Leach,^[61]: 1 Lucy Mair,^[1] Z. K. Matthews,^[62] Józef Obrębski,^[12]: 335 Maria Ossowska,^[12]: 335 Stanisław Ossowski,^[12]: 335 Ralph Piddington,^[63]: 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] and Fei Xiaotong.^[12]: 335

Remembrance

 

Portrait of Malinowski by Witkacy, 1930

The Malinowski 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's Argonauts of the Western Pacific.^[64]

The Society for Applied Anthropology established the Bronislaw 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.^{[65]: 1 [66]}

Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz based a character, Duke of Nevermore, from his novel The 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.^[67] Other works about Malinowski have appeared since, such as Michael W. Young's Malinowski: Odyssey of an Anthropologist, 1884–1920 (2004).^[68]

The life and work of Malinowski is the subject of a documentary film Tales From The Jungle: Malinowski aired by BBC Four channel in 2007.^[69]

Personal life

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][70][71][72]} They had a romantic triangle with Zofia Romer née Dembowska.^[73] Throughout his life he gained the reputation of a philanderer.^[8]

His other friends from his student times included Maria Czaplicka, the first female lecturer in anthropology at Oxford University.^[74]: 172

In 1919 Malinowski married Elsie Rosaline Masson, an Australian photographer, writer, and traveler (daughter of David 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 painter Valetta 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.^[75][76]

While Malinowski was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, after his mother's death he described himself as agnostic.^[1]

Selected publications

 

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Bronisław Malinowski

• Malinowski, B. (1913). The family among the Australian Aborigines: a sociological study. London: University of London Press.
• ————— (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An account of native enterprise and adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul (Enhanced Edition reissued Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2013).
• ————— (1926). Myth in primitive psychology. London: Norton.
• ————— (1926). Crime and custom in savage society. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.
• ————— (1927). Sex and Repression in Savage Society. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
• ————— H. Ellis (1929). The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia. An Ethnographic Account of Courtship, Marriage, and Family Life Among the Natives of the Trobriand Islands, British New Guinea. London.
• ————— E.R. Leach; J. Berry (1935). Coral gardens and their magic. London: Allen & Unwin.
• ————— (1944). A Scientific Theory of Culture and Others Essays. Chapel Hill, N. Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press.
• ————— (1947). Freedom & Civilization. London.
• ————— (1946). P.M. Kaberry (ed.). The Dynamics of Culture Change: An Inquiry Into Race Relations in Africa. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• ————— (1948). Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press (Reissued Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1992).
• ————— (1962). Sex, Culture, and Myth. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
• ————— (1967). A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
• ————— (1993). R.J. Thornton & P. Skalnik (ed.). The early writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

See also

• List of Poles

Notes

1. Bronisław Malinowski was born into a Polish family in a historic Polish region then administrated by the Austro-Hungarian Empire (see also: Austrian partition of Poland). In 1910, aged 26, he emigrated to the United Kingdom and spent most of his remaining life—some three decades—working there. After Poland regained independence in 1918, he became a Polish citizen but continued living in Great Britain.^[1] In 1931 he also obtained British citizenship.^[2]: 60 In his preface to a 1937 Polish-language edition of his 1929 book, The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia, he wrote: "I happened to work in a foreign milieu, and served Polish learning only indirectly. But did I cease serving Polish learning as I cast my scholarship into the international arena and worked in conditions that allowed me to achieve enhanced results? I think not. I have always served Polish learning, not less so than others, but differently. Polish learning required such services, performed abroad. I never ceased feeling Polish and, if the need arose to emphasize it, I was always able to do so."^[3] Malinowski is described in sources as Polish,^{[4]: 402 [5]: 210 [6]: 176} Polish-born British,^[7][8] or Polish-British.^[9]: 304
2. Probably "The Economic Aspect of the Intichiuma Ceremonies". He had already in 1910 published a book review in English in Man, the journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and another there in 1911.^[10] For more on Malinowski's early writings, see The Early Writings of Bronislaw Malinowski (1993, 2006) by Robert J. Thornton and Peter Skalnik.^[17]
3. "Bronislaw Malinowski: Off the Veranda." 52 minutes. Films Media Group, 1985.^[33]
4. Malinowski is said to have "gone native" around 1915-1916; another American scholar, John Layard, did so around the same time as well (in 1917).^[41]: 361 Chris Gosden wrote that "Malinowski's claim to have moved anthropological fieldwork from the verandah into the village has considerable truth to it, even if this is not the whole truth [as] there is much more continuity between himself and his predecessors than Malinowski allowed for".^[42]: 51 Max Gluckman noted that Malinowski developed the idea of fieldwork, but it originated with Alfred Cort Haddon in England and Franz Boas in the United States.^[43]: 242 Robert G. Burgess concluded that "it is Malinowski who is usually credited with being the originator of intensive anthropological field research".^[44]: 4

References

1. Wayne, Helena (1985). "Bronislaw Malinowski: The Influence of Various Women on His Life and Works". American Ethnologist. 12 (3): 529–540. doi:10.1525/ae.1985.12.3.02a00090. ISSN 0094-0496. JSTOR 644537.
2. Thapan, Meenakshi (1998). Anthropological Journeys: Reflections on Fieldwork. Orient Blackswan. ISBN 978-81-250-1221-4.
3. Kwilecki, Andrzej (1988). "Tradycje socjologii polskiej". Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny (in Polish). L (2): 227–262.
4. McGee, R. Jon; Warms, Richard L. (28 August 2013). Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia. SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-1-5063-1461-7.
5. Riper, A. Bowdoin Van (15 September 2011). A Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists and Inventors in American Film and TV since 1930. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-8129-7.
6. The Encyclopedia Americana: M-Mexico City. Grolier Incorporated. 2001. ISBN 978-0-7172-0134-1.
7. "Bronislaw Malinowski". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
8. Young, Michael W. (2015), "Malinowski, Bronislaw (1884–1942)", The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality, American Cancer Society, pp. 721–817, doi:10.1002/9781118896877.wbiehs279, ISBN 978-1-118-89687-7, retrieved 10 September 2021
9. Athyal, Jesudas M. (10 March 2015). Religion in Southeast Asia: An Encyclopedia of Faiths and Cultures: An Encyclopedia of Faiths and Cultures. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-61069-250-2.
10. Murdock, George Peter (9 July 1943). "Bronislaw Malinowski". American Anthropologist. 45 (3): 441–451. doi:10.1525/aa.1943.45.3.02a00090.
11. Calverton, Victor Francis; Schmalhausen, Samuel Daniel (20 April 2018). Revival: The New Generation (1930): The Intimate Problems of Modern Parents and Children. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-33882-0.
12. Armon, Witold (1974). "Bronisław Malinowski". Polish Biographical Dictionary (Polski słownik biograficzny) (in Polish). Vol. 19. National Film Archive - Audiovisual Institute. pp. 332–336. Retrieved 29 July 2021.
13. Senft, Günter. 1997. Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski. in Verschueren, Ostman, Blommaert & Bulcaen (eds.) Handbook of Pragmatics Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins [1]
14. Gaillard, Gerald (2004). The Routledge Dictionary of Anthropologists. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-58580-9.
15. Boon, James A. (1982). Other Tribes, Other Scribes: Symbolic Anthropology in the Comparative Study of Cultures, Histories, Religions and Texts. CUP Archive. ISBN 978-0-521-27197-4.
16. Kuklick, Henrika (9 February 2009). New History of Anthropology. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-76621-7.
17. Thornton, Robert J.; Skalnik, Peter (1 June 2006). The Early Writings of Bronislaw Malinowski. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-02646-8.
18. Malinowski, Bronislaw (November 2001). Malinowski Among the Magi: The Natives of Mailu. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-26244-6.
19. Moore, Jerry D. (25 July 2008). Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. Rowman Altamira. ISBN 978-0-7591-1239-1.
20. Malinowski, Bronislaw; Young, Michael W.; Beran, Harry (2016). "Malinowski on Primitive Art: 'Art Notes and Suggestions' of 1921". Pacific Arts. 16 (1): 5–8. ISSN 1018-4252. JSTOR 26788775.
21. Senft, Gunter (19 July 2010). The Trobriand Islanders' Ways of Speaking. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-022799-4.
22. Weston, Gavin; Djohari, Natalie (11 May 2020). Anthropological Controversies: The "Crimes" and Misdemeanors that Shaped a Discipline. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-86120-8.
23. "B.K. Malinowski (1884–1942)". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 19 July 2015.
24. Cipriani, Roberto (15 February 2007), "Malinowski, Bronislaw K.(1884-1942)", in Ritzer, George; Weiler, Bernd (eds.), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, doi:10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosm007, ISBN 978-1-4051-2433-1, retrieved 13 January 2023
25. Srivastava, Vinay Kumar (March 1985). "Malinowski on Freedom & Civilization". Sociological Bulletin. 34 (1–2): 148–182. doi:10.1177/0038022919850107. ISSN 0038-0229. S2CID 171728097.
26. Wayne, Helena (1995). The Story of a Marriage: The Letters of Bronisław Malinowski and Elsie Masson. London: Routledge.
27. A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term | Bronislaw Malinowski With a New Introduction by Raymond Firth. www.sup.org. Stanford University Press. 1989. ISBN 9780804717076.
28. Thompson, Christina A. (1 June 1995). "Anthropology's conrad: Malinowski in the tropics and what he read". The Journal of Pacific History. 30 (1): 53–75. doi:10.1080/00223349508572783. ISSN 0022-3344.
29. Geertz, Clifford (1988). Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
30. Clifford, James (18 May 1988). The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-69843-7.
31. Young, Michael W. (2014). "Writing his Life through the Other: The Anthropology of Malinowski". The Public Domain Review. from the original on 4 December 2019.
32. Kluckhohn, Clyde (1943). "Bronislaw Malinowski 1884-1942". The Journal of American Folklore. 56 (221): 208–219. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 535603.
33. Street, Alexander (2019). Off the Verandah: Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942). Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
34. Richards, Diana (25 January 2010). "Naturalized Methods for Jurisprudence: A Constructive Account". Rochester, NY. SSRN 2000862. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
35. Crabtree, Andrew; Rouncefield, Mark; Tolmie, Peter (5 March 2012). Doing Design Ethnography. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-1-4471-2726-0.
36. Okely, Judith (15 May 2020). Anthropological Practice: Fieldwork and the Ethnographic Method. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-18055-8.
37. Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Dutton 1961 edition, p. 25.
38. Kelly, William W. (5 October 2018). "Malinowski, Bronisław (1884–1942)". In Callan, Hilary (ed.). The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology (1 ed.). Wiley. pp. 1–6. doi:10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2164. ISBN 978-1-118-92439-6. S2CID 187470515.
39. Melhuus, Marit; Mitchell, Jon P.; Wulff, Helena (2010). Ethnographic Practice in the Present. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-84545-616-0.
40. Bakker, J. I. (Hans) (24 September 2013). "Malinowski, Bronislaw". In Keith, Kenneth D (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Cross‐Cultural Psychology (1 ed.). Wiley. pp. 835–838. doi:10.1002/9781118339893.wbeccp340. ISBN 978-0-470-67126-9.
41. Langham, K. (6 December 2012). The Building of British Social Anthropology: W.H.R. Rivers and his Cambridge Disciples in The Development of Kinship Studies, 1898–1931. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-94-009-8464-6.
42. Gosden, Chris (4 January 2002). Anthropology and Archaeology: A Changing Relationship. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-71621-0.
43. Gluckman, Max (5 November 2013). Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-52849-1.
44. Burgess, Robert G. (2 September 2003). Field Research: A Sourcebook and Field Manual. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-89751-3.
45. Clifford, James (21 April 1997). Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-77960-0.
46. Frederiks, Martha; Nagy, Dorottya (22 June 2021). Critical Readings in the History of Christian Mission: Volume 4. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-39961-7.
47. Morton, John (1995). "Review of The Early Writings of Bronislaw Malinowski". The Journal of the Polynesian Society. 104 (2): 229–231. ISSN 0032-4000. JSTOR 20706617.
48. Jarvie, I. C. (28 October 2013). The Revolution in Anthropology. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-03466-5.
49. Scupin, Raymond (10 December 2019). Cultural Anthropology: A Global Perspective. SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-1-5443-6311-0.
50. Green, Thomas A. (1997). Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-87436-986-1.
51. Hancock, Robert L. A. (2006). "6. Diamond Jenness's Arctic Ethnography and the Potential for a Canadian Anthropology". Histories of Anthropology Annual. 2 (1): 155–211. doi:10.1353/haa.0.0019. ISSN 1940-5138. S2CID 129574295.
52. Frayser, Suzanne G.; Whitby, Thomas J. (1995). Studies in Human Sexuality: A Selected Guide. Libraries Unlimited. ISBN 978-1-56308-131-6.
53. Malinowski B (1920). "Kula: the Circulating Exchange of Valuables in the Archipelagoes of Eastern New Guinea". Man. 20: 97–105. doi:10.2307/2840430. JSTOR 2840430.
54. Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Dutton 1961 edition, p. 83-84.
55. Angioni, Giulio (1974). "L'antropologia funzionalista di B. K. Malinowski". Tre saggi sull'antropologia dell'età coloniale (in Italian). S. F. Flaccovio.
56. Berman, Bruce (1 January 1996). "Ethnography as Politics, Politics as Ethnography: Kenyatta, Malinowski, and the Making of Facing Mount Kenya". Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines. 30 (3): 313–344. doi:10.1080/00083968.1996.10804424. ISSN 0008-3968.
57. Vincent, Joan (1 September 1986). "Functionalism revisited: An unsettled science". Reviews in Anthropology. 13 (4): 331–339. doi:10.1080/00988157.1986.9977795. ISSN 0093-8157.
58. Fortes, Meyer (15 October 1987). Religion, Morality and the Person: Essays on Tallensi Religion. CUP Archive. ISBN 978-0-521-33693-2.
59. Kim, Choong Soon (2000). Anthropological Studies of Korea by Westerners. Institute for Modern Korean Studies, Yonsei University. ISBN 978-89-7141-505-4.
60. Free, Alex (11 October 2017). "Jomo Kenyatta, LSE and the independence of Kenya". Africa at LSE. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
61. Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja; Tambiah, Stanley J. (14 February 2002). Edmund Leach: An Anthropological Life. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-52102-4.
62. White, T. R. H. (1 November 1992). "Formative years : early influences on the career of Z.K. Matthews, (1916-1937)". Historia. 37 (2): 70–85. hdl:10520/AJA0018229X_1778.
63. Borofsky, Robert; Howard, S. Alan (31 March 2019). Developments in Polynesian Ethnology. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-8196-2.
64. "The Magazine". The Argonaut. Retrieved 9 September 2021.
65. Weaver, Thomas (2002). "The Malinowski Award and the History of Applied Anthropology". The Dynamics of Applied Anthropology in the Twentieth Century: The Malinowski Award Papers. Society For Applied Anthropology.
66. "Bronislaw Malinowski Award :: Society for Applied Anthropology". www.appliedanthro.org. Retrieved 9 September 2021.
67. Mandelbaum, David (December 1959). "Man and Culture: An Evaluation of the Work of Malinowski . Raymond Firth". American Anthropologist. 61 (6): 1099–1103. doi:10.1525/aa.1959.61.6.02a00230. ISSN 0002-7294.
68. Kahn, Miriam (July 2005). "Michael W. Young. Malinowski: Odyssey of an Anthropologist 1884–1920. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 47 (3): 665–667. doi:10.1017/S0010417505210290. ISSN 1475-2999. S2CID 147274264.
69. "Tales from the Jungle". Retrieved 30 November 2021.
70. BAKER, STUART (1973). "Witkiewicz and Malinowski: The Pure Form of Magic, Science and Religion". The Polish Review. 18 (1/2): 77–93. ISSN 0032-2970. JSTOR 25777112.
71. Skaln&#237, Peter; k (2000). "Bronisław Kasper Malinowski and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. Science versus art in the conceptualization of culture". Konteksty (1–04): 52–65. ISSN 1230-6142.
72. Wełyczko, Paula (2015). "Uczta z Malinowskim i Witkacym. Niedopowiedzenie i namiętność w antropologii". Tematy Z Szewskiej (in Polish) (Errotyzm 2(16)/2015): 52–65. ISSN 1898-3901.
73. Kubica, Grazyna (2008). "A FORCIBLE VOICE OF DONNA QUERPIA. ZOFIA DEMBOWSKA'S LETTERS TO BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI (Dobitny glos Donny Querpii. Listy Zofii Dembowskiej do Bronislawa Malinowskiego)". Pamiętnik Literacki (in Polish). 4 (99): 185–229. ISSN 0031-0514.
74. Rivière, Peter (October 2009). A History of Oxford Anthropology. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-84545-699-3.
75. Young, Michael W. (2018). "Helena Paula Wayne Malinowska (1925–2018)". Anthropology Today. 34 (4): 26–27. doi:10.1111/1467-8322.12451. ISSN 1467-8322. S2CID 149687807.
76. . MFEA - Malinowski Forum for Ethnography and Anthropology. Archived from the original on 2 July 2022. Retrieved 12 September 2021.

Further reading

• Firth, Raymond (1960). Man and culture: an evaluation of the work of Bronislaw Malinowski. London: Routledge.

• Vermeulen, Han F. & Frederico Delgado Rosa (eds.). 2022. “Before and After Malinowski: Alternative Views on the History of Anthropology [A Virtual Round Table at the Royal Anthropological Institute, London, 7 July 2022]” (with the participation of Sophie Chevalier, Barbara Chambers Dawson, Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Michael Kraus, Adam Kuper, Herbert S. Lewis, Andrew Lyons, David Mills, David Shankland, James Urry, and Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt), BEROSE International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology, Paris.

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bronisław Kasper Malinowski.

 

Wikiquote has quotations related to Bronisław Malinowski.

 

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Bronisław Malinowski

• Works by Bronisław Malinowski at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Bronislaw Malinowski at Faded Page (Canada)
• ; Archive (Real audio stream) of BBC Radio 4 edition of 'Thinking allowed' on Malinowski
• Baloma; the Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands, at sacred-texts.com
• Papers of Bronislaw Malinowski held at LSE Library
• Malinowski's fieldwork photographs, Trobriand Islands, 1915–1918
• Savage Memory – documentary about Malinowski's legacy
• Bronislaw Malinowski papers (MS 19). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.