Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Bronislaw Malinowski: my expert in anthropology


Hello my friends! Today I will speak you about Bronislaw Malinowski, an anthropologist very important. He was born in 1884 in Poland and he died in 1942 in U.S.A. Malinowski is the refounder of the British social anthropology.


He travelled to New Guinea, where he worked and lived with the trobriands, a primitive people. He lived ten years with the trobriands and he learnt their customs, really he learnt the trobriand’s life form.


After his travel and in his travel, Malinowski created two important things for anthropology and social sciences: fieldwork and functionalism. With respect to fieldwork, he says that the anthropologist must go and live with the primitive people, one year minimum. Now the anthropologist can not study the primitive people with books, he must be in their environment. And with respect to functionalism, he says all the social parts of a human group are interrelated and plays a role within a system. Now the anthropologist must analize social institutions in terms of collective satisfaction of individual needs.


I like Malinowski because he says that the anthropology must realize fieldwork and live with the primitive people. What do you think? I hope your opinions…


Bye…

7 comments:

  1. Hi rodrigo, i think that is interesting this topic about a very important antropologist that systematize the antrophology.

    Well keep working, see you later.

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  2. Well, i'm not an expert or a big lover of anthropology, but when we studied Malinowski in first year, he seemed really interesting.

    Greetings!

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  3. I thik that his work in New Ginea is admirable. I dont know too much about him and his work, but I reed some of their written in antropology class, two years ago, so I dont remember too much :S

    see you next tuesday!

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  4. I like Malinowski, the method and the ethnography its two topics very importants in anthropology, he is great!!!!!!!! but the best is the picture, posture and clothing are maximum.

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  5. Hy Rodrigo!
    I remember last year when we studied Malinowski. I think he is very important for the discipline. The fieldwork is very important because as you said, we can not learn about other cultures from books,it's different the experience when you share some time with the culture that you are studying.

    Good luck! :)

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  6. Wooo! finally someone write about another anthropologist that is not Marvin Harris!
    I love Malinowski! He is so crazy, but he is smart too. Functionalism it's great, I think I will marry with this theory, most of the things that I believe are related to individual needs, and how culture is an instrument maybe to satisfy these needs.

    Well Rodrigo, I like your post. See you in class!

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  7. hello rodrigo, the last week i had to read malinowski for my oral test in anthropology, i read the Kula activity
    :) good bye

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