The Ethnography of Malinowski

Download or read book The Ethnography of Malinowski written by Michael W. Young and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bronislaw Malinowski is one of the founding fathers of modern social anthropology and the innovator of the technique of prolonged and intensive fieldwork. His writings about the Trobriand Islands of Papua were in their time the most formative influence on the work of British social anthropologists and are of perennial interest and importance. They produced a revolution in the aims and field techniques of social anthropologists, and the method he created is that now normally used by anthropologists in the field. Malinowski's field material remains compulsory reading for students. First published in 1979, this book draws from the major monographs of Malinowski to compile a selection of his writings on the Trobriand Islanders. In presenting a concise Trobriand ethnography in one volume, Dr Young gives balanced coverage of economic life, kinship, marriage and land tenure, and to the system of ceremonial exchange known as the Kula. He also provides, in an introductory essay, a critical assessment of Malinowski the ethnographer, and gives a brief account of the Trobriands in a modern perspective.