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Bronislaw Malinowski [Originally Published in American Anthropologist, 45:441-451, 1943]

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Bronislaw Malinowski [Originally Published in American Anthropologist, 45:441-451, 1943] Bronislaw Malinowski [originally published in American Anthropologist, 45:441-451, 1943] GEORGE PETER MURDOCK Yale University BRONISLAW KASPAR MALINOWSKI was Sexual Life of Savages in Northwestern born in Cracow, Poland, on April 7, 1884, the Melanesia (1929), and Coral Gardens and Their son of Lucyan and Jozefa (Lacka) Malinowski. Magic (1935). Reared in an aristocratic and cultured family Although most widely known for his with scholarly interests – his father was a college publications on the Trobriands, Malinowski did professor and well-known Slavic philologist – he not view human culture from a narrow regional naturally prepared himself for an academic perspective. His actual field work outside of the career. After specializing in mathematics and the Trobriand Islands was extensive. In addition to physical sciences at the University of Cracow, the aforementioned trips to the Motu and Mailu where he received the degree of Ph.D. in 1908, of New Guinea, he spent from one to several he attended the University of Leipzig for two months each among the Hopi of Arizona in years of advanced study. There he came strongly 1926, the Bemba and Chagga of East Africa in under the influence of Wilhelm Wundt, who 1934, and the modern Zapotec of Mexico in turned his interests toward folk psychology and 1940 and 1941. Over and above this varied thence to cultural anthropology. The experience with primitive peoples, his life in preeminence of English anthropology attracted Poland, Germany, England, Australia, and the him next to London, where he engaged in United States and several years of residence in research at the British Museum and pursued the Canary Islands aided in giving him an studies at the London School of Economics. The exceptionally wide first-hand acquaintance with stimulation of Westermarck and Seligman, and different systems of living and a broadly also of Frazer, Rivers, and Haddon, confirmed comparative outlook toward cultural phenomena. him in his anthropological interests, and in 1916 This varied experience was reflected in an he received the degree of D.Sc. in anthropology unusual linguistic virtuosity. In addition to a from the University of London. solid grounding in classical Greek and Latin, he In 1914 Malinowski left England for four had a thorough speaking knowledge of English, years of field work in New Guinea and French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, northwestern Melanesia with brief respites in Spanish, and native Motuan and Trobriand. Australia. A few weeks among the Motu of On March 6, 1919, during a period of Papua gave him his first actual contact with a residence in Australia following his field work in primitive people and provided him with a Melanesia, Malinowski married Elsie Rosaline preliminary acquaintance with the Motuan Masson. Their three daughters, Jozefa, Wanda, language, which he used in a much more and Helena, survive him. On June 6, 1940, five extensive period of field work among the Mailu. years after the death of his first wife, he married His first ethnographic report, The Natives of Anna Valetta Swann. In 1924 he returned to the Mailu (1915), despite disclaimers by Malinowski University of London as reader in social of its importance, clearly foreshadows the anthropology and, after 1927, as professor of contributions to theory and method which he was anthropology. During this period of his life he to make in his later and more famous volumes on trained and stimulated a generation of younger the Trobriand Islanders, and stands out in anthropologists – Evans-Pritchard, Firth, Fortes, favorable contrast to the work of his Hogbin, Kaberry, Powdermaker, Richards, ethnographical predecessors in the New Guinea Schapera and many others – who were shortly to area. More than two years of intensive field enrich the literature of ethnography with work in the Trobriand Islands, in 1915-16 and descriptive reports establishing a new level of 1917-18, enabled Malinowski to assemble the excellence. In 1926 Malinowski visited the materials for those classic works of United States, teaching for a period at the anthropological description and interpretation University of California. He returned in 1933 upon which his reputation largely rests: when he delivered the Messenger lectures at Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), Crime Cornell University. In 1936 he came back to and Custom in Savage Society (1926), The receive the honorary degree of D. Sc. from 1 Harvard University at its tercentenary concepts. As late as 1937, for example, Lowie1 celebration. The outbreak of the Second World could affirm: “a culture is invariably an artificial War found him again in the United States. In unit segregated for purposes of expediency. 1939 he was appointed Bishop Museum Visiting ...There is only one natural unit for the Professor of Anthropology at Yale University, ethnologist-the culture of all humanity at all and was under appointment as Professor of periods and in all places. ...” He even taunted Cultural Anthropology at the time of his death. Malinowski with the question whether, in the The key to an understanding of Trobriand Islands, one should consider as the Malinowski’s personality and at the same time of bearers of culture “the chief’s family in his scientific creativeness would seem to lie in Omarakana, his village, the district of Kiriwina, his acutely sensitive nature. Essentially humble the Island of Boyawa, the Trobriand beneath a surface vanity, he craved warmth and archipelago,” or some larger region. To most appreciation, and was ever ready to respond in social scientists the answer is obvious: all of kind. He found it difficult, however, to brook these units are social groups of varying size and unfriendly criticism – a trait which sometimes type, and each of them bears its own culture or embroiled him in acrid controversies. In his sub-culture. Since social groups are scientific work, this sensitivity to the responses observationally distinguishable, as are the of others made him an extraordinary observer, as traditional patterns of behavior which they appreciative of nuances in behavior as of those in manifest, a culture is in no sense an arbitrary or language. Aware of many of his own emotional artificial unit, and Malinowski’s position is depths, he persistently sought to discover in unassailable. others the motives underlying even conventional To a social group and the sub-culture it behavior, and thus he could never rest content bears, Malinowski applied the term “institution.” with depersonalized descriptions of human However unfortunate his choice of this word, in activities in terms of the interaction of culture view of the many diverse definitions previously patterns, the operation of social processes, or the given it by sociologists, Malinowski subjected like. To him the actors in the drama of mankind the concept to a highly fruitful analysis. The were never mere culture-bearing marionettes but collective life of any society, he pointed out, is always human animals using cultural forms as largely manifested in a series of organized instruments in their striving for biological and systems of behavior, or institutions, which derivative gratifications. provide the most satisfactory units for In the degree of influence he has exerted investigation in field work. Upon analysis, he upon anthropological theory, Malinowski stands believed, any institution resolves itself into six beside Morgan, Tylor, and Boas. With these interrelated elements: (1) personnel, a group of men, and with such leaders in kindred fields as individuals cooperating in the performance of a Adam Smith, Marx, Sumner, Freud, and Pavlov, common task; (2) material apparatus, the he also ranks as one of the great innovators in the artifacts employed in their activities; (3) norms, history of the behavioral sciences of man. Not the rules or ideal patterns to which behavior is only did he contribute prominently to the expected to conform; (4) activities, the behavior, thoroughgoing reorientation of interests and including deviation from norms, which actually perspective that have characterized the past two takes place in the performance of the joint tasks; decades in anthropology, but his work has left a ( 5) charter, the express cultural definition of the significant impress upon sociology, law, and common aims or purpose of the institution; and linguistics as well. It will be appropriate here to (6) function, the actual effect of the collective summarize some of his principal contributions to enterprise in satisfying human needs. Through the theory of culture. institutional activities the relationships of The firm establishment of the concepts of individuals are interdigited, the performance of society and social group in anthropological duties being rewarded and supported by the theory stands largely to Malinowski’s credit. reciprocal performance of other persons. The Sociologists have long recognized that cultures persistence of cultural forms is sufficiently and sub-cultures are carried by societies and by explained by this principle of reciprocity without organized groups within societies, but need of invoking a psychologically dubious anthropologists, probably because of their hypothesis of cultural autonomy or inertia. preoccupation with evolutionistic and later with historical interpretations of cultural phenomena, 1 have been slow to make adequate use of these Robert H. Lowie, The History of Ethnlological Theory (New York, 1937), pp. 235-236. 2 Malinowski’s analysis also makes provision for work of Clark Hull and the latter’s students.2 It cultural change – through the deviation of seems probable that the future development of “activities” from “norms” – whereas change is culture and personality studies in anthropology difficult to reconcile with other functional will follow in general the lines of Malinowski’s theories which stress the integration of all thinking. aspects of a culture. The term “functionalism,” however The average quality of anthropological field universally applied to Malinowski’s theoretical work and ethnographic reporting has risen position, nevertheless labels it rather too appreciably as a consequence of Malinowski’s narrowly.
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