Bronislaw Malinowski

Reproduction of the original: Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Bronislaw Malinowski

Reproduction of the original: The Family among the Australian Aborigines by Bronislaw Malinowski

The importance of the subject treated in this study, as well as the prominent part played by the Australian evidence in the problem of kinship, will, it is believed, amply justify a detailed inquiry into the institution of the family in Australia. It is, however, always desirable for a monograph like the present one, besides being a mere collection and description of facts, to have a sufficiently wide theoretical scope. It ought to demonstrate some general principle upon the particular example treated, and to approach the problem from a new standpoint. I wish here shortly to indicate how far a slight and imperfect attempt in this direction has been made. In describing the facts of family life in Australia I have tried to show that even if the problems of origins and development of an institution be put aside and the inquiry be limited to the actual facts (in this case to the actual working of the aboriginal kinship organization), there are plenty of subjects of great theoretical importance, some of which, as yet not fully considered by sociologists.

The main question of our age is how we live our lives. As we struggle with this question, we face others. How do we handle ideas and knowledge, both our own and those of others? What relationship to ideas do we want? Whose ideas do we want to be surrounded by? Where do we want to think? Most choose, or have the choice made for them, according to what family, colleagues, and friends do and say and what we read about, and a more or less rational calculation of the odds. Modern ecology results from the shift in thinking generated by quantum physics and systems theory, from the old view based on reductionism, mechanics, and fixed quantities to a new view based on holistic systems where qualities are contingent on the observer and on each other. This perception changes how people treat ideas and facts, certainties and uncertainties, and affects both art and science. Worldwide it is part of the process of understanding the current crisis in the environment, and the balance of economy, creativity, and control required in our response. The book's starting point is the growing role that information has played in industrial economies since the 1800s and especially in the last thirty years. It is an attempt to identify ecology of thinking and learning. It is also based on the need to escape from old, industrial ways and become more attuned to how people actually borrow, develop, and share ideas. Throughout the book, Howkins asks questions and offers signposts. He gives no guarantee that creative ecologies will be sustainable, but shows what should be aimed for.

Crime and Custom in Savage Society represents Bronislaw Malinowski's major discussion of the relationship between law and society. Throughout his career he constructed a coherent science of anthropology, one modeled on the highest standards of practice and theory. Methodology steps forward as a core element of the refashioned anthropology, one that stipulates the manner in which anthropological data should be acquired. Malinowski's choice of law was not inevitable, but neither was it unmotivated. Anyone interested in understanding the social structure and organization of societies cannot avoid dealing with the concept of "law," even if it is to deny its presence. Law and anthropology have shown a natural affinity for one another, sharing a beneficial history of using the methods and viewpoints of one to inform and advance the other. The best lesson Malinowski provides us with comes in the last paragraphs of Crime and Custom in Savage Society: "The true problem is not to study how human life submits to rules; the real problem is how the rules become adapted to life." On that question, he has left us richly inspired to continue the quest.

From the early days of the rise to power of Hitler, Bronislaw Malinowski was an outspoken opponent of National Socialism. He began at that time to devote much attention to the analysis of war, from its development and throughout history to its disastrous manifestations at the start of the Second World War. Freedom and Civilization, first published in 1947, is the final expression of Malinowski’s basic beliefs and conclusions regarding the war, totalitarianism and the future of humanity. This book will be of interest to students of politics and history.

Bronislaw Malinowski’s pathbreaking Argonauts of the Western Pacific is at once a detailed account of exchange in the Melanesian islands and a manifesto of a modernist anthropology. Malinowski argued that the goal of which the ethnographer should never lose sight is ‘to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world.’ Through vivid evocations of Kula life, including the building and launching of canoes, fishing expeditions and the role of myth and magic amongst the Kula people, Malinowski brilliantly describes an inter-island system of exchange - from gifts from father to son to swapping fish for yams - around which an entire community revolves. A classic of anthropology that did much to establish the primacy of painstaking fieldwork over the earlier anecdotal reports of travel writers, journalists and missionaries, it is a compelling insight into a world now largely lost from view. With a new foreword by Adam Kuper.

During the First World War the pioneer anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski found himself stranded on the Trobriand Islands, off the eastern coast of New Guinea. By living among the people he studied there, speaking their language and participating in their activities, he invented what became known as 'participant-observation'. This new type of ethnographic study was to have a huge impact on the emerging discipline of anthropology. In Sex and Repression in Savage Society Malinowski applied his experiences on the Trobriand Islands to the study of sexuality, and the attendant issues of eroticism, obscenity, incest, oppression, power and parenthood. In so doing, he both utilized and challenged the psychoanalytical methods being popularized at the time in Europe by Freud and others. The result is a unique and brilliant book that, though revolutionary when first published, has since become a standard work on the psychology of sex.

From the early days of Hitler’s rise to power, Bronislaw Malinowski was an outspoken opponent of National Socialism. In response to this, Malinowski began to devote much attention to the analysis of war, from its development throughout history to its disastrous manifestations at the start of the Second World War. Freedom and Civilization, first published in 1947, is the final expression of Malinowski’s basic beliefs and conclusions regarding the war, totalitarianism and the future of humanity. This book will be of interest to students of politics and history.