Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Participant Observation 345
sion, so when the war broke out, Malinowski was interned and could not return
to England for three years.
He made the best of the situation, though. Here is Malinowski describing
his methods:
Soon after I had established myself in Omarkana, Trobriand Islands, I began to
take part, in a way, in the village life, to look forward to the important or festive
events, to take personal interest in the gossip and the developments of the village
occurrences; to wake up every morning to a new day, presenting itself to me more
or less as it does to the natives. . . . As I went on my morning walk through the
village, I could see intimate details of family life, of toilet, cooking, taking of
meals; I could see the arrangements for the day’s work, people starting on their
errands, or groups of men and women busy at some manufacturing tasks.
Quarrels, jokes, family scenes, events usually trivial, sometimes dramatic but
always significant, form the atmosphere of my daily life, as well as of theirs. It
must be remembered that the natives saw me constantly every day, they ceased
to be interested or alarmed, or made self-conscious by my presence, and I ceased
to be a disturbing element in the tribal life which I was to study, altering it by my
very approach, as always happens with a newcomer to every savage community.
In fact, as they knew that I would thrust my nose into everything, even where a
well-mannered native would not dream of intruding, they finished by regarding
me as a part and parcel of their life, a necessary evil or nuisance, mitigated by
donations of tobacco. (1961 [1922]:7–8)
Ignore the patronizing rhetoric about the ‘‘savage community’’ and ‘‘donations
of tobacco.’’ (I’ve learned to live with this part of our history in anthropology.
Knowing that all of us, in every age, look quaint, politically incorrect,
or just plain hopeless to those who come later has made it easier.) Focus
instead on the amazing, progressive (for that time) method that Malinowski
advocated: Spend lots and lots of time in studying a culture, learn the language,
hang out, do all the everyday things that everyone else does, become
inconspicuous by sheer tenaciousness, and stay aware of what’s really going
on. Apart from the colonialist rhetoric, Malinowski’s discussion of participant
observation is as resonant today as it was more than 80 years ago.
By the time Malinowski went to the Trobriands, Notes and Queries on
Anthropology—the fieldwork manual produced by the Royal Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland—was in its fourth edition. The first edition
came out in 1874 and the last edition (the sixth) was reprinted five times
until 1971.
Thirty-five years later, that final edition of Notes and Queries is still must
reading for anyone interested in learning about anthropological field methods.
Once again, ignore the fragments of paternalistic colonialism—‘‘a sporting