ANTA02H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Trobriand Islands, John Rupert Firth, Epicenter
Document Summary
The film off to veranda" talks about bronislaw malinowski and the people of the. Malinowski is an aristocratic polish born in 1884. In 1910, he moved to england and attended the london school of economics. in 1914, he was appointed secretary to the anthropology section of the meeting in melbourne, australia. After 6 weeks of discussing the aussie aborigines, he began his fieldwork by studying the people on trobriand islands. Malinowski realized he had to learn the language of the trobrianders in order to blend into and know more about the group. Through his observation, he discovered that all aspects of social life of the. Trobrianders are meant to serve basic needs like food, reproduction and shelter. He developed the idea of functionalism - culture functions to fulfill the biological and psychological needs of the society. Malinowski believes that it is more important to look at how societies work currently rather than focusing on past cultures and their origins.
