ANTB19H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Ethnology, Social Fact, Primitive Communism
Document Summary
Malinowski"s closing words: malinowski zooms out from the details of kula and the minutia of ethnographic detail to look at the big picture, he reflects on the meaning of anthropology. In terms of kula, he talks about how extraordinary it is, its huge size, the tasks that go into making it work smoothly, the people that get involved at different stages, the intertribal relationships that affirm social bonds, etc. Kula conforms to a code, a set of rules that the kula participants themselves are not aware of other than by feeling. For example, they know that it"s not right to hold a kula object for more than an appropriate amount of time. He believes that he has formalized these rules: malinowski reflects on the unique character of the kula objects, such as their biographies, laying a foundation for material culture studies in anthropology. He doesn"t think about objects as commodities, but as having a different kind of quality.
