ANT207H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Trobriand Islands, Leon Koudelak, Cultural Anthropology
Document Summary
We have assumptions about what is normal and standard: ex: someone walking out of class in the middle of a lecture is perceived as odd. We can form hypotheses/assumptions about this abnormal behaviour: ex: two major hypotheses for walking out of class: Personal reasons (phone call, washroom, family emergency) Statement (disappointed with the lecture, disagreement with lecturer/material. Coming to conclusions in cultural anthropology require taking into account multiple factors and exploring different facets of knowledge to find an answer (history of the situation, history of the person(s) in question, cultural context, etc. ) Bronislaw malinowski, polish born pioneer of anthropological fieldwork. Realized next major step of anthropology was to develop an in depth knowledge of native life; getting to know what these people were really like. Went to the south coast of new guinea. Visited trobriand islands in 1915, made his base on the largest/most important of the collection of islands.
