Malinowski, Bronislaw Kasper

Polish-born British anthropologist. Malinowski was one of the principal founders of the theory of functionalism in the social sciences. During expeditions to the Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea, in 1914–16 and 1917–18 his detailed studies of the islanders led him to see customs and practices in terms of their function in creating and maintaining social order.

His fieldwork involved a revolutionary system of ‘participant observation’ whereby the researcher became completely involved in the life of the people he studied. He was reader in social anthropology 1924–27 and professor from 1927 at the University of London, and was visiting professor at Yale, USA, from 1938.

He wrote several influential monographs on the islanders, including Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), Sex and Repression in Savage Society (1928), The Sexual Life of Savages (1929), and Coral Gardens and Their Magic (1935).