Two readings of Malinowski
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/2179-0892.ra.2014.87768Keywords:
Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), morphology, History.Abstract
In this essay, I examine the article in which James Clifford explored the famous claiming from Malinowski (“I shall be anthropology’s Conrad!”). Next, I criticize the author’s formalism: the text’s form is what interests him, not its contents nor the relationship between the source and the social world that produced it. However, I defend the form’s efficacy as an analytical tool capable of identifying gaps in the historical sources, allowing for a better understanding of the social world — as long as the morphological evidence is related to history. As one of this procedure’s outcomes, I point out the essay where Carlo Ginzburg investigates the formal affinity between the path followed by a magical object in a tale of the Scostman writer Robert Louis Stevenson and the kula ring as described in the trobriander ethnography.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who intend to publish in this journal must agree with the following terms:
- a) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication. The work is simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows the work to be shared as long as the author and the initial publication in this journal are appropriately credited.
- b) Authors are authorized to sign additional contracts for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in this journal (e.g., to publish it as a book chapter), as long as the author and the initial publication in this journal are appropriately credited.
- c) Authors are allowed and encouraged to publish and distribute their work online (e.g. on their personal webpage) after the editorial process, for this can generate productive changes as well as increase the impact and citation of the work. See The Effect of Open Access Publications.
