sarahhutchinsanthro1

[sarahhutchinsanthro1]

As a functionalist, I believed that culture has many working parts that interconnect and affect each other. Cultural customs and institutions within a society are interrelated and connected. The term functionalism comes from the idea that each interconnected custom and institution are all functions of the other. Thus, I believed that I could begin studying any part of a society and eventually understand the entirety of a society’s culture. I proved this theory by studying fishing practices, which eventually led me to understand other working parts of Trobriand culture including the entirety of the economic system, trade, kinship, religion, and magic. 

A second idea of functionalism that I proposed is the necessity to fulfill basic human needs. I am well studied in psychology and psychological theory was at mind when creating this idea of functionalism. I believe that all human beings must satisfy basic needs such as obtaining food and water, shelter, and sex.  I refer to this subsect as needs functionalism. I believe you can study societies based off of this theory because all societies work to satisfy basic human needs. I gifted the field of anthropology with new ideas and theories that changed the path of anthropology.

[sarahhutchinsanthro1]

Here’s me at the Trobriand Island back in 1914! I was there for a total of four years because of the onset of World War I. This is me practicing participant observation with the Trobriand people. To those people within a society having an emic perspective, small behaviors that are common are often overlooked. At the Trobriand Islands, I was able to pick up on distinct smells, noises that people made, the gazes that people give each other, and even how people cover their mouths when they eat. Without the utilization of participant observation, I believe that an ethnographic study is not complete. The small details within a culture may be overlooked and under-appreciated with just an interview. Participant observation has allowed me to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, and his vision of his world. In the 20th century, this was a new practice of data collection that eventually became a general procedure for years to come! I am now referred to as the father of ethnography because of my pioneering ethnographic field methods.

[sarahhutchinsanthro1]

Hi everyone! Bronisław Malinowski here. I was a respected anthropologist of my time and greatly impacted the future of the field of anthropology. I’m considered a father of applied or “practical” anthropology because of my contributions to ethnographic methods. I studied in the Trobriand Islands and aimed to debunk misconceptions about social darwinism and stereotypes of “savage people”. I was born in 1884 in Austria- Hungary, which is now present day Poland. I  studied at Jagiellonian University where I received multiple Ph.Ds in philosophy, mathematics, and physics. Later, I moved on to Leipzig University where I was greatly influenced by Wilhelm Wundt in the study of psychology. Sir James Frazer inspired me to pursue anthropology, and I eventually changed ethnographic methods for this field of study. Instead of interviewing people of another culture, I utilized the practice of participant observation which allowed me to use an etic perspective to learn about the culture and people on the Trobriand Islands. Additionally, I used the theory of functionalism and needs functionalism to aid my studies on the Trobriand Islands. I studied fishing techniques that led me to understand all the working parts of the culture and daily life of the indigenous people!