Malinowski: As A Forced Migrant Amongst The Trobrianders.

When you hear the words anthropology or ethnography, it's hard not to think of the founding father of modern fieldwork and participant observation, Bronislaw Malinowski. In this essay I will be discussing and drawing parallels on how during the war Malinowski was forcefully kept from his home in essence becoming a forced migrant. While in the Trobriand islands Malinowski revolutionised ethnographic fieldwork and set a new standard for anthropologists thereafter to follow. But during his time there as explained through his accounts, he did not like the people whom he was staying with, referring to them as savages and over all his experience will educationally enriching could not have been pleasant for a man of his stature used to the joys of the economical west being reduced to the simple pleasures of these people. In this essay I will be drawing parallels on how forced migrants feel and how they must find a balance between their own culture and the one they now live in, simply to survive. Also comparing the hardship of being migrated with the drive to do work, as witness in Malinowski continuing to observe the Trobrianders and the workings of the Kula ring and how migrants in new countries sometimes flock to jobs in order provide or their families. Showing how the mentality of migrants shows how very few of them shy away from work. Exploring what it feels to be a migrant, having no control over where you are and how you cope with it, whether in a positive or negative manner. How did Malinowski feel about it all, what was it like being a migrant? Looking also at Turton (2002) for his explanation, definition and insight into forced displacement, and does Malinowski fall into the category.

Bronislaw Malinowski was born on the 7th of April 1884, in Krakow to Polish parents. He studied at many universities across the world, earning PhD's for his efforts, under some of the best anthropologists of the time and of any time for that matter. In 1914 Malinowski travelled to Papua New Guinea, to conduct fieldwork with the Trobriand Islanders. With the out break of World War I, due to Malinowski being polish born and with connections with Austria he was seen as an enemy, and would be imprisoned upon his return. But instead he was granted with an opportunity, instead of returning home to face imprisonment; he could remain with the Trobrianders and continue doing more research. It was at this time that Bronislaw Malinowski became a forced migrant. He was in a relatively new area, alone and confused. He was there because not only was he forced to stay there by authorities, much like how internally displaced migrants feel, but he was also remaining there because simply it was not safe or in his best interests to go home. In his publish collections of diaries, A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Word. (1987) Malinowski talks about the same problems and issues one would expect to hear from a forced migrant. Being the pioneer in this aspect in his field, noone else had done fieldwork for as long as he, or what he called participant observation to such a depth. It is an interesting thing to look at the anthropologist rather than what he was looking at, anthropologists that do fieldwork are by trade migrants and given certain benefits to match their station. All that arose from Malinowski and his struggles at the start of the 20th century. So by looking at Malinowski's life and the issues that arose from his fieldwork, we can see how the stresses of being displaced, being a migrant are recorded and seen from a social scientist.

Did Malinowki view himself as a migrant that is a tough question, surely he knew he was displaced and forced to remain in the Trobriand Islands, but did he draw the connection on whether he was a migrant. The thing with labels is when one is placed on you; you tend to act into it. If Malinowski viewed himself as a migrant things could have gone in a completely different direction. Kumsa (2006) writes about the Oromo's in Toronto, migrants in a paper titled 'I am not a refugee'. Kumsa is Oromo herself coming over to Canada in the early 90s. Kumsa went through a lot in her life and even though she feels her journey is ended, people still look at her and think 'refugee' and she even said if she were to look at herself through their eyes the same thoughts would rise. The reading about seeing yourself as a refugee and then dealing with it is important to how Malinowski could have felt. Kumsa states how when living in Canada, parents of other young Oromos wanted their children to continue acting as if Oromo, the culture they had fought so hard, lost so many to gain was that important to them, just because they were out of harms way didn't mean they should forget where they came from. That is a strong view that not all could relate to, you have been forced from your own country, perhaps by your own country and shafted into a new one, but rather than do the logical thing for survival and adopt their cultural practices you decide to keep your own. This could lead to many problems not only among your people, but with the clash of the people that let you into their land. My thoughts on this matter were how long before Malinowski cracked, how long before he went deeply into what he called participant observation.

Malinowski staying with the islanders, with the time he had and the research he hoped to obtain knew that observing from the sidelines wouldn't be enough, so he decided to join in. His joining in but still researching was coined by the man himself as participant observation. It was so revolutionary that ethnography and participant observation in the style of Malinowski is now almost a rite of passage for anthropologists, dispelling armchair anthropology almost entirely. During his participant observation Malinowski was getting down and dirty with the natives, for one from the glorified west used to certain pleasures in life, this must have been a hard embrace for him. No doubt Malinowski kept to his own ways as best he could, but he was now intertwined with their culture. Similar to how migrants now, actively try to take a role in the culture they have been welcomed into, but still keep some of their own agency and cultural pride/practices and beliefs. Participant observation at the heart of it, is essentially as learned by Malinowski, giving a part of yourself into the work, taking on new dimensions and learning by doing, not by watching, see things how those doing it would see it, get a better view of the situation and thus learn to understand it better.

Kumsa also points out that someone will always be a refugee, whether they are settled or not, if they fully embrace their new life, due to the fact they had to flee (or in Malinowski's case remain away) they are refugees, but also puts more dimensions on the names we give to people, like landed immigrant, naturalised refugee and other terms that could become quite ambiguous and used to mean whatever the situation calls for it to mean. But Kumsa didn't put enough light on what if they return to their place of origin; like Malinowski did once his time was up. Due the fact that Malinowski was a refugee and then returned home it brings up other parallels to his time in the Trobriands to a period of exclusion, almost a liminal transition. Viewing fieldwork as a modern rite of passage means you have to go back to the initial fieldwork and view that as an initial rite of passage. Malinowski using either Turner (1967) or Van Gennep (1960) as a reference could been seen as passing through transition. Was Malinowski's time in the Trobriand Islands a liminal period for him, using both models it can be seen as such. With the structure and anti-structure model, the western world was the structured world, were all the right syntaxes with on, he had status, he had power, he felt strong. But being put in Melanesia, for fear of the war and what might happen, Malinowski felt a certain dip in his power, his status, he was a neophyte, learning about these people having to get involved with their culture and customs and then upon returning back to the colonial west, having all his own pleasures returned to him must have been akin to leaving the unstructured and returning to the structured. And using the other model of liminality, pre-liminal he was as he was, in the transition period, he had no home no nothing really, but upon coming out he was granted new knowledge and granted a might higher status among his fellow academics, obvious parallels being drawn.

Malinowski in his diary entries speaks about his thoughts while on the islands. It is these accounts that show the best insight on Malinowski and his feelings towards being displaced and having to remain on the Trobriand Islands. In these diaries Malinowski can be viewed as less than an anthropologist, the writings are of a man rather than an academic. In the diaries Malinowski expresses his dislike and frustration at the natives in their behaviours and actions, but interestingly his thoughts a man haven't hindered him as an academic. He also expresses his longing to go home, a thought that could be shared by many refugees. Strangely Malinowski also in this collect expresses his sexual fantasies and perversions, but unlike Jacque Lizot, another anthropologist who went into the field with perversions, he did not act upon them (to our knowledge). Lizot's actions and the actions of Anthropologists that couldn't keep the personal separate to the academic and ended up hurting the environment have been recorded by Broforsky(2005) and Tierney (2001). But looking at the diaries side by side with the ethnographic accounts recorded it makes you think, these are two different pieces of work by the same author, both gets across the feeling that they are Malinowski, but different yet. The diaries were written during his seclusion and just the best thing we have on Malinowski the refugee, with the others being finished off island, showing him as the academic. But it is important to understand what he was going through and how he coped with it, displacement is not easy for anyone and then when you have to do intensive work with that trauma is like an extra nail in the coffin, yet Malinowski did it. It is perhaps all this trials that he had to overcome which lead to him being one of if not the most influential anthropologist of the past century. 'A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term' (1967) was never intended to be published and as such its contents are that more real. While the other publications such as 'Argonauts of the Western Pacific' (1922) and 'Sex and Repression in savage society' (1927) give insight into the people and are the source of much Anthropological work to be built upon, his diaries which showed an insight to his secluded life, tend to have a bigger impact on anthropologists dealing with ethics and their own person soul searching.

In conclusion, from Malinowski's publications, Kumsa's accounts and generally the accepted environment that Malinowski had to endure during his exclusion it would be fair to label him as a forced migrant. As outlined by Turton (2002) 'Those who have moved across an international border in order to escape serious harm in their home state.' orced to remain away from his country due to a war he had nothing to do with, is a tune that echoes forever among forced migrants, so by Turton's passage he fits right in. Malinowski manages to in his time away, find strength in his liminal separation, he manages to revolutionise anthropology, making ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation a rite and a necessary in modern anthropology. The diaries though provide an even better setting, rather than looking at what Malinowski found while studying these people, you actually get to see how he was thinking while studying them, making the information he gathered about them second to data on the man himself. The time away lead to two very different anthropological trains of thought, the Kula ring, Trobriand kinship and ways of life, compared to the trials and life of a man out of place, an insight into the life of a forced migrant. Malinowski managed to make two pieces of revolutionary anthropological work with one study. And very well also he managed to make them cross over where needed, such as participant observation, but also keep them separate also, for example not letting his dislike for the people get in the way of research, or acting upon any sexual perversions he might have had or developed. As I have hoped to show, that Malinowski had the same feelings, experiences as any forced migrant, the shape his life may have taken was different, but the tune remains the same. Anyone can become a forced migrant, and they all at sometimes face the same questions and problems. Is it right to call him a migrant, or is that only for people from 3rd world and developing war torn countries, is the term refugee and migrant rooted in race and class, as Kumsa seems to imply. Looking at both her and Malinowski, you would assume she was a migrant, but not so much of him, what are the prejudices towards migrants and who can be viewed as one and who can be seen as not, despite similar situations?

References: Broforsky, R (2005) Yanomami: The fierce controversy and what we can learn from it. University of California press Kumsa, M. K. (2006) 'No! I'm Not a Refugee!' The Poetics of Be-Longing among Young Oromos in Toronto. Journal of Refugee Studies 19(2): 230 - 255 Lizot, J. (1985) [1976] Tales of the Yanomami: Daily Life in the Venezuelan forest. Cambridge university press. Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An account of native enterprise and adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Malinowski, B. (1927). Sex and Repression in Savage Society. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.. Malinowski, B. (1967). A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Word. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Tierney, P. (2001) [2000] Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon. London: Norton Turner, V. (1967) The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual, Betwixt and Between: The liminal period in rites de passage (pp. 93-111), London: Cornell University Press. Turton, D. (2002) Forced displacement and the nation-state, in J. Robinson (ed) Development and Displacement, (pp. 20-75), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van Gennep, A. (1960) The Rites of Passage. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.