Participant Observation and Grand Theory Essay

Bronis righteousness Malinowski, with his ground-breaking dramaturgy work of the Trobriand Islander community in the author of the 20th nose candy still today counts as a pioneer, if non the fo on a lower floor of the British Social Anthropology. In his famous book Argonauts of the westward peace-loving. An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagos of Melanesian unused dago that was scratch published in 1922 he develops an elaborate systemological fashion model for ethnographical investigate, also known as player ceremony.This method depart highly influence the anthropological way of greeting its line of merchandise of involve and hence its theoretical landscape from then on. Looking at Malinowskis description of the clan system of the Trobriand community, his descriptive and specifying style of conceptualisation becomes app arnt Each of the four clans has its own name Malasi, Lukuba, Lukwasisiga, Lukulabuta. () There atomic number 18 special combinations of the clan names with formative roots, to descrive men and women and the mixed gang belonging to the same clan Tomalasi a Malasi man Immalasi a Malasi women Memalasi the Malasi mickle ().Near the village of LabaI, on the northern shore of the main island, on that point is a spot called Obukula, which is marked by a coral asidecrop. Obukula is, in fact, a hole (dubwadebula), or ho design (bwala) that is to say, one of the points from which the first ancestors of the stock emerged. (Malinowski 1929 496 f. , italics in original) This very nuanced and case limited example of the material gained from his methodological antenna gives rise to the enquiry if Malinowskis heritage of participant bill has forever distanced Anthropology from bringing forward voluptuous theories?To be able to call back and discuss this question, it is important to first define what Malinowski circumscribed when he primed(p) out his dogma for ethnographical research by the term par ticipant observation. Secondly, a reason outr inspection of the dictum bossy surmisal is indwelling for our purpose and will be clarified in the second variance of this essay. Subsequently, we will regard at these two concepts and their notificationship to one several(prenominal) other in section three in order to plan of attack the question whether Anthropology arse be viewed as a science able to arise soaring theories. I. Participant observation In the foreword to Argonauts of the Western Pacific Malinowski states that he has hold outd in that Trobriand Island archipelago for about two years (), during which time he by nature acquired a thorough knowledge of the language. He did his work entirely alone, living for the greater part of the time right in the village. (1966 xvi). This statement already contains the force of participant observation in fieldwork.The hallmark of this methodological way of collection data is the immersion of the police detective into her or his field of study allwhere a long period of time and the personal part taking in the interactions of the people in the community studied. When Malinowski defined this new approach of first-hand observation he broke with the, at that time prevailing customs duty of armchair ethnography. In this prior approach, ethnographers compiled data gained from historical sources to deduce theories about accepted aspects of a usually native community (Osterhoudt 2010).One of the main contributions of Malinowskis new method to anthropological system was that by participating and detect behaviour in the sample community he found out that a discrepancy between actual behaviour and narrative statements exists. The suavity and uniformity, which the mere verbal statement suggest as the entirely make of human conduct, disappears with a better knowledge of pagan satisfyingity. (Malinowski 1979 83). This discovery in itself already composes a point of unfavorable judgment towards the pre ceding ethnographical arm-chair approach to data collection and evaluation. Even though participant observation is ground on a beingly broad and intuitive research design, it would, however, be incorrect to assume that this approach would be free of any renting principles on how to collect relevant data.Therefore, Malinowski describes how first, the research worker must possess real scientific aims (Malinowski 1966 6) and be familiar with the theoretical background of anthropology. Further, the researcher should stretch out in the field among the natives all by herself/ himself, and lastly the researcher has to find to special and strict scientific methods, such as drawing tables of likenessship terms, genealogies, maps, plans and diagrams (idib. 1966 10) to collect, prepare and record her/his data.The previous example of the clan system provides a maven of the detailed and case specific information that is obtained by the masking of participant observation. Besides the kind of the data collected, it should also be looked at the area of research and Malinowskis suggestion of the subject to be studied. He proposes that the field worker observes human beings acting within an environmental setting, ingrained and artificial influenced by it, and in turn transforming it in co-operation with each other. (Malinowski 1939 940). Thus, he focuses on the individual as a starting point and its relation to, and uncouth dependence on a hearty conclave. The inquiries of a researcher will hence have to include a specific study of the individual, as well as the group within which he has to live and work. (idib. 1939 950). The collective life within that group or society is widely to be seen in certain types of activities, institutions such as the economy, education, or social control and semipolitical system in place (idib.1939 954). These institutions, as he points out, can be seen as a fruitful base to check out the individuals motives and values and they will provide insight into the crop by which the individual is conditioned or culturally formed and of the group mechanisms of this process. (idib. 1939 954). II. cubic yard Theory In the following, the dictum marvellous guess will be specified and by doing so distinguished into two divers(prenominal) tendencies of apprehensiveness the concept.Wiarda (2010) defines a fearful possibleness in his book Grand Theories and Ideologies in the Social Sciences as those large, overarching explanations of social and political behaviorliberalism, Marxism, socialism, positivism, corporatism, political culture, institutionalism, psychoanalysis, rational choice theory, environmentalism (Jared Diamond), sociobiology, and now chemistry and geneticsthat give coherence to the social sciences, help us to organize and think about spay and modernization, and give us models to under live on complex behavior. (Wiarda 2010 x)This definition of grand theory as an overarching explanation is in li ne with Anthony Goods (1996) understanding of a cosmopolitanizing science that produces linguistic universal, descriptive and predictive laws (idib. 1996 34). Here a grand theory is understood as a theorem providing a universal and morphological framework that gives meaning to ill-tempered and individual phenomena on the ground. In this process the importance of the local and the point, () the extent to which our own concepts and attitudes have been influence (Skinner 1985 8) builds also a part of the universal framework.The second tendency to study the idea of grand theory goes a step further and is chiefly characterized by C. Wright mill around application of it. He vigorously criticised the concept in his book The Sociological Imagination (1959) The basic cause of grand theory is the initial choice of a level of thinking so general that its practitioners cannot logically get slew to observation. They never, as grand theorists, get down from the higher generalities to p roblems in their historical and structural contexts.This absence of a stanch sense of genuine problems, in turn, makes for the unreality so noticeable in their pages. (idib. 1959 33) As this quote shows, Mills understanding of a grand theory goes beyond our first definition. In this second understanding Mills implies that scientists generating grand theories are engrossed in their endeavour to build abstract, normative and across-the-board frame industrial plant and thus neglect the study of the meaning behind their constructs.The individual with its particular values and interpretations, as well as variety on the scale of the actual area of research fall behind. III. Participant Observation and its relation to Grand Theory Taken the just outlined instauration of grand theory influenced by Mills and putting it in kin with Malinowskis methodology of participant observation, the answer to our question whether or not Malinowskis heritage barred the way of Anthropology to ever prod uce grand theories appears unequivocally to be yes.Participant observation in its very nature is close to the individual and aims to explore, over a long period of time, which social and cultural forces influence the human being in a specific setting. Therefore, with regards to Mills conception of grand theory, Anthropology has a birth defect called participant observation that will always prevent it from producing highly abstract grand theories, which stand in no relation to the circumstances from where they were deduced from.A closer look reveals that Malinowskis understanding of the anthropological formation of theory aligns with Mills review article towards highly abstract grand theories It would be easy to quote works of high repute, and with a scientific hall-mark on them, in which wholesale generalisations are laid down before us, and we are not informed at all by what actual experiences the writers have reached their conclusions.() I consider that only such ethnographic sou rces are of unquestionable scientific value, in which we can clear draw the line between, on the one hand, the result of direct observation and of native statements and interpretations and on the other, the inferences of the author, based on his common sense of psychological insight. (Malinowski 1966 3) Here Malinowski differences between two approaches of data processing.One approach leads to mere wholesale generalisations and the other approach also includes the actual experiences the researcher faced on the local level that explain on what assumptions and observations her or his generalizations are based on. He hence supports the notion of Anthropology as a science of producing generalisations, as long as they are comprehensible and in direct relation to the reality on the ground. Malinowskis ethnographies exist to a vast amount of descriptive details that are very specific to certain social groups or individual preferences and he has hence ofttimes been criticized as an empiri cist (see Firth 1957).Also, one could argue that his attempt to put his findings in a neat structured box with columns, as he has done in his article Group and Individual in Functional Analysis (1966) seem rather compelled. Nevertheless, he was able to provide social science with universal and generalizing frameworks on, inter alia, on how social institutions function in relation to society. He states that social institutions have a definite organisation, () they are governed by authority, law and order in their public and personal relations, while the latter are, besides, under the control of extremely complex ties of kinship and clanship. (Malinowski 1966 10). Malinowskis suggestion to use institution as a starting point for social and cultural analysis has produced integrated descriptions instead of loosely classified catalogues of traits, and has stimulated the chock-full recording of case material from actual behavior as a supplement to the listing of ideal patterns. (Murdock 1943 443). Following Malinowskis ethnographic method and theory construction therefore aims to create a firm framework of the social constitution that disentangles the laws and regularities of all cultural phenomena from the irrelevances. (Malinowski 1966 10f. ). His approach is thus utmost more(prenominal) that only an accumulation of meaningless observations of an individuals life in a very specific society. Considering these arguments, Malinowski approach can, indeed, be seen as congruent with our first tendency to understand grand theory. The answer to our initial question should hence be that Anthropology is a science that can certainly produce grand theories in the sense of generalized frameworks and universalistic theories, without neglecting the importance of the local and the contingent (Skinner 1985 12).Furthermore, Anthropology can be viewed as an established science with its own field of study being the human being and its social group as well as their mutual dependen cies and influences. Anthropology stands in a clear relationship to the other basic science, because it is concerned with studying phenomena at one clearly discriminate level vis-a-vis those other sciences. (Good 1996 32) IV. Conclusion and Outlook As just set out, if the question is, if participatory observation was the downfall of grand theory in the anthropological work field, my answer to it would be no, depending on the definition of grand theory.The science of Anthropology certainly had to withstand some rough winds of criticism, for instance as Wood (1996) lays out, with its strong focus on meaning and actors understanding of facts rather than facts themselves (idib. 1996 31). Some might even pervert into Radcliff-Browns (1977) proposal that due to its inconsistency of attribution of meaning to commonly apply scientific terms social anthropology reveals itself as not yet a formed science. (idib. 1977 28).In my opinion, however, it was not the launch and implementation of participant observation as introduced by Malinowski in the late twenties of the 20th century that caused a rupture in Anthropology as a grand theory producing science. A more significant menace came 50 years later on when Malinowkis diaries that he wrote, while he was conducting research at the Trobriand Islands were published. These diaries uncover the he spend a lot of time with Europeans during his fieldwork, and it unfolds the stirred difficulties that Malinowski as fieldworker experienced.Statements such as this drives me to a stage white rage and abuse for bronze-colored skin (Malinowski 1989 261) imply that he was a man thinking in discriminating racial terms, who did not have such a sizable rapport with the people he studied after all. These disclosures and inconsistencies between his ethnographies and his emotional encounters raised serious doubts on the validity of Malinowskis theoretical conception and methodological approach of participant observation, and thus ques tioned the anthropological stance as an established science in general.Especially James Cliffords evaluate on Malinowski and his later to be published book Writing stopping point The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (1986), together with George Marcus has created a controversy and critical make do with a strong impact on the anthropological work field. The penning culture debate resulted in a crisis of representation that implied to question every ethnographical voice. This shaped a new postmodern genre of self-reflective research report (Clifford 1993 119 trasnl.C. R. ), where the unanimous voice of the author has to be subject to a consistent reflexion process and the emphasis is put on polyphony and complexity. In my opinion, this postmodern angst of the anthropological author to be too determinate in her or his statements and conclusions, led to a trend that was far more hazardous to Anthropology as a grand theory producing science, than the introduction of Malinowskis participant observation methodology.To make myself clear, I am not claiming that the criticism on Malinowskis diaries and the postmodern episode was in itself a annoyance on Anthropology. I highly value the positive impact it had, such as, inter alia, the sensitization of the ethnographer. He or she has to be aware of her or his own position of power in the society studied, and her or his mutual influences on the informants.However, when it comes to extracting and generating universal laws, I believe it is majorly important for Anthropology as a science to not dwindle in a postmodern pop of relativizations, but confidently create grand theories with regards to the actual phenomena observed. Thus, I potently agree with Anthony Good (1996) who states that if anthropology is not a generalizing science, it is not worth doing. (idib. 1996 30 italics in original). Bibliography Clifford, James Marcus, George E. , (1986) Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography., Berkley , University of California Press Clifford, James, (1993) Halbe Wahrheiten In Rippl, Gabriele (Hg. ) Unbeschreiblich weiblich Texte zur feministischen Anthropologie, Frankfurt am Main, Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verl. Firth, Raymond, (1957) Man and Culture An Evaluation of the Work of Malinowski, New York, The Humanities Press. Good, Anthrony, (1996) For the Motion Social Anthropology is a Generalizing Science or it is aught from Ingold, Tim (ed. ), Key Debates in Anthropology pp. 30-36, Oxon, Routledge.