Participant Observation and Grand Theory Essay

Bronislaw Malinowski, with his ground-breaking bailiwick work of the Trobriand Islander community in the beginning of the 20th ampere-second still today counts as a pi 1er, if not the founder of the British societal Anthropology. In his famous book Argonauts of the Western Pacific. An Account of primordial Enterp prepare and Adventure in the Archipelagos of Melanesian New Guinea that was front published in 1922 he develops an elaborate methodological framework for ethnographical look into, withal known as histrion honoring.This method willing exceedingly influence the anthropological way of approaching its bowl of study and indeed its theoretical landscape from then on. Looking at Malinowskis description of the kin system of the Trobriand community, his descriptive and specifying style of formulation becomes apparent one-on-onely of the four clans has its own name Malasi, Lukuba, Lukwasisiga, Lukulabuta. () There are special combinations of the clan names with forma tive roots, to descrive men and women and the mixed plurality be broading to the alike clan Tomalasi a Malasi man Immalasi a Malasi women Memalasi the Malasi multitude ().Near the crossroads of LabaI, on the northern shore of the main island, there is a tinge called Obukula, which is marked by a coral outcrop. Obukula is, in fact, a golf hole (dubwadebula), or house (bwala) that is to say, one of the points from which the first ancestors of the linage emerged. (Malinowski 1929 496 f. , italics in original) This really nuanced and good example detail example of the material gained from his methodological approach gives rise to the question if Malinowskis heritage of participant observation has forever distanced Anthropology from livery forward luxuriant theories?To be able to consider and discuss this question, it is of the essence(predicate) to first define what Malinowski circumscribed when he laid out his tenet for ethnographical research by the term participant obs ervation. Secondly, a contiguous inspection of the dictum meter theory is indispensable for our purpose and will be clarified in the second division of this essay. Subsequently, we will tone of voice at these two concepts and their accessible intercourseship to one another in section three in order to approach the question whether Anthropology can be viewed as a wisdom able to producegrand theories. I. thespian observation In the foreword to Argonauts of the Western Pacific Malinowski states that he has lived in that Trobriand Island archipelago for about two years (), during which date he naturally acquired a ingrained 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 essence of participant observation in fieldwork.The hallmark of this methodological way of suck uping data is the absorption of the researcher into her or his field of study over 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 tradition of armchair ethnography. In this prior(prenominal) approach, ethnographers compiled data gained from historical sources to deduce theories about certain aspects of a unremarkably endemic community (Osterhoudt 2010).One of the main contributions of Malinowskis new method to anthropological theory was that by participating and observing behaviour in the sample community he found out that a discrepancy between actual behaviour and narrative statements exists. The smoothness and uniformity, which the mere vocal statement suggest as the still shape of man conduct, disappears with a better knowledge of cultural reality. (Malinowski 1979 83). This discovery in itself already composes a point of criticism towards the preceding ethnographical arm-chair approach to data entreaty and evaluation. Even though participant observation is base on a seemingly broad and intuitive research design, it would, however, be incorrect to buy out that this approach would be free of any directive principles on how to collect relevant data.Therefore, Malinowski describes how first, the researcher must possess real scientific aims (Malinowski 1966 6) and be familiar with the theoretical background of anthropology. Further, the researcher should live in the field among the natives all by herself/ himself, and lastly the researcher has to stick to special and inflexible scientific methods, such as drag outing tables of kinship terms, genealogies, maps, plans and diagrams (idib. 1966 10) to collect, prepare and land her/his data.The previous example of the clan system provides a grit of the fine and case specific information that is obtained by the application of participant observation. similarly the kind of the data collected, it should also be looked a t the ambit of research and Malinowskis suggestion of the subject to be studied. He proposes that the field thespian observes human creations acting within an environmental setting, natural and artificial influenced by it, and in turn transforming it in co-operation with each other. (Malinowski 1939 940). Thus, he focuses on the unmarried as a starting point and its relation to, and mutual habituation on a social group. The inquiries of a researcher will thusly stimulate to include a specific study of the individual, as closely as the group within which he has to live and work. (idib. 1939 950). The collective life story 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 investigate the individuals motives and values and they will provide insight into the proc ess by which the individual is conditioned or culturally formed and of the group mechanisms of this process. (idib. 1939 954). II. Grand hypothesis In the following, the dictum grand theory will be specify and by doing so distinguished into two different tendencies of sagaciousness the concept.Wiarda (2010) defines a grand theory in his book Grand Theories and Ideologies in the Social Sciences as those large, overarching bills of social and political behaviorliberalism, Marxism, socialism, positivism, corporatism, political culture, institutionalism, psychoanalysis, rational alternative theory, environmentalism (Jared Diamond), sociobiology, and now chemistry and geneticsthat give coherence to the social sciences, service us to organize and think about change and modernization, and give us models to bring in complex behavior. (Wiarda 2010 x)This definition of grand theory as an overarching explanation is in line with Anthony Goods (1996) understanding of a generalizing scie nce that produces universal, descriptive and predictive laws (idib. 1996 34). here a grand theory is mum as a theorem providing a universal and structural framework that gives meaning to particular and individual phenomena on the ground. In this process the importance of the local and the contingent, () the extent to which our own concepts and attitudes have been shaped (Skinner 1985 8) builds also a part of the universal framework.The second tendency to conceive the idea of grand theory goes a step further and is mainly characterized by C. Wright move application of it. He vigorously criticised the concept in his book The sociological Imagination (1959) The staple cause of grand theory is the initial quality of a take of thinking so general that its practitioners cannot logically maturate downward(a) to observation. They never, as grand theorists, get down from the higher generalities to problems in their historical and structural contexts.This absence of a firm sense of honest problems, in turn, makes for the unreality so noticeable in their pages. (idib. 1959 33) As this quotation mark shows, Mills understanding of a grand theory goes beyond our first definition. In this second understanding Mills implies that scientists generating grand theories are rivet in their endeavour to build gazump, normative and all-embracing frameworks and thus fail 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. histrion Observation and its relation to Grand surmise Taken the just outlined conception of grand theory influenced by Mills and putting it in relationship with Malinowskis methodology of participant observation, the answer to our question whether or not Malinowskis heritage exclude the way of Anthropology to ever produce grand theories appears unambiguously 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 constantly 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 criticism 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 sell 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 sources are of unquestionable scientific value, in which we can clearly 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 come of descriptive details that are very specific to certain social groups or individual preferences and he has hence often been criticized as an empiricist (see Firth 1957).Also, one could argue that his attempt to put his findings in a neat merged bo x with columns, as he has done in his article conference 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 passing 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 compound descriptions instead of loosely classified catalogues of traits, and has stimulated the fuller recording of case material from actual behavior as a supplement to the lean of ideal patterns. (Murdock 1943 443). Following Malinowskis ethnographic method and theory spin therefore aims to create a firm fram ework of the social piece that disentangles the laws and regularities of all cultural phenomena from the irrelevances. (Malinowski 1966 10f. ). His approach is thus far more 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 dependencies and influences. Anthropology stands in a clear relationship to the other basic science, because it is concerned with studying phenom ena at one clearly discriminate level vis-a-vis those other sciences. (Good 1996 32)