The anthropologist must relinquish his comfortable position in the long chair on the veranda of the missionary compound, Government station, or planter's bungalow, where, armed with pencil and notebook and at times with a whisky and soda, he has been accustomed to collect statements from informants.... He must go out into the villages, and see the natives at work in gardens, on the beach, in the jungle; he must sail with them to distant sandbanks and to foreign tribes.
Interpretation
Anthropologists should engage directly with the communities they study rather than remaining detached observers.
This quote emphasizes the importance of immersive fieldwork in anthropology. Bronislaw Malinowski advocates for anthropologists to leave their comfortable settings and actively participate in and observe the lives of the people they study. By doing so, they can gain a deeper understanding of cultures, practices, and the realities faced by different communities, rather than relying solely on second-hand accounts or superficial interactions.
In practice
This quote can be used to inspire students in anthropology classes to engage in fieldwork activities.
Coastal sailing as long as it is perfectly safe and easy commands no magic. Overseas expeditions are invariably bound up with ceremonies and ritual. Man resorts to magic only where chance and circumstances are not fully controlled by knowledge.
Magic enables man to carry out with confidence his important tasks, to maintain his poise and his mental integrity in fits of anger, in the throes of hate, of unrequited love, of despair and anxiety. The function of magic is to ritualize man's optimism, to enhance his faith in the victory of hope over fear. Magic expresses the greater value for man of confidence over doubt, of steadfastness over vacillation, of optimism over pessimism.
The final goal ... is to grasp the native's point of view, _x000D_ his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world.
There are no peoples however primitive without religion and magic. Nor are there, it must be added at one, any savage races lacking in either the scientific attitude, or in science, though this lack has been frequently attributed to them.
My shorthand answer is that I try to write the kind of book that I would like to read. If I can make it clear and interesting and compelling to me, then I hope maybe it will be for the reader.
A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever.
To starve a child of the spell of the story, of the canter of the poem, oral or written, is a kind of living burial. It is to immure him in emptiness.
A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity that ever were written.
One of the biggest ways to level the playing field is to give all young people the same context on what opportunities are out there. And that means touching on some of the questions that are a little taboo in society: How much money do you make? What are your stresses? What would you do differently if you could?
Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.
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