Written Assignment 1

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Patrick Ghizzone Written Assignment 1 Introduction to Anthropology * Describe the fieldwork experience of Weiner in the Trobriand Islands. * What was her initial expectation? * What had shaped that expectation? * What difference did the expectation make? * Was she aware of her expectation? * What methods did she use to neutralize the expectation? * What other problems did she have, and how did she resolve or overcome them? * Use examples from her study to illustrate five (5) characteristics of culture described by Haviland et al. In this paper we will review and discuss Annette Weiner’s work in the Trobriand Islands. Weiner was an anthropologist, who in 1971, made her first trip to the Trobriand Islands following up on the research of the famous anthropologist Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski. Prior to arriving on the Islands, Weiner felt she had a pretty good grasp of what she was going to encounter from reading the research that had been previously done by Malinowski. However after her arrival she realized that there was more to Trobriand customs and culture than she had read in Malinowski’s work. Weiner worked for many months with these discordant realities, always conscious of Malinowski’s shadow, his words, and his explanations. 1 She began to realize there were differences between what he had written and what she was observing on her own trip. Weiner began to use her studies and an open minded approach to begin to contrast what she was observing, which was that woman of the society contributed more to the culture than Malinowski wrote. Aside from the problem of having to forget what she had read, she also had to learn a new language, what actions meant in society, as well as trying to gain their trust as an outsider and a woman. On the first day in the village where she took up residence, she was taken

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