Compare & Contrast Malinowski and Shostak’s Ethnography Methods

The origin of human kind only goes so far back in which it is very difficult to research all accounts of such. Our prehistoric past does not reveal all of the sufficient documents in which we need to obtain different information about human kind. There is much lack of evidence that can help to further understand our past. To better help us, there are people who researches this call Ethnographer in which they study Anthropology, the study and research of the origin, and the physical, social, and cultural development of humans. Two readings in which helps us to concentrate on cultural approaches towards anthropology are Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Bronislaw Malinowski and NISA, The Life and words of a !Kung woman by Marjorie Shostak.

These two readings give us background on African Americans in Southern Africa.

The first reading by Bornislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific was a very interested introduction to Anthropology. Malinowski walks us through what he goes through as an ethnographer. He begins introducing the trade routes of Eastern New Guinea in which he sets out to describe the trading system known as the Kula. He lived there temporarily to observe the conditions of the Natives and collect relative information. He mentioned that he visited and stood in a Native town on the south coast of New Guinea with a partner in whom things did not go so well. When he returned by his self assuming that it would be better, the Natives soon learn to adapt him into their lives. He began to study their living habits and their religion. When he first started to live there, he was foreign to the Natives and realized that he couldn't understand them and felt uncomfortable. To ease that feeling, he drew up plans and started to collect information about kinship, their connection by blood, marriage, or adoption. He doesn't take any short-cuts in learning but yet took the long path in doing it so. Once he has adapted to their culture and environment, the Natives no longer took him much as a foreigner but viewed him as just as like one of them. As he finishes his research, he writes down what he has learned