several places in Australia and the islands of the South Pacific for his anthropological research, so he requested the authorities to allow him to serve his internment in the Trobriand Islands, a British-Australian possession in the South Pacific. This was agreed to — the Australian government even financed his trip and Malinowski spent a year and a half living in the Trobriand Islands. He lived in a tent in the native villages, learnt the local language, and interacted closely with the ‘natives’ in an effort to learn about their culture. He maintained careful and detailed records of his observations and also kept a daily diary.
He later wrote books on Trobriand culture based on these field notes and diaries; these books quickly became famous and are considered classics even today. Even before his Trobriand experience, Malinowski had been converted to the belief that the future of anthropology lay in direct and unmediated interaction between the anthropologist and the native culture. He was convinced that the discipline would not progress beyond the status of an intellectual hobby unless its practitioners engaged themselves in systematic first-hand observation preceded by intensive language learning. This observation had to be done in context — that is, the anthropologist had to live among the native people and observe life as it happened rather than interviewing individual natives summoned to the town or outpost for this purpose.
The use of interpreters was also to be avoided — it was only when the anthropologist could interact directly with the natives that a true and authentic account of their culture could be produced. His influential position at the London School of Economics and the reputation of his work in the Trobriand enabled Malinowski to campaign for the institutionalisation of field work as a mandatory part of the training imparted to students of anthropology. It also helped the discipline to gain acceptance as a rigorous science worthy of scholarly respect. then about his/her parents’ generations — father, mother, their brothers and sisters etc.
— then about the grandparents and their brothers, sisters and so on. This would be done