Work · Sociology & Social Theory
Argonauts of the Western Pacific
Monograph on the kula, a ring of ceremonial exchange in which shell necklaces and armbands circulate in opposite directions among islands off eastern New Guinea; its introduction sets out the method of long fieldwork and participant observation.
Introduction
Malinowski published “Argonauts of the Western Pacific” in London in 1922, with a preface by James George Frazer. It is based on his fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands in 1915–16 and 1917–18. The book describes the kula, a system of exchange in which necklaces of red shell travel clockwise and armbands of white shell anticlockwise around a ring of islands; partners give and receive them on long canoe voyages accompanied by magic, ceremony and ordinary trade. Malinowski showed that the valuables are not used but held for a time and passed on, conferring renown and binding partners over many years. The introduction, on the “subject, method and scope” of the inquiry, became a founding text of anthropological fieldwork; Mauss used the book in “The Gift”.
Read the full text
Free full text, often an older edition or translation
Connections
Taken up in
- Magic, Science and Religion1925 · Bronisław Malinowski
- Peasant Life in China: A Field Study of Country Life in the Yangtze Valley1939 · Fei Xiaotong
More works by Bronisław Malinowski
As of November 2026 · Improve this page · How Agora is made