Złote runo
The Golden Fleece

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt to look upon the history of anthropology not only through the diachronic lenses, the popular “science development” category, which has evolutionistic provenience, but also synchronic, through the process of moulding and shifting concepts. Thus, it is possible, to claim Argonauts of the Western Pacific not only as a pioneering “fieldwork monograph” or an origin of the “functionalism theory”, but also as – analogous to Claude Lévi-Strauss’ concept on the place of myth in culture – an alternative of cultural anthropology, or, its archive (in the sense explained by Michael Foucault). In this case the analysis is cast upon the relations between structure and function. It appears that in fact Malinowski’s conception is not as far away from the latter structuralist theories of Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown and Lévi-Strauss. The domination of functionalistic thought in this case implies putting an emphasis onto the ways of realising and sensing the cultural constructs by the natives. As a result, the Argonauts… became primarily a description of a dynamic, living culture; for that reason, the core of the book – uncommonly for anthropological scientific works – is a journey showing the culture in action.

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