Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942)

It is important to remember that Malinowski is a product of his times and those who came before him. His belief that society is a system of “interrelated parts” as well as the thought of the Kula as a physical system directly mirrors Spencer’s “organic analogy.” Though Malinowski was influenced by Durkheim, similar to Radcliffe-Brown; Malinowski studied behavior in cultural context, dissimilar to Radcliff-Brown who observed social structures as an abstract concept that exist separate from the individuals. Malinowski incorporated the Boasian concepts of participant observation and integration of culture in his work,  but he also vehemently opposed Boasian Historical Particularism and Marxist doctrine; respectively, focusing on the “interrelation of elements within a society” instead of the history of the group in question and his having called idea of “the primitive communism of savages” a “widespread misconception.”
Malinowski was a Polish-born British anthropologist, known for his theories in Psychological Functionalism. He thought that culture and cultural practices fulfilled an individual’s biological needs, therefore concluding that humans can never be without culture because they would not be able to survive. From the book, these biological needs included nutrition, reproduction, bodily comforts, safety, relaxation, movement, and growth. Without fulfilling these needs, individuals would not help in contributing to a culture’s success. In his research, Malinowski looked into how people pursued their own goals while working within the confines of cultural limitations. How does he view native populations? What were Malinowski’s views on colonialism and racial hierarchy?

Malinowski originated the school of social anthropology known as functionalism. In contrast to Radcliffe-Brown's structural functionalism, Malinowski argued that culture functioned to meet the needs of individuals rather than society as a whole. He reasoned that when the needs of individuals, who comprise society, are met, then the needs of society are met. To Malinowski, the feelings of people and their motives were crucial knowledge to understand the way their society functioned:

Besides the firm outline of tribal constitution and crystallized cultural items which form the skeleton, besides the data of daily life and ordinary behavior, which are, so to speak, its flesh and blood, there is still to be recorded the spirit—the natives' views and opinions and utterances.

Malinowski likewise influenced the course of African history, serving as an academic mentor to Jomo Kenyatta, the father and first president of modern-day Kenya. Malinowski also wrote the introduction to Facing Mount Kenya.

Strength and Weakness 

His methodology in achieving this involved a three part system:

1.     Complex relationships recorded in Synoptic charts:
Just as kinship charts detail complex familial relations, these synoptic charts illustrate relationships in other dimensions of culture economic, legal, magical, rights to territory, etc.

2.     Nuances of behavior (the imponderabilia of actual life) Malinowski reminded ethnographers that their subjects are living humans, not museum specimens.

3.     Subjective mental states, derived from

According to Malinowski, culture exists to meet the basic biological, psychological, and social needs of the individual.  

Weakness 

1. Malinowski extrapolated from the particular case of the Trobriand islanders to all traditional societies.
2. Non-falsifiable: you can always come up with some functional explanation of a particular practice in terms of needs. But dont societies do things which are counter-productive for the individuals, or that are maintained because they are simply customary, not having any particular function?