In short, its publication created a minor scandal and helped precipitate the crisis of anthropological conscience that anticipated the postmodern turn in the discipline. In unmasking his personal weaknesses and prejudices it appeared to give the lie to his professional image as an empathetic fieldworker whose methodological slogan was ‘participant observation’. With its moral struggles, its Dostoevskian moods, its Conradian allusions, its Freudian subtext of mother-love and frustrated sexual desire, its misanthropic and racist outbursts, the Diary abundantly revealed some unpleasant aspects of Malinowski’s character. It would become the most infamous, most nakedly honest document in the annals of social anthropology. Against his daughters’ wishes, however, and to the dismay of many colleagues who had heard rumours of its controversial contents, his widow published a translation under the title A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term (Routledge 1967). Written in Polish, it is clear that he had not intended it for publication. This diary, along with several others, was discovered in his Yale University office after his death. With these words, written on 18 July 1918, Polish-born Bronislaw Malinowski abruptly ended the intimate diary that he kept during his final stint of fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands of eastern New Guinea.
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