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Bronisław Malinowski

Polish anthropologist and ethnographer based in England and the USA (1884–1942)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ184992 ↗
Source-derived summary

Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (Polish: [brɔˈɲiswaf maliˈnɔfskʲi]; 7 April 1884 – 16 May 1942) was a Polish anthropologist and ethnologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of anthropology.

Malinowski was born and raised in what was part of the Austrian partition of Poland, Kraków. He graduated from King John III Sobieski 2nd High School. In the years 1902–1906 he studied at the philosophy department of the Jagiellonian University and received his doctorate there in 1908. In 1910, at the London School of Economics (LSE), he worked on exchange and economics, analysing Aboriginal Australia through ethnographic documents. In 1914, he travelled to Australia. He conducted research in the Trobriand Islands and other regions in New Guinea and Melanesia where he stayed for several years, studying indigenous cultures.

Returning to England after World War I, he published his principal work, Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), which established him as one of Europe's most important anthropologists. He took posts as a lecturer and later as chair in anthropology at the LSE, attracting large numbers of students and exerting great influence on the development of British social anthropology. Over the years, he guest-lectured at several American universities; when World War II broke out, he remained in the United States, taking an appointment at Yale University.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Bronisław Malinowski” as polish anthropologist and ethnographer based in England and the USA (1884–1942). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bronisław, Malinowski and Polish.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1884, 1942, 1902, 1906—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1884-04-07, 1884-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Bronisław, Malinowski and Polish providing the first useful test.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q184992. VIAF identifies the subject as 64008803. The Library of Congress control number is n50040651. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1884, 1942, 1902 and 1906.

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This entry incorporates text from “Bronisław Malinowski” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.