Marginal history

Ballard, Chris

doi:10.1080/02757206.2019.1607733

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…In the Diaries, there are frequent remarks about variation in dialects, technology, and behaviour, and their implications for broader theorizing about human evolution. Miklucho-Maclay was also an extraordinary illustrator, and he would put this talent to good use during his time in New Guinea, drawing people, landscapes, architecture, technology, and ritual symbols (Ballard 2022). He apparently also used a camera, but any resulting prints have been lost (Ballard 2022).…”

Section: Pillar 3 Systematic Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nikolai Mikluho-Maclay’s ethnographic methods in New Guinea (1871-1873)

Venkataraman

2023

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The invention of the ethnographic method of participant observation is typically attributed to the Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, but there is increasing recognition of pre-Malinowskian ethnographers who worked outside the tradition of the British school of social anthropology. Among them is the Russian biologist Nikolai Miklucho-Maclay, a zoologist-turned-anthropologist who conducted pioneering fieldwork and Indigenous advocacy in New Guinea and elsewhere in the South Pacific and Asia. I analyze Miklucho-Maclay’s ethnographic style according to the three pillars of ethnographic research articulated by Malinowski in The Argonauts of the Western Pacific: long periods of solitary fieldwork, genuine scientific goals, and systematic methods. I argue that Miklucho-Maclay independently arrived at Malinowskian insights about ethnographic methods by virtue of his systematic zoological training with the morphologist Ernst Haeckel; moreover, he cultivated a progressive sense of empathy with his ethnographic subjects that was lacking among his contemporaries. While Miklucho-Maclay’s diaries were only published in 1923, after the primary agenda of the British school had been established, Malinowski referred to Miklucho-Maclay as a ‘new type’ of ethnographer. The intellectual roots of participant observation may be more diffuse (and less British) than commonly believed.

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Section: Pillar 3 Systematic Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Miklucho-Maclay was also an extraordinary illustrator, and he would put this talent to good use during his time in New Guinea, drawing people, landscapes, architecture, technology, and ritual symbols (Ballard 2022). He apparently also used a camera, but any resulting prints have been lost (Ballard 2022).…”

Section: Pillar 3 Systematic Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nikolai Mikluho-Maclay’s ethnographic methods in New Guinea (1871-1873)

Venkataraman

2023

Preprint

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“…7 However his contribution to anthropological method is assessed, Maclay was 'in the Torres Strait before Haddon, the Trobriand Islands before Malinowski, and Manus before Mead'. 8 What the essay published here provides is some indication of the fundamental questions and ideas guiding Maclay's research from the outset. Our contention is that his subsequent enquiries remained largely true to this preliminary statement, and that his extensive travels 3 need to be understood as a systematic exploration and working out of the propositions first set out systematically in this essay.…”

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confidence: 99%

MANUSCRIPT XXXV: Why Miklouho-Maclay Chose New Guinea

Govor¹,

Ballard²

2021

The Journal of Pacific History

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Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay (1846-88), the Russian explorer, naturalist and anthropologist, dedicated twelve years of his short life to field research in Oceania, from 1871 to 1883. Here we provide the first translation into English of an important but unfinished essay by Maclay, written early in the course of his travels, between 1871-2, and titled 'Why I chose the is [land] of New Guinea as the base of my voyage to the is[lands] of the Pacific Ocean?'. Intended as a draft introduction to his major book, the manuscript of which was later lost, the essay was neither completed nor published during his lifetime. Our introduction sets Maclay's essay within the contexts of the development of ethnographic method, European knowledge about Papuans and New Guinea, and his own unfolding research program.

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Marginal history

Cited by 2 publications

References 12 publications

Nikolai Mikluho-Maclay’s ethnographic methods in New Guinea (1871-1873)

Nikolai Mikluho-Maclay’s ethnographic methods in New Guinea (1871-1873)

MANUSCRIPT XXXV: Why Miklouho-Maclay Chose New Guinea

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