This antique text contains a detailed treatise on the contacting of indigenous tribes and communities on the continent of Africa. This brochure is a reprint of a series of papers that appeared during 1934, 1935 and 1936 in the journal of the African Institute, the sponsor of the field-work out of which these discussions arose. Since all the contributors write from their first-hand experience, the essays have that peculiarly attractive freshness that can only come when those faced with problems of method describe and evaluate the devices they employ with the difficulties that face them in the course of their research. This text has been elected for modern republication due to its educational and historical value, and we are proud to republish it here complete with a new introductory biography of the author. Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski (1884-1942) was a Polish anthropologist,who is commonly hailed as one of the most influential anthropologists of the 20th-century.

In 1953 Margaret Mead and Rhoda Metraux produced The Study of Culture at a Distance, a compilation of research from this period. This work, long unavailable, presents a rich and complex methodology for the study of cultures through literature, film, informant interviews, focus groups, and projective techniques.

This volume is a reassessment of Malinowski's work by a group of his former pupils and colleagues. A frank evaluation, not a eulogy, it examines the real and lasting importance of Malinowski's contribution to a range of subjects.

This volume takes stock of the current status of the comparatively new discipline of `Anthropological Demography', and discusses its major methods, its main strengths, and its chief limitations. It includes contributions from both mainstream demographers and foremost anthropologists, all stressing the necessity of a shared agenda for each discipline to progress successfully and avoid marginalization. While the unique research and personal satisfaction afforded by `participant observation' is described, the book also highlights the potential contribution to the understanding of demographic events of much more than the field methods of traditional anthropology. In particular, it stresses the insights possible from qualitative focus group interviews, from longitudinal studies and from a greater interest in `armchair' anthropology, in which demographers complement their quantitative findings with qualitative information and understanding gleaned from a careful reading of the anthropological literature, in the form of both ethnographies and anthropological theories. In addition, it stresses the larger world of the ideal anthropological demographer: a world that includes the cultural context of course, but also takes into account the historical and political forces that condition so much individual behaviour. But the book is also a critical venture. It includes therefore considerable discussion of the common limits of the purely anthropological approach for understanding demographic events and processes, especially from a larger policy perspective, at the same time as it emphasizes the crucial role of the anthropological approach to designing policy that is potentially effective as well as socially and culturally sensitive. It reiterates the often complementary role of anthropological demography and also discusses some specific questions in demographic research which it does not as yet seem to have the capacity to illuminate. The book is aimed primarily at demographers wishing to broaden their research agenda and deepen their understanding of demographic behaviour, but it also hopes to convert mainstream anthropologists to take a more active interest in demographic issues. Both disciplines, after all, have a common intense interest in the kind of life and death issues that they can fruitfully explore together or by using one another's research methods.