Bronislaw Malinowski And Karen Ho: An Ethnographic Study

Through their research, the anthropologists Marcel Mauss, Bronislaw Malinowski, and Karen Ho each explored the paradox of temporality and relationships in particular forms of markets and exchange. Mauss wanted to know how participants in gift cultures could exchange goods frequently and yet maintain strong relationships. Malinowski strived to understand how the villagers of Papua New Guinea derived value from the Kula exchange without retaining economic value. And Ho questioned why people knowingly supported Wall Street even if they were liquidated. As the anthropologists try to solve these contradictions, a major question arises: should anthropologists be interpreters, observers, or participants in their own studies?
Not conducting any fieldwork
This form of research highlighted the power imbalance within Wall Street but it also posed a problem for Ho. It was difficult for her to acquire higher access within Wall Street and she used personal narratives from higher-ups in the business to serve as secondary sources. While Ho’s tactic did provide her with a very in depth ethnography of Wall Street, the majority of people that she consulted were women of color. Like Malinowski who did not include women, this skewed her research to one viewpoint and did not let her see the big picture. Unlike Malinowski, Ho actually became part of Wall Street and learned about the world of business from the inside. She was liquidated and spoke about downsizing personally. Ho learned that the habitus of Wall Street is what conditions the bankers to act a certain way and to understand the brevity of their employment at any given investment bank: “Recruited from elite universities and represented as ‘‘the smartest,’’ investment bankers enter into a Wall Street workplace of rampant insecurity, intense hard work, and exorbitant ‘‘pay for performance’’ compensation… investment banker habitus which allows them to embrace an organizational model of ‘‘employee liquidity’’ and to recommend these experiences for all workers” (Ho 13). This individualism differs completely from the camaraderie of the Kula, which may be why Ho’s fieldwork as an individual ethnographer resonates more than the cursory
Mauss saw the overarching connotations behind the Kula and Potlatch but he failed to explain the exchange from the perspective of the natives. Malinowski experienced the Kula first hand and gave detailed descriptions of the trading and yet his work falls short of encompassing multiple facet of the Kula society, especially women. Ho offered a personal narrative from inside of Wall Street but from the inside, she could only get secondary stories about life in the top tiers. Ideally, an anthropologist should be able to see their study from a distance to understand the whole system, be a passive observer who recounts what they see, and a participant who can explain their own experiences from within the study. Because that is very difficult, it may be better if a group of anthropologists work together to implement Mauss, Malinowski, and Ho’s approaches to ethnographic