In Sex and Repression in Savage Society Malinowski applies his experiences
on the Trobriand Islands to the study of sexuality, and the attendant issues of
eroticism, obscenity, incest, oppression, power and parenthood.During the First World War the pioneer anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski
found himself stranded on the Trobriand Islands, off the eastern coast of New
Guinea. By living among the people he studied there, speaking their language
and participating in their activities, he invented what became known as
'participant-observation'. This new type of ethnographic study was to have a
huge impact on the emerging discipline of anthropology. In Sex and Repression
in Savage Society Malinowski applied his experiences on the Trobriand Islands
to the study of sexuality, and the attendant issues of eroticism, obscenity,
incest, oppression, power and parenthood. In so doing, he both utilized and
challenged the psychoanalytical methods being popularized at the time in Europe
by Freud and others. The result is a unique and brilliant book that, though
revolutionary when first published, has since become a standard work on the
psychology of sex.
