Talk:Off the verandah

This is probably coined by Jarvie not Malinowski
Although there are attributions to Malinowski (ex. Adam Kuper, . "As Malinowski said"), I could not find any citation or quotation to Malinowski saying this, or even using the word "veranda(h)". GScholar for '"Off the verandah" Malinowski/"Off the veranda" Malinowski yields only a single position, a German review of Jarvie's The Revolution in Anthropology (1964), which seems to appear on page 43. There, Jarvie seems to paraphrase Malinowski in dialogue with his followers: "Soon the voices of the swelling mass of students could be heard... "Father... show us how ewe may come to do so" they beseeched Malinowski... Malinowski heeded their please. Back came the reply, the second slogan: "Come down off the verandah, come out of your studies and join the people". Translated this reads "do not sit spinning theories like spider webs on the verandah... go down among the people, get to know them...".

June Nash in (1975) wrote that "Malinowski (71) made a step forward when he called upon his students to "come down off the veranda," but his descendants are dissatisfied with the "view from under the mosquito tent." 71 is Malinowski's 1929 article, but that work doesn't use the term verandah. Not sure where the "view from under the mosquito tent" quote is from. It seems just like more bad referencing creating confusion down the road, sigh. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  07:14, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Which veranda(h)s?
Just a driveby comment – I'm not an anthropologist by any stretch – but a recent-ish London Review of Books piece by Francis Gooding titled "G&Ts on the Veranda" (I think readers without a subscription can access one free LRB article a month) might possibly clarify which veranda(h)s are meant here. Going by Gooding's piece, they would seem to be those of of colonial administrators' houses (apologies if this goes without saying): "The networks of imperial power granted fieldworkers safe passage among remote peoples and – after a hard day’s work interviewing people about what they ate for dinner or whose cousin was whose – a gin and tonic on the local district officer’s veranda. [...] The G&Ts were left out of the monographs, though not out of L’Afrique fantôme (1934), Michel Leiris’s riveting diary – and exposé – of an ethnological collecting mission led by Marcel Griaule across what was mostly French colonial Africa." The piece doesn't mention Malinowski or acknowledge "off the verandah" as a (presumably) common criticism of anthropology, armchair or otherwise. Ham II (talk) 11:36, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That's how I understood it too – it's the image that spontaneously came to my mind as well while reading the article. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:09, 30 September 2021 (UTC)




 * Yes, clearly Malinowski can't have been thinking of a future red-brick university... I have in mind an image much like this one, and it seems that Florian Blaschke thinks so too. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:38, 30 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I meant the colonial context, yes. Thanks for the photo! Would it be OR to include it in the article? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:08, 14 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Not a bit, the article clearly requires it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:41, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Right, and also to clarify, he never said verandah himself, this was how others later summarized his argument. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 15:47, 14 October 2021 (UTC)