Bronislaw Malinowski, in Argonauts of the Western Pacific, provides "an account of native enterprise and adventure in the archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea." In his Preface, Sir James G. Frazer writes that Malinowski uses comprehensive and effective methodology, and the work itself supports Frazer's claim. Malinowski applies both "theoretical training and practical experience," living
as a native among the natives for many months together, watching them daily at work and at play, conversing with them in their own tongue, and deriving all his information from the surest sources---personal observation and statements made to him directly by the natives . . . without the intervention of an interpreter. . . . He has accumulated a mass of materials, of high scientific value, bearing on the social, religion, and economic . . . life of the Trobriand Islanders (vii-viii).
The current volume is meant to be a preliminary work focusing on the exchange system---primarily but not exclusively economic---of the natives on their own land and with other nearby islanders.
What makes Malinowski's book both fascinating and complete is that "he takes full account of the complexity of human nature. . . . He remembers that man is a creature of emotion at least as much as of reason" (ix). Malinowski does not ignore the human element for the sake of the scientific element, or, more accurately and meaningfully, he recognizes that the emotional element is a significant part of the scientific or empirical aspect of human life.
Malinowski does not merely want to paint a picture of life as it is lived by the people he studies---he wants the reader to enter into that living picture as much as possible:
Perhaps as we read the account of these remote customs there may emerge a feeling of solidarity with the endeavours and ambitions of these natives. . . . Perhaps through realizing human nature in a shape very distant and foreign to us, we sh...