Talk:Off the verandah

This is probably coined by Jarvie not Malinowski

Although there are attributions to Malinowski (ex. Adam Kuper, [1]. "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 [2]. 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 [3] (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 [4], 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| reply here} 07:14, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 01:32, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

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• Article history

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A photo (Plate I) from Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), showing the native village as well as Malinowski's tent.

• ... that criticism of armchair theorizing in anthropology has resulted in scholars "coming down off the verandah"? Source: [5] and others cited
  • ALT1:... that Bronisław Malinowski was one of the first anthropologist to "come down off the verandah" (and pitch a tent - pictured - in a native village) to study his subjects? Source: [6] and [7]

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Hakan Akkaya

Created by Piotrus (talk). Self-nominated at 05:36, 9 September 2021 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: - ALT0 looks good, can't find support for one of the first in ALT1 although I might just be missing it
• Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: ALT0 is good to go! ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 01:13, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Ezlev, For "one of the first", see the cites in the main article (here I indeed focused on the tent). Check for example [8]. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:27, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, Piotrus! Since that means ALT1 could run also, I should say that the image (while fascinating) isn't all that clear at main page size. ALT0 is still good to go, and ALT1 is good to go without the image. ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 02:35, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Ezlev, User:Ixocactus just extracted a bunch more images, see commons:Category:Argonauts of the western Pacific. Anything jumps out to you as possibly better? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:48, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

None of the clearer ones seem as closely connected to the subject as Plate 1 – I'm just not sure that one is clear enough. Maybe it's fine and I'm being too picky, or maybe it could be edited for more clarity? Let's get another set of eyes on the image for ALT1, please. ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 18:23, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

The image either has some very strange compression or it has way too much contrast/brightness applied, because that's patently not how the images would look like even back then. I mean, it's legible, but the quality is egregious. I'll take a better-quality image and we'll see if it still works. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 08:05, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

UPD: we'll have to deal with the images we have. Mine wasn't much better, unfortunately. Oops. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:10, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Szmenderowiecki, Ezlev: while I can see the tent in the image, even in the thumb, I am fine if the image doesn't run. It's relevant but not super relevant - a picture of the Malinowski on the verandah would be priceless, but I am not sure one exists... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:31, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, we're gonna have to forgo the idea of an image if this is the clearest we've got—at least we've got a functional ALT0 theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 01:05, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

ALT0 to T:DYK/P4

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)

Verandah

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| reply here} 15:47, 14 October 2021 (UTC)