The concept of Total Immersion by Bronislaw Malinowski
The term “Total immersion” is coined by Bronislaw Malinowski, who wrote that it is vital for an ethnographer to “”grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world.” (1884–1942). This basically means totally immersing yourself in the life of the subject being studied so that the anthropologists can clearly understand and observe their lives through the deep immersion. Through the total immersion the researcher can have the emic and the etic perspective of their subject by seeing their daily routines, how they live and see what the subject feels is meaningful in his lives. In this essay I will analyze why total immersion is an essential way to understand cultures, how anthropologists used and developed this approach to gain a better understanding of human culture, which anthropologists have made use of total immersion and is total immersion still a relevant means for understanding culture.
Malinowski believes that total immersion is a very important concept which helps the ethnographer to differentiate between his point of view and the native’s point of view. Thus, total immersion helps to resolve the issue of dealing with own biases and conceptions or just end up being absorbed in the worldview of the natives. In the reading, “Argonauts of the Western Pacific” introductory chapter, Malinowski focused on the how significant it was to know the inhabitants of the area by taking enough time to “put aside the camera, notebook, and pencil, and join in on what’s going on. He can take part in the natives’ games, he can follow them on their visits and walks, sit down and listen and share in their conversations. “ (pg, 21). Thus, he explains that it is the job of an anthropologist to gather the information and participate in their routine activities. Thus, this lays the foundation of the participant observation which is, “ethnographers magic…These, as said, consist mainly in cutting oneself off from the company of other white men, and remaining in as close contact with the natives as possible, which really can only be achieved by camping right in their villages.”(pg, 5) This shows that Malinowski’s total immersion is very important for the anthropologists because it helps them to be in close contact with the indigenous people by living a life which they live.
Another article we read during the course is “Animal intimacies” by Radhika which can be linked to the concept of total immersion. Radhika talked about the idea of “relatedness” where one realizes that people do not only have relationships with other humans but animals as well and those relationships can shape the way how you view the world and those relationships are really powerful as well. She explains how this relationship cannot be understood by everyone since you need to have been totally immersed in the lives of your subject in order understand their relationships. She says, “I immersed myself in the lives of animals much as I immersed myself in the lives of people: by spending long periods of time with them … Of course, some animals were easier to notice than others, both as species and as individuals. I came to be much better acquainted with goats, cows, monkeys, and dogs than with wild boar, bears…” This shows that immersing yourself in the lives of your subject would help you in finding out the things meaningful to them and how they develop relationships which could be studied by the anthropologists and cannot be done without immersing yourself in the lives of the natives and spending a great amount of time with them. We can also take an example from the book’s introductory chapter where in the beginning Radhika was not able to take care of the goats when she was asked by Kusum to take care of the goats and take them for grazing because she was busy with chores and her daughter was sick. When Radhika came back very perplexed and not successful in taking care of the goats easily, Kusum told her that “once you understand them and they understand you, a relationship will be formed. Then you see, they will do whatever you tell them to.” This shows that you need to spend more and more time with your subjects(no matter if they are humans or animals) in order to develop a relationship between you (anthropologists) and the subjects so that the subjects would be recognize you and open up more and this in return will help the ethnographer in understanding the human culture.
According to Geertz (1973) in “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight” the central message by the chapter is that there are stories about the societies about themselves and the societies have their own unique ways of seeing those stories. Therefore, it is important for the anthropologists to have access to those stories. But they can only have access to those stories by immersing themselves in their subjects. Thus, the basic aspects of the chapter in the deep play are that we must try to understand people through their own lens and not the lens of an anthropologist and understanding can be offered through the thick descriptions: thick descriptions give the readers enough context so that the person just reading and without any prior knowledge of the culture can actually understand the behavior of the subjects.
Geertz further explains about the Balinese cockfight and how at one time both the husband and wife were present at the illegal cockfight and there came police for an unexpected raid where they both acted innocent like the villagers and started to hide like the villagers did. After that one incident both of them were never treated like outsiders and the people in the village started to open up to them like an insider did. “We were quite literary “in”’ (pg, 416). Geertz further explained how this incident of getting into the community strengthened their research and authority. It helped them to get “the kind of immediate, inside view grasp of the mentality of the people he was studying” (pg, 416). Therefore, it is the most important thing for the research to get the point of view of a native while understanding his subject and that can be done by understanding how the subjects would understand their own selves and just doing what the natives would do by totally immersing yourself in their culture.
From the article by Miner “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” the biggest takeaway for me was that we as anthropologists can question ourselves that a particular society can be approached by us. Like Miner did in regard to Nacirema if we alien out ourselves by distancing ourselves then we would gain the one-sided perspective and would ask the questions which only an outsider can ask and not what a native would ask. Also, if we do not know about the inner context of a society then we would not be able to understand the different things happening there and they would not make meaning to us. Therefore, in order to understand the new society and their culture better we must try to be as much of an insider as possible instead of just alienating ourselves. Moreover, if we just distance ourselves from our subjects then their culture would always seem strange and incongruous to us. But if we look from the eyes of an insider then those peculiar practices, traditions and customs would seem justifiable and reasonable to the ethnographer and would make much more sense. “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” raises the concept of cultural relativism, which argues that there should never be objectivity in the point of view when the cultures are assessed by the ethnographer and the culture must always be interpreted and understood from the point of view of a native and that could only be done when the ethnographer would completely immerse himself in his subjects so that he can become an insider and that can only be done by total immersion, the term which was coined by Bronislaw Malinowski .
It can be concluded that Malinowski concept of total immersion has been widely implemented by ethnographers in understanding different cultures, from Bali to India, no matter where the ethnography was being conducted the ethnographer practiced total immersion- language, culture and virtual immersion. It can be seen that merely doing learning through observation is not very effective as compared to active learning. Moreover, personality also plays a huge role in the immersion’s effectiveness. Personality of the ethnographers and the cultural immersion have a positive correlation on having awareness of culture and cultural knowledge. Moreover, it is very important to have understanding of other cultures instead of just your own in order to prevent your ethnography from naivety. Thus, the most effective way to gain cultural awareness and cultural knowledge of the subjects is through having directing interaction with the cultures of the others and that can only be done when we are first able to have understanding of our own culture and then we can understand and relate to other people.
References
Geertz, Clifford.. The interpretation of cultures: selected essays. New York : Basic Books, c1973. http://hdl.handle.net.proxy.library.nyu.edu/2027/heb.01005.0001.001.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Routledge, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.library.nyu.edu/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1675940.
Miner, Horace. “Body Ritual among the Nacirema.” American Anthropologist, vol. 58, no. 3, 1956, pp. 503–507. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/665280.
MURPHY, D. (2019), Animal Intimacies: Interspecies Relatedness in India’s Central Himalayas. Govindrajan, Radhika. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. 256 pp.. American Ethnologist, 46: 119–120. doi:10.1111/amet.12748
