Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Westermarckian Tradition

An important part of the Westermarckian tradition is ethnographic fieldwork, to which Westermarck encouraged his students since the early years of the twentieth century. In this chapter, I explore the ethnographic legacy of Gunnar Landtman, Rafael Karsten, and Hilma Granqvist (1890–1972), focusing on their theoretical premises, methodological solutions, key results, and the reception of their works. Landtman conducted extensive fieldwork among the Kiwai people in New Guinea for two years from 1910 to 1912. Landtman’s major ethnographic work is The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea: A Nature-Born Instance of Rousseau’s Ideal Community (1927). Karsten studied South American Indian cultures in the lowlands of Gran Chaco between 1911 and 1913 and in the western Amazon between 1916 and 1919. Among his most important ethnographic works are Indian Tribes of the Argentine and Bolivian Chaco (1932) and The Head-Hunters of Western Amazonas: The Life and Culture of the Jibaro Indians of Eastern Ecuador and Peru (1935). Granqvist conducted methodologically groundbreaking fieldwork in a single Palestinian village for a total of three years between 1925 and 1931. Granqvist’s best known work, the two-volume Marriage Conditions in a Palestinian Village (1931, 1935) is a classic of Palestine studies and part of her book series on the life cycle of the villagers. At the end of the chapter, I compare Westermarck’s Finnish disciples with Bronislaw Malinowski.