Page - 34 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 1/2015

34 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 1 2o15 Arnd Schneider | An anthropology of sea voyage inowski fell out with Witkiewicz, and when Witkiewicz returned from Australia to Europe to join the Tsar’s army,3Malinowski stayed behind in Australia. Originally from Krakow (then, as some other parts of Southern Poland, under Austrian rule), Malinowski possessed an Austrian passport, and therefore in Australia had the status of an enemy alien. Internment in Britain, or conscription to the Imperial Austrian Army, might have awaited upon his return to Europe, but in Australia – whilst having to report regularly to the police – Malinowski effectively turned the prospect of a stay of uncertain length into an opportunity for fieldwork, for which he even obtained funding (Young 2004: 245-246, Kuper 1983: 12). Importantly, as several commentators have remarked upon (Young 1998, 2004, Wright 1991, coote 1993), with his artist friend Witkie- wicz having abandoned him, any potential creative challenge, doubts or threats to Malinowski’s new realist paradigm of fieldwork were also removed. The paradigm forming character of Mal- inowski’s first full research trip is also intrinsicially connected with sea voyages of a specific kind, which were to become the principal topic of his researches – that is the kula ring exchange system in Trobriand islands; a system of non – monetary exchange that became important in theoretical debates about exchange systems and economy in non-complex, non-western soci- eties (starting with Mauss[1925] 1966). The Kula ring consisted of many trading sea voyages between the islanders of the Trobriands, following an elaborate ceremonial and ritual set of rules, with long necklaces of red shell moving in one direction and bracelets of white shell moving into the other, where they are constantly exchanged for each other (Malinowski 1922: 81). however, in terms of actual fieldwork and participant observation Malinowski’s account of Kula ring voyages is largely reconstructed. Whilst he did do rowing trips close to shore and went on shorter trips, he never actually joined a kula expedition; in fact he missed one about to depart (Malinwoski 1922: 385, Young 2004: 539, Stocking 1983: 107). his biographer, Michael W. Young, has drawn furthermore a neat comparison between Malinowski’s fieldwork founding myth and that of the Kula ring he investigated: “Yet anthropological posteriority would come to view his fieldwork achievements as sin- gularly heroic, and the recursive pattern of his charter myth is discernible even in his brief expedition to the Amphletts. The hero sails to unknown shores, confronts natural and supernatural dangers, overcomes obstacles with trickery and magical help and returns safely with the treasures he has won. In the manner of such heroes, too, he would claim a wife and rightful fame. Did it perhaps occur to him that his own quest for ethnographic riches mirrored the heroic quest for fame and fortune of the Kula traders who plied these islands?” (Young 2004: 539-40) An entire chapter of Malinowski’s classic monograph is dedicated to shipwreck. Shipwreck is the one constant of sea travel throughout its history, always present as a threat and possibility (for the philosophical implications cf. Blumenberg 1996, also Thompson 2014), and Trobriand Islanders have an elaborate system of magic and spells to make their voyages safe, threatened incessantly by witches sent by enemies, bad weather (also the result of bad magic), and so forth (Malinowski 1922: 237 – 266). Malinowski, later famous for his theories on Magic, Science, and Religion (Malinowski 1948), rationalized his own misfortunes in different ways, but according 3 Witkiewicz was originally from the Lithuanian village of Pašiaušė (or Poszawsze in Polish), then ruled by the Russian Empire and hence would have travelled on a Russian passport.