Bronislaw Malinowski was a key figure in early 20th-century anthropology, and his work has had a lasting impact on the field. Born in Kraków, Poland, in 1884, Malinowski studied at the London School of Economics before traveling to New Guinea in 1914. The fieldwork he conducted there became the basis for his major monographs, which include Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Coral Gardens and their Magic, and Sexual Lives of Savages. While in the islands, he learned the local language fluently and keenly recorded his observations of custom and culture.

Malinowski returned to London in 1924, where his reputation as a leading social anthropologist grew. There he developed his ideas about functionalism, the belief that each component or aspect of a society has a role to play in forming a cohesive whole, and that the primary function of a society is to fulfill human needs, whether social, physiological, or emotional.

Malinowski also left a lasting legacy on the field of cultural anthropology. He was the first to advocate for intensive, immersive fieldwork in which the ethnographer spends extensive time living in the community. He criticized the tendency of ethnographers before him to focus on the sensational or bizarre features of other cultures, and instead advocated for careful recording of the subtle and mundane aspects.