If Malinowski is a Journalist: Pandemic Journalism and Urgent Ethnography

Abstract (English)

Malinowski was not a journalist, though his wife and daughters were. His magnum
opus, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, is renowned as the first anthropological monograph
based on long-term fieldwork, distancing itself from what he saw as the “rushed,” “superficial,”
and “unscientific” methods of interviews and surveys. In this way, Malinowskian anthropology
positioned itself in opposition to urgent investigations such as journalism.

However, urgency is not solely about speed or presumed recklessness. Etymologically, it also
means “to press”—implying an embodied relatedness and engagement. Through this
lens, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, despite its intensive study of the Trobriand people, fails to
engage with major historical upheavals like World War I and the Spanish Influenza, which also
affected the Trobriand Islands.

What if Malinowski had been a journalist? What would anthropological inquiry look like if
oriented by urgency in a pandemic polycrisis? This article explores these questions
through autoethnographic reflection on the author's experience as a journalist covering Covid-19
in China in 2020. Having completed anthropological fieldwork in January 2020, the author
spent six months working full-time at Caixin Media, a news organization renowned for its urgent
and solid coverage of Covid-19 and its related news. Drawing on this experience, the article
critically examines urgency-driven investigation, the situational intersections of journalism and
anthropology, and processual reflections on key concepts such as “urgency,” “journal,”
“interview,” and “accountability”, offering insights into the possibilities of socially engaged,
urgent ethnography.