Abstract
This chapter points out that a solid understanding of Bronislaw Malinowski's relationship to law should be founded on how it differs from both non-legal anthropology and jurisprudence. The reader is guided to the moment when the link between law, anthropology and exotic fieldwork became a fount of inspiration.
With a slight retrospective bias, the main lines of research are described as being in favour of Malinowski. A closer look at native law through participant observation acts as a starting point for explaining how the ethnographer sees law within the seamless web of the foreign culture.
The symmetrical treatment of law and science should help to illuminate the significance of Malinowski's anthropology of law for those anthropologists who are usually not concerned with law. Reciprocity is presented as a part of a much different idea than the definition of law or kula, and as a disconnecting factor in relation to conventional modern dualisms.
The chapter then discusses the unrecognised discoveries that are to be found underneath the hostile criticism of Malinowski and the misunderstood ironies expressed by Malinowski within the context of conflict between the Trobriand legal systems as a key to understanding Malinowski's approach to native and European law. Finally, the chapter returns to the impact of Malinowski's methodological innovations, such as cross-cultural comparison and participant observation, on the anthropological ideas of law and legal comparisons.