“The Survey of the Ghetto” in the Time of Anti-Semitism

Abstract

This paper aims to recall one of the first pieces of anthropological fieldwork carried out in Europe. It was supervised by Bronisław Malinowski and carried out by Feliks Gross (1906–2006). He had been a young Cracovian lawyer of Jewish descent and socialist activist interested in sociology and anthropology, who was preparing for an academic career. This turned out to be impossible because of the growing wave of anti-Semitism in Europe. Gross became a student and collaborator of his Cracovian compatriot, then a London professor, Bronisław Malinowski, who advised him to make a “survey of the ghetto” in their hometown. The research progressed promisingly, but was halted by the outbreak of the Second World War. Gross managed to escape to Vilna, where he tried to continue his research. He finally landed safely in the United States, where he met his mentor and encouraged him to engage in political activity. The Cracovian project is described using the correspondence between Malinowski and Gross, as well as other archival material. It is shown against the political and academic background, together with the important theoretical and methodological frameworks of the time. Thus, the unsuccessful project becomes a very informative case of the working of the academic “field,” to use Pierre Bourdieu’s term. There are also other examples of European research supervised by Malinowski, who, therefore, deserves the title of a predecessor of the “anthropology at home.”