The “Malinowski” Ethnocafé, organized by EVAA - Associazione Antropologica Alto Adige and the University Library, proposes a presentation of the MFEA research project, its preliminary results and its website (by Dorothy Zinn, Elisabeth Tauber, Daniela Salvucci and the Library staff), and an exposition of the books written by and on Malinowski and Masson, which are available at the University Library. 

Bronislaw Malinowski (Krakow, 1884 - New Heaven, 1942) was the founding father of the ethnographic method and modern social anthropology. Although his work is well-known all around the world, also beyond social sciences and academy, many aspects of his life remain little known, such as his strong connection to South Tyrol. 

In the 1920s, Bronislaw Malinowski, his wife - the Australian journalist Elsie Masson - and their three daughters lived in Bozen/Bolzano and Oberbozen/Soprabolzano, where the family bought a cottage that still belongs to their heirs. While Malinowski was teaching in England, at the London School of Economics, coming back home only for the holidays, Masson and their daughters experienced the everyday life in South Tyrol in a very dramatic period, during the fascist dictatorship. 

The MFEA - The Malinowski Forum for Ethnography and Anthropology research project at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano aims to investigate the presence of both Malinowski and Masson in Bozen/Bolzano and Oberbozen/Soprabolzano, following their tracks on the territory, highlighting their relations with the local society and underlining their critical point of view on that specific historical situation.