Watch on Soap2day. Bronislaw Malinowski changed the way that field studies were carried out. He worked on a remote group of Pacific islands—the Trobriands—and lived for long periods among the people he was studying. A brilliant linguist, he quickly learned their language and later published books which brought the islanders to life. The idea that native peoples were primitive savages was altered for good with Malinowski's insight into their mastery of their world.