Lecture 14: Material Culture Flashcards
Objects are reliant on
Human beings for their existence
Objects in turn form us
Materiality is an integral part of culture
“Opposed”- you can’t disentangle the two, you need one to understand the other
Selfie stick
Constantly engaged in representing ourselves- taking a photo of ourselves in a way that we would be otherwise unable to do
Tells how important it is our desire to curate our identity
Created in response of a social tendency
Why are things important?
Material culture reflects our society
Society is formed by material objects
Our economy is (was?) based on material things
Built infrastructure is the backbone of society
Material culture reflects societal values.
Which things to we value the most?
How are our cultural and social priorities reflected in material culture?
Our economy rests on material culture
The foundations of our economy remain material
The value of everyday objects changes in relation to a number of basic commodities.
Society relies on material objects
Our society relies on material infrastructures
Often invisible to us in the global north we can take their proper running for granted
How do we approach the study of objects?
Value
Symbolism
Sensorial
Activity
Value – Marxist approach
Marx called value “Congealed Labour-time”
A crucial way of thinking about what something is worth is the total amount of effort that went into it
Every object you own is a manifestation of human effort
Symbolism – Semiotic approach
We can think of material culture as being like language.
De Saussure – Sign and Signifier
Roland Barthes used this as the basis for ‘semiology’ a reading of culture and objects on the basis of what they mean. Mythologies (1957)
Sensory – sensorial approach
Sensory/sensual epistemology – knowledge derived from the body
Alex Rhys-Taylor Food and Multiculture (2017)
Sarah Pink Doing Sensory Ethnography (2015)
Active – agency approach
What if we think of objects as active instead of passive?
It can seem counter-intuitive but we regular invest agency into objects.
Investing objects with agency gives us an expanded idea of what society and geography are.
Art &Agency (Gell 1998)
An example of how to investigate a commodity chain.
Illuminates Labour, Eating culture, Geopolitics of trade, and more…
Follow the thing: Papaya (2004)
Who picks and grows them? – working conditions, agency Who trades them? - Economic value How are they advertised? -Cultural meaning What are they like to eat? Sensorial
Materialist Returns (2006)
‘more than human’ emphasises the complex relationship between humans and their environment
Methods beyond text and speech to practise and affect
A potential crossover point between Physical and Human geographiest
Apple Watch
Preceded cultural change- judging ourselves and change the way we live our lives
Importance of oil
On Geopolitics in the Middle East
