The Things of Life

Question 1

Chris Gosden and Tonne Marshall

Answer 1

Objects integral to human actions
Production, exchange and consumption - filled with social contexts.
Use life approach = focus on changes of form/functional characteristics of an object. eg. flint stone tool becoming smaller.
Biographical approach = object seen as individual. Shows how it is invested in meaning through social interactions. These meanings can change over time. Covers their whole existence, not just one point in time.

Question 2

Susan M Pearce

Answer 2

Can look at object’s social meaning and how it entered a collection/became a collection. What is its significance. Collections can break up etc important to museum studies.
Not all objects have straightforward lives, can go missing and then found in a dig.

Question 3

Things of Life pros

Answer 3

Can find out where materials came from
Tell us about the craftsman skill in period it was made
Tell us about gender roles (male and females could be buried with different items).
Tells us about social roles ^
Tell us about beliefs ^
Shows story of users, being made, being used, conversations, being a museum object
Tells us about trade/shipping/movement

Question 4

Things of Life cons

Answer 4

Objects can have multiple meanings at same time
We have assumptions/bias about world/objects
More impactful with its biography
Use life does not cover social interactions

Question 5

(Case Study) The Man with the Powder Puff in Interwar London - Matt Hailbrook

Answer 5

Story in journal ‘John Bull.’ 1925.
Seen as strong spoken journal.
Man, 25, arrested with powder puff, powder, small mirror. Seen as homosexual.
John Bull saw injustice, it was man’s mother’s items.
Tells us about sexual/British culture.
Shows objects have meanings.
Was not the only arrest/
Shows new obsession with make up and its meaning