Key terms:

Material Culture

This week:

• introduction to material culture studies

• “Wild Things” (Attfield) reading – looking at objects in contemporary homes and the role of “design” in ideas about objects

• Friday – group exercise based on Wild Things reading

Culture

A system of knowledge and beliefs about the world and the way the world works. This system is shared by members and transmitted to new members through processes of:

Socialization

Acculturation

Learning culture

• socialization – process by which children/new members are taught how to behave appropriately in a culture

• acculturation – process by which a person comes to share in the culture of a group

How is “culture” in Material Culture?

Examples of how “socialization” is required to use/understand objects properly?

Consider:• Clothing• Housing (discussed in Schlereth)• Food/utensils• materials/objects

Schlereth pg. 5

“Material culture is that segment of humankind’s biosocial environment that has been purposefully shaped by people according to culturally dictated plans.”

Why material culture?

As Buchli (pg 3) explains, material culture studies were originally used to place cultures on a “scale” from “primitive” to “European” (advanced)

Categorizing material culture was part of a larger intellectual move to categorize and make sense of the world.

“Cabinets”

• Curio cabinets contained collections of unusual objects

• What counted as “unusual”?

• What is “objectification”?

Objects “represent”

• Later, objects and styles of objects came to represent groups of people, particularly in the past

• These groups could then be linked up to groups the present – this is the “folkoric” or “ethnic” approach to material culture

What does material culture offer?

Schlereth argues:• evidential precedence (older)• temporal tenacity (more durable over time)• three-dimensionality (“past experience made

solid”)• wider representativeness (broader

crossection of society)• affective understanding (use the senses as

well as the mind)

Schlereth cautions…(pg 14)

• recklessness of data survival

• difficulty of access/verification

• exaggeration of human efficacy

• penchant toward progressive determinism

• proclivity for synchronic interpretation

“Cultural Embeddedness”

Cultural embeddness refers to the way in which objects and practices are dependent on cultural context for their meaning.

How are “status symbol” objects a good example of cultural embeddedness? Give an example from your own cultural subgroup…

Discussion questions:

• How do the material (physical) characteristics of an object confine your interpretation of it?

• How do our cultural experiences shape or constrain the way we perceive and relate to objects?

Objects and Identity• Buchli argues that in the 19th and early 20th

centuries, a focus on objects representing technical achievements were part of building a new kind of identity focused on “progress” and “change.”

• Objects and associated technologies become part of the ideology of “advancement” for both the “West” and the “other” (Schlereth’s progressive determinism)

Some ideas on “Ideology”• the process of production of meanings,

signs, and values in social life• a body of ideas characteristic of a

particular social group or class• that which offers a position for a

subject/person• action-oriented sets of beliefs

– From Terry Eagleton’s Ideology: An Introduction

Ideology and objects (examples)

• Buchli – ideologies of social evolution influenced the interpretation of non-European artifacts

• Bourdieu – class-specific ideologies about “good taste” influence evaluation of objects in the world (photos, bodies, etc.)

Relativism• Relativism is an ideology of interpretation

that attempts to acknowledge different systems of value, especially “local” system within which an object, ritual, or belief is produced.

• Example: Interpretation of sexual images on a piece of pottery. Relativism will prioritize the “local” definition of these images over their interpretation (e.g. as pornographic) in an “importing” culture

Objectification

turning something into an object for examination/manipulation, esp. when it is not thought of in that way, e.g. when abstract ideas (“love”) are represented as objects (hearts) or when people (subjects) are treated as if they are not subjects, but just objects.

Examples:

How do the following types of things objectify social relations and/or processes in the U.S.?

• engagement ring

• diet soda

• snowboard

• disposable toilet brushes

• others examples?

Objects and Identity• Buchli argues that in the 19th and early 20th

centuries, a focus on objects representing technological achievements were part of building a new kind of identity focused on “progress” and “change.”

• Objects and associated technologies become part of the ideology of “advancement” for both the “West” and the “other” (Schlereth’s progressive determinism)

Some ideas on “Ideology”• the process of production of meanings,

signs, and values in social life• a body of ideas characteristic of a

particular social group or class• that which offers a position for a

subject/person• action-oriented sets of beliefs

– From Terry Eagleton’s Ideology: An Introduction

Ideology and objects (examples)

• Buchli – ideologies of social evolution influenced the interpretation of non-European artifacts

• Bourdieu – class-specific ideologies about “good taste” influence evaluation of objects in the world (photos, bodies, etc.)

Relativism• Relativism is an ideology of interpretation

that attempts to acknowledge different systems of value, especially “local” system within which an object, ritual, or belief is produced.

• Example: Interpretation of sexual images on a piece of pottery. Relativism will prioritize the “local” definition of these images over their interpretation (e.g. as pornographic) in an “importing” culture

Objectification

turning something into an object for examination/manipulation, esp. when it is not thought of in that way, e.g. when abstract ideas (“love”) are represented as objects (hearts) or when people (subjects) are treated as if they are not subjects, but just objects.

Examples:

How do the following types of things objectify social relations and/or processes in the U.S.?

• engagement ring

• diet soda

• snowboard

• disposable toilet brushes

• others examples?

Ideology and objects (examples)

• Buchli – ideologies of social evolution influenced the interpretation of non-European artifacts as representative of different stages of “primitiveness”

• Bourdieu – class-specific ideologies about “good taste” influence evaluation of objects in the world (photos, bodies, etc.)

What’s a “subject”

• In contemporary cultural theory, a “subject” is someone who does something, who actively participates in cultural processes.

• This comes from the grammatical terminology “subject” and “object” as in “He hit the ball.” “He” = subject; “ball”=object

Value is cultural

One major theme in material culture studies is: How do things acquire value within cultural systems? A few ways:

• by circulating from person to person

• by being associated with other things/people/ideas

• through historical/personal memory

• in juxtaposition with other things

Regimes of value

A “regime of value” is basically a set of cultural values that determine the interpretation of an object in a particular setting.

Crosscultural readings from this semester focus on what happens when different regimes of value come into contact (e.g. valuing “homecooked” over “fast” food)

Regimes of value

In the US “cleanliness” can be seen as a “regime of value” – a lot of disconnected ideas come together to create a particular way of thinking about “cleanliness”

• clean is safe/healthy

• clean is not poor

• clean is attractive (although maybe not sexy)

• clean smells “good”

Chapter from Wild Things

“it is necessary to diagnose features that give [things] value as vehicles of meaning through which people negotiate their relations with each other and the world at large.” pg. 75

Attfield is interested in how everyday objects become part of maintaining or changing social structures.

the “modern” world

• made by human beings

• celebrating the creative individual

• change is progress; everything is knowable

• mass production makes what is original or unique more valuable

Attfield (Wild Things chapter):

• authenticity – the legitimacy of an object or experience according to established principles of fundamental and unchallengeable “truths” in a culture (pg. 78) – an “authentic” oriental rug; heirloom

• ephemerality – what is designed to have passing value? e.g. fashion; disposables

• “containment” – idea that through design, objects can dictate how they will be used.

Object Analysis• Describe and culturally situate a familiar

object

• Think about how we classify or understand this object based on our own cultural knowledge of it

• Try to think beyond your expectations of the object, its features, and its use- what could it be if we didn’t know what it was????