Conceptions of materiality

The Agency of objects - Theory

Ingold (2007)

• Things are active due to the way they are caught up in the world

• Disagrees with separations of mind and matter, disagree that what distinguishes human activity is the imposition of our own ideas

• We tend to only see the object, not its material

• Properties = Objective and measurable

• Qualities = subjective, they are our own ideas

The Agency of objects - Physical properties

Ingold (2007)

• There is a need to recognise the physical properties and nature of material culture

• To describe an objects properties is to tell its story

• E.g Wet vs Dry stone - stoniness emerges via the stones involvement in its surroundings

• Artefacts are always in process and it is impossible to distinguish between the natural and the artefact

Colonial relevance

Tilly (2006)

• The west came to know itself primarily through the study of the artifactual other, material culture studies define themselves in relation to their objects of study

Thomas (1999)

• In context of Barkcloth and its adoption by Samoan missionaries in the early 1830-1860s

• A common statement is that Samoan Tiputa is a ‘local appropriation’ of a core form, anthropological rhetoric tends to treat the global as something insidious that locals have an interest assimilating to - this is our meta narrative not ours and their investments may neither collude or resist global relations

Nature of material culture studies

Tilly (2006)

• Material culture studies have undergone a profound transformation in the last 20 years

• Material culture studies are fluid and undisciplined - always changing and undergoing redefinition

Woodward (2006)

• Using multiple research and multi-vocal approaches is one way to understand the entangled nature of social and material words

• Multiple methods means our understanding of things is not just channelled by what people say about them

• Our relational/social worlds are multi-dimensional and co-constituted through things and we need numerous ways of looking at that spectrum