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Author: Joanna R. Sofaer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521521468
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212
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Book Description
Examines the two distinct approaches taken when examining archaeological remains, one based on science, the other on social theory.
Author: Joanna R. Sofaer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521521468
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212
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Book Description
Examines the two distinct approaches taken when examining archaeological remains, one based on science, the other on social theory.
Author: Joanna R. Sofaer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316584097
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
Bodies intrigue us. They promise windows into the past that other archaeological finds cannot by bringing us literally face to face with history. Yet 'the body' is also highly contested. Archaeological bodies are studied through two contrasting perspectives that sit on different sides of a disciplinary divide. On one hand lie science-based osteoarchaeological approaches. On the other lie understandings derived from recent developments in social theory that increasingly view the body as a social construction. Through a close examination of disciplinary practice, Joanna Sofaer highlights the tensions and possibilities offered by one particular kind of archaeological body, the human skeleton, with particular regard to the study of gender and age. Using a range of examples, she argues for reassessment of the role of the skeletal body in archaeological practice, and develops a theoretical framework for bioarchaeology based on the materiality and historicity of human remains.
Author: Joanna R. Sofaer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521818223
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
Skeletal remains are a vital source of evidence for archaeologists. Their interpretation has tended to take two divergent forms: the scientific and the humanistic. In this innovative study, Joanna Sofaer Derevenski argues that these approaches are unnecessarily polarized and that one should not be pursued without the other. Exploring key themes such as sex, gender, life cycle and diet, she argues that the body is both biological object and cultural site and is not easily detached from the objects, practices and landscapes that surround it.
Author: Tim Dant
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335231314
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239
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Book Description
"This should become a core text for second year courses in sociology and cultural studies... it synthesizes a vast body of literature and a complex range of debates into a text which is at once accessible, engaging and stimulating... it will lead to students seeing and thinking about the material world in a totally new light and can be used as a way into key theoretical debates." Keith Tester, Professor of Social Theory, University of Portsmouth In what ways do we interact with material things? How do material objects affect the way we relate to each other? What are the connections between material things and social processes like fashion, discourse, art and design? Through wearing clothes, keeping furniture, responding to the ring of the telephone, noticing the signature on a painting, holding a paperweight and in many other ways, we interact with objects in our everyday lives. These are not merely functional relationships with things but are connected to the way we relate to other people and the culture of the particular society we live in - they are social relations. This engaging book draws on established theoretical work, including that of Simmel, Marx, McLuhan, Barthes and Baudrillard as well as a range of contemporary empirical work from many humanities disciplines. It uses ideas drawn from this work to explore a variety of things - from stone cairns to denim jeans, televisions to penis rings, houses to works of art - to understand something of how we live with them.
Author: Elizabeth Hallam
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000184196
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
- How do the living maintain ongoing relationships with the dead in Western societies? - How have the residual belongings of the dead been used to evoke memories? - Why has the body and its material environment remained so important in memory-making? Objects, images, practices, and places remind us of the deaths of others and of our own mortality. At the time of death, embodied persons disappear from view, their relationships with others come under threat and their influence may cease. Emotionally, socially, politically, much is at stake at the time of death. In this context, memories and memory-making can be highly charged, and often provide the dead with a social presence amongst the living. Memories of the dead are a bulwark against the terror of forgetting, as well as an inescapable outcome of a life's ending. Objects in attics, gardens, museums, streets and cemeteries can tell us much about the processes of remembering. This unusual and absorbing book develops perspectives in anthropology and cultural history to reveal the importance of material objects in experiences of grief, mourning and memorializing. Far from being ‘invisible', the authors show how past generations, dead friends and lovers remain manifest - through well-worn garments, letters, photographs, flowers, residual drops of perfume, funerary sculpture. Tracing the rituals, gestures and materials that have been used to shape and preserve memories of personal loss, Hallam and Hockey show how material culture provides the deceased with a powerful presence within the here and now.
Author: Chris Tilley
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446206432
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 576
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Book Description
The study of material culture is concerned with the relationship between persons and things in the past and in the present, in urban and industrialized and in small-scale societies across the globe. The Handbook of Material Culture provides a critical survey of the theories, concepts, intellectual debates, substantive domains and traditions of study characterizing the analysis of things. It is cutting-edge: rather than simply reviewing the field as it currently exists. It also attempts to chart the future: the manner in which material culture studies may be extended and developed. The Handbook of Material Culture is divided into five sections. • Section I maps material culture studies as a theoretical and conceptual field. • Section II examines the relationship between material forms, the human body and the senses. • Section III focuses on subject-object relations. • Section IV considers things in terms of processes and transformations in terms of production, exchange and consumption, performance and the significance of things over the long-term. • Section V considers the contemporary politics and poetics of displaying, representing and conserving material and the manner in which this impacts on notions of heritage, tradition and identity. The Handbook charts an interdisciplinary field of studies that makes an unique and fundamental contribution to an understanding of what it means to be human. It will be of interest to all who work in the social and historical sciences, from anthropologists and archaeologists to human geographers to scholars working in heritage, design and cultural studies.
Author: Urmila Mohan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000185400
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
The Material Subject emphasises how bodily and material cultures combine to make and transform subjects dynamically. The book is based on the French Matière à Penser (MaP) school of thought, which draws upon the ideas of Mauss, Schilder, Foucault and Bourdieu, among others, to enhance the anthropological study of embodiment, practices, techniques, materiality and power. Through theoretical sophistication and empirical field research, case studies from Europe, Africa and Asia bring MaP’s ideas into dialogue with other strands of material culture studies in the English-speaking world. These studies mediate different scales of engagement through a sensori-motor, affective and cognitive focus on practices of making and doing. Examples range from the precarity of professional divers in French public works to the gendered subjectivity of female carpet weavers in Morocco, from the ways Swiss watchmakers transmit craft knowledge to how Hindu devotees in India make efficacious use of altars, and from the enskilment of Paiwan indigenous people in Taiwan to the prestige of women’s wild silk wrappers in Burkina Faso. The chapters are organised according to domains of practice, defined as 'matter of' work and technology, heritage, politics, religion and knowledge. Scholars and students with an interest in material culture will gain valuable access to global research, rooted in a specific intellectual tradition.
Author: Susanna Harris
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315415631
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282
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Book Description
This innovative volume challenges contemporary views on material culture by exploring the relationship between wrapping materials and practices and the objects, bodies, and places that define them. Using examples as diverse as baby swaddling, Egyptian mummies, Celtic tombs, lace underwear, textile clothing, and contemporary African silk, the dozen archaeologist and anthropologist contributors show how acts of wrapping and unwrapping are embedded in beliefs and thoughts of a particular time and place. Employing methods of artifact analysis, microscopy, and participant observation, the contributors provide a new lens on material culture and its relationship to cultural meaning.
Author: Daniel Miller
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0631156054
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263
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Book Description
Exploring materialism and social relationships in modern culture Material Culture and Mass Consumption offers an in-depth exploration of objects, objectification, ideology, and materialism in modern society. Drawing from Hegel, Marx, Munn, and Simmel, the discussion delves into the physicality of the material world and attempts to understand materialism as a form of cultural expression. Targeting mass production as the root of mass consumption, rather than the result, this book positions material goods at odds with genuine social interaction and questions these relationships from the abstract to the intensely specific.
Author: Ian Woodward
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 144623956X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 202
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Book Description
"In his interdisciplinary review of material culture, Ian Woodward goes beyond synthesis to offer a theoretically innovative reconstruction of the field. It is filled with gems of conceptual insight and empirical discovery. A wonderful book." - Jeffrey C. Alexander, Yale University "A well-grounded and accessible survey of the burgeoning field of material culture studies for students in sociology and consumption studies. While situating the field within the history of intellectual thought in the broader social sciences, it offers detailed and accessible case studies. These are supplemented by very useful directions for further in-depth reading, making it an excellent undergraduate course companion." - Victor Buchli, University College London Why are i-pods and mobile phones fashion accessories? Why do people spend thousands remodelling their perfectly functional kitchen? Why do people crave shoes or handbags? Is our desire for objects unhealthy, or irrational? Objects have an inescapable hold over us, not just in consumer culture but increasingly in the disciplines that study social relations too. This book offers a systematic overview of the diverse ways of studying the material as culture. Surveying the field of material culture studies through an examination and synthesis of classical and contemporary scholarship on objects, commodities, consumption, and symbolization, this book: introduces the key concepts and approaches in the study of objects and their meanings presents the full sweep of core theory - from Marxist and critical approaches to structuralism and semiotics shows how and why people use objects to perform identity, achieve social status, and narrativize life experiences analyzes everyday domains in which objects are important shows why studying material culture is necessary for understanding the social. This book will be essential reading for students and researchers in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, consumer behaviour studies, design and fashion studies.
