Lineages and Advancements in Material Culture Studies : Perspectives From UCL Anthropology

This volume comprises a curated conversation between members of the Material Culture Section of University College London Anthropology. In laying out the state of play in the field, it challenges how the anthropology of material culture is being done and argues for new directions of enquiry and new methods of investigation. The contributors consider the ramifications of specific research methods and explore new methodological frameworks to address areas of human experience that require a new analytical approach. The case studies draw from a range of contexts, including digital objects, infrastructure, data, extraterrestriality, ethnographic curation, and medical materiality. They include timely reappraisals of now-classical analytical models that have shaped the way we understand the object, the discipline, knowledge formation, and the artefact. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of contents Figures Tables Contributors Preface Acknowledgements 1 Introduction MCS at UCL, its foundations and threads Bringing the object back (again) – from lineages to advancements Self, personhood, (post-)humanism Time: futures, histories, presentness Scales, space(s), topologies Representation: aesthetics, signs, semiotics Participation, politics, people Notes 2 Extraterrestrial methods: Towards an ethnography of the ISS The ISS Quotidian attunement Humans have always already been going to space Dialogic worlding Space from the armchair New material cultures Spatiotemporal distantiation Conclusion Acknowledgements Notes 3 Being, being human, becoming beyond human The ‘cyborg’ as post-human The cyborg and transcendence The twenty-first/first-century body Discussion 4 ‘Things ain’t the same anymore’: Towards an anthropology of technical objects (or ‘When Leroi-Gourhan and Simondon meet MCS’ Introduction: the printer, the car and the doll The functioning of technical objects vs. their function Inside and outside the technical object: at the intersection of milieus The politics of technical objects and the object of technical politics: removal and isolation Conclusion: towards a ‘technography’ of objects? Acknowledgements Notes 5 The object biography What is this method? The life of a toothbrush Reflections on the life of a toothbrush Conclusion: Why not object biographies? Acknowledgements Note 6 A new instrumentalism? From material culture to digital anthropology From writing culture to digital ethnography A case in point: learning from social media in the field Social media as community? Camden Rules Conclusion: social media imaginaries, failing methods, and the limits of objects Acknowledgements Notes 7 Objects of desire: Sexwork and its objects Introduction The context of the shows The shows Objects, sexwork and material culture theory Conclusions Acknowledgements 8 Digital devices: Knowing material culture Introduction Digital devices Detecting digitally Knowing with devices Materialisations of knowledge Productive devices Conclusion Note 9 Rethinking objectification and its consequences: From substitution to sequence The life of working models Polymodality: geometry, transformation, and translation Conclusion 10 Looking at things Object analysis Case study one: object K.0050 Case study two: the Inuit collection Case study three: the Fijian collection Conclusion Acknowledgements Notes 11 Making things matter From ‘meaning’ to ‘mattering’ From ‘us’ to ‘them’ Beyond impact Conclusion Acknowledgements Notes 12 Prophetic pictures: Or, What time is the visual? Raphael’s Prophetic Messenger ‘Ominous’ hieroglyphics ‘Imagality’: the interpretability of the visual Social theory and temporality Conclusion: the photograph, a small window on the future Notes 13 Held in Amma’s light: The enchantment and political efficacy of gopurams in Tamilnadu Political lineage as luminance Making, aesthetics, and affect The materiality and affordances of light Corporeal vision and the technology of enchantment Image regimes, morality, and ‘Amma’ Amma in light: the political efficacy of gopurams Notes 14 A curatorial methodology for anthropology1 Curating to the curatorial The curatorial as model The curatorial in practice Curating tidal/temporal movements The curatorial as anthropological method Notes 15 Data aesthetics A feeling for the data Algorithmic vision Notes 16 Place-objects: Anthropology of digital photography/s Introduction The digital photograph in MCS: materiality and practice Materiality Practices Place Representing place: photoblogging in/of Iran Place-objects beyond representation: digitally (re-)engaging the senses Digital geo-locations Methodological implications for MCS Analysis: place-object and their socialities Digital photography/s: towards a new object status Acknowledgements Notes Bibliography Index This volume comprises a curated conversation between members of the Material Culture Section of UCL Anthropology. Many of the chapters explicitly lay out the state of play in the field, challenging how the anthropology of material culture is being done, and arguing for new directions of enquiry or new methods of investigation. The contributors foreground research methods, with many of the contributors exploring the ramifications of specific methods, and exploring new methodological frameworks to address areas of human experience that require a new analytical approach. The 15 original case studies draw from a range of research contexts, including digital objects, infrastructure, digital objects, data, extra-terrestriality, ethnographic curation, medical materiality, and include timely reappraisals of now classical analytical models that have shaped the way we understand the object, the discipline, knowledge formation, and the artefact. This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com Ce volume comprend une conversation organisée entre les membres de la section Culture matérielle de l'Anthropologie de l'UCL. En faisant le point sur la situation dans ce domaine, il remet en question la façon dont l'anthropologie de la culture matérielle est faite et plaide pour de nouvelles directions d'enquête et de nouvelles méthodes d'investigation. Les auteurs examinent les ramifications de méthodes de recherche spécifiques et explorent de nouveaux cadres méthodologiques pour aborder des domaines de l'expérience humaine qui nécessitent une nouvelle approche analytique. Les études de cas s'appuient sur un large éventail de contextes, notamment les objets numériques, les infrastructures, les données, l'extra-terrestrialité, la conservation ethnographique et la matérialité médicale. Elles comprennent des réévaluations opportunes de modèles analytiques désormais classiques qui ont façonné notre façon de comprendre l'objet, la discipline, la formation des connaissances et l'artefact "This volume comprises a curated conversation between members of the Material Culture Section of UCL Anthropology. In laying out the state of play in the field, it challenges how the anthropology of material culture is being done and argues for new directions of enquiry and new methods of investigation. The contributors consider the ramifications of specific research methods, and explore new methodological frameworks to address areas of human experience that require a new analytical approach. The case studies draw from a range of contexts, including digital objects, infrastructure, data, extra-terrestriality, ethnographic curation, and medical materiality. They include timely reappraisals of now classical analytical models that have shaped the way we understand the object, the discipline, knowledge formation, and the artefact"-- Provided by publisher