The Material Culture Reader

Material culture has finally earned a central place within anthropology. Emerging from the pioneering work done at University College London, this reader brings together for the first time seminal articles that have helped shape the anthropological study of material culture. With topics ranging from the anthropology of art to architecture, landscape studies, archaeology, consumption studies and heritage management, this key text reflects the breadth of material culture studies today. The authors, who discuss field sites as distant as Vanuatu, New Ireland, Trinidad and Soviet Russia, show how material culture provides a new lens for viewing the world around us and effectively bridges the gap between theory and data. Providing the first-ever synthesis of these ground-breaking essays in an easily accessible volume, this book will serve as a comprehensive introduction to the subject and a valuable reference guide for anyone interested in material culture, anthropology, art and museum studies. The metaphorical transformations of Wala canoes / Christopher Tilley Binding in the Pacific: between loops and knots / Susanne Küchler Photographic portraiture in central India in the 1980s and 1990s / Christopher Pinney The power of origins: questions of cultural rights / Michael Rowlands Contested landscapes: medieval to present day / Barbara Bender Bodies of metal, shells of memory: "trench art" and the Great War re-cycled / Nicholas J. Saunders Krushchev, modernism and the fight against Petit-bourgeois consciousness in the Soviet home / Victor Buchli Coca-Cola: a black sweet drink from Trinidad / Daniel Miller. Contents Acknowledgements List of Figures 1 Introduction • Victor Buchli 2 Metaphor, Materiality and Interpretation • Christopher Tilley 3 The Anthropology of Art • Susanne Küchler 4 Visual Culture • Christopher Pinney 5 Heritage and Cultural Property • Michael Rowlan 6 Landscape and Politics • Barbara Bender 7 Memory and Conflict • Nicholas J. Saunders 8 Architecture and the Domestic Sphere • Victor Buchli 9 Consumption • Daniel Miller Index