Materiality

by Daniel Miller (Editor)

Throughout history and across social and cultural contexts, most systems of belief—whether religious or secular—have ascribed wisdom to those who see reality as that which transcends the merely material. Yet, as the studies collected here show, the immaterial is not easily separated from the material. Humans are defined, to an extraordinary degree, by their expressions of immaterial ideals through material forms. The essays in Materiality explore varied manifestations of materiality from ancient times to the present. In assessing the fundamental role of materiality in shaping humanity, they signal the need to decenter the social within social anthropology in order to make room for the material. Considering topics as diverse as theology, technology, finance, and art, the contributors—most of whom are anthropologists—examine the many different ways in which materiality has been understood and the consequences of these differences. Their case studies show that the latest forms of financial trading instruments can be compared with the oldest ideals of ancient Egypt, that the promise of software can be compared with an age-old desire for an unmediated relationship to divinity. Whether focusing on the theology of Islamic banking, Australian Aboriginal art, derivatives trading in Japan, or textiles that respond directly to their environment, each essay adds depth and nuance to the project that Materiality a profound acknowledgment and rethinking of one of the basic properties of being human. Contributors. Matthew Engelke, Webb Keane, Susanne Küchler, Bill Maurer, Lynn Meskell, Daniel Miller, Hirokazu Miyazaki, Fred Myers, Christopher Pinney, Michael Rowlands, Nigel Thrift

Genres: Material Culture, Anthropology, Nonfiction, Theory, Philosophy

304 pages, Paperback

First published June 27, 2005

About the author

Daniel Miller is Professor of Anthropology at UCL, author/editor of 37 books including Tales from Facebook, Digital Anthropology (Ed. with H. Horst), The Internet: an Ethnographic Approach (with D. Slater), Webcam (with J. Sinanan), The Comfort of Things, A Theory of Shopping, and Stuff.

Reviews

[Dagezi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't figure out whether this is The World is Flat for post-structuralists or post(post-)-structuralism for the World is Flat set. I get the seduction of wanting to be post-representation, post-symbol, post-subject, post-object, post-ideology, post-etc., but there have to be ways of going about this that don't manage to be as simultaneously turgidly elitist (Miller in the intro writes of the tragedy of having to "come down from the mountain" (i.e. the teat of pure philosophy) and deal with people who still think of themselves as subjects dealing with objects, blinkeredly ethnocentric (hey look, it's now the western cannon plus Islam and Marilyn Strathern!!), and totally power-evasive. Maurer writes less goo-ily than usual (or maybe it's just that his short pieces are always as good as his book length stuff is bad, but he manages to claim that Mu'tazalite theology "pre-figured" Saussure's distinction between langue and parole (which I'm sure they were keen to do). Chris Pinney reinvents althusserian wheels while advocating for the death of context and for, in general, square wheels on academic cars. And then there was all this stuff that basically riffs of off Latour and Gell and spits on those poor folks who haven't used the critique of culture as an excuse for getting rid of everything else as well.

Cataracts of time, paralanguages, blah, blah, blah, rehabilitating Bhabha and totally forgetting power, let alone, White Mythologies. Okay,so it made me think, does that mean it rates two stars? For the cover alone perhaps.

[Dilara Ucar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for my material culture lesson. Some chapters were very helpful for my research but some were a snooze (I'm sorry I know how hard it is to write this stuff, no offense please).

[Rhianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than ingold

[Lisa Poggiali · Rating 5 out of 5]

the 5 starts go to the brilliant chapters by webb keane and nigel thrift. didnt read much else.

[Lette Hass · Rating 3 out of 5]

La línea:

" ...Wisdom has been accredited to those who claim that materiality represents the merely apparent, behind which lies that which is real... The aim of life is to transcend the apparently obvious: the stone we stub our toe against, or the body as the core of our sensuous existence. Truth comes from our apprehension that this is mere illusion. Nevertheless, paradoxically, material culture has been of considerable consequence as the means of expressing this conviction. The merely vestigial forms at the center of a temple may be contrasted with the massive gates ar the periphery."