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Why are some things valuable while others are not? How much effort
does it take to produce valuable objects? How can one explain the
different appraisal of certain things in different temporal
horizons and in different cultures? Cultural processes on how value
is attached to things, and how value is re-established, are still
little understood. The case studies in this volume, originating
from anthropology and archaeology, provide innovative and
differentiated answers to these questions. However, for all
contributions there are some common basic assumptions. One of these
concerns the understanding that it is rarely the value of the
material itself that matters for high valuation, but rather the
appreciation of the (assumed or constructed) origin of certain
objects or their connection with certain social structures. A
second of these shared insights addresses the ubiquity of phenomena
of 'value in things'. There is no society without valued objects.
As a rule, valuation is something negotiated or even disputed.
Value arises through social action, whereby it is always necessary
to ask anew which actors are interested in the value of certain
objects (or in their appreciation). This also works the other way
round: Who are those actors who question corresponding objective
values and why?
The study of consumption, including such aspects as social
differentiation, communication and the change of needs, has become
a major field of study within material culture research. This
volume includes ethnographic case studies documenting a wide range
of local practices with regard to consumer goods. Each chapter
deals with the social dynamics engendered by new modes of
consumption in specific areas (Cte dIvoire, Zambia, Tanania,
Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Niger).
Hans Peter Hahn is professor for social anthropology at the
Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt (Germany).
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Daniel Spoerri (Hardcover)
Ingried Brugger, Veronika Rudorfer; Ingried Brugger, Hans Peter Hahn, Veronika Rudorfer, …
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R1,370
Discovery Miles 13 700
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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"People at the Well" investigates habits, practices, and meanings
of water through case studies from around the world. With its wide
range and impressive diversity, this volume points to water
practices in different cultures and shows that water is much more
than a commodity, a resource, or a substance--it is a focal point
of meanings and practices and thereby reflects culture as such. By
providing close scrutiny, the contributors explore and discover the
fundamental differences and dynamics of various water-related
practices and cultural phenomena.
Urban agglomerations host the most vital and creative societies.
This applies particularly to Africa, where cities have the highest
growth rates world-wide and where the urban population is younger
than anywhere else. Urban life-worlds are the basis for the
development of new lifestyles and new cultural phenomena. Based on
empirical ethnographic research, this book presents case studies
that enhance our understanding of the dynamics of urbanity in
Africa and beyond--by envisioning cities as crossroads where
cultures, biographies, and networks meet.
In the context of commodification, material culture has particular
properties hitherto considered irrelevant or neglected. First, the
market is a spatial structure, assigning special properties to the
things offered: the goods and commodities. Secondly, the market
defines a principle of dealing with things, including them in some
contexts, excluding them from others. The contributions to Market
as Place and Space address a variety of aspects of markets within
the framework of archaeological and anthropological case studies
and with a special focus on the indicators of practices attached to
the commodities and their valuation.
Things travel around the globe: they are shipped as mass consumer
goods, or transported as souvenirs or gifts. There are infinite
ways for things to be mobile, not only in the era of globalisation
but since the beginning of time, as the earliest traces of long
distance trading show. This book investigates the mobility of
things from archaeological and anthropological perspectives.
Material Objects are characterised by temporal continuity,
embodying a prior existence with lingering effects. Yet the
material continuity disguises the transformations they may undergo,
which only become evident upon closer examination. Objects are in
perpetual flux, leaving visible traces of their age, usage, and
previous life. While travelling through time, objects also
circulate through space, and their spatial mobility alters their
meaning and use with respect to new cultural horizons. As objects
transform through time and space, so does the value attributed to
them. Mapping out itineraries of value in the realm of the
material, allows us to grasp the nature of a given social formation
through the shape and meaning taken on by its valued 'stuff'. It
also provides insights into the nature of materiality, through the
value ascribed to objects at a given point in time and space. This
edited volume brings together studies of material culture,
materiality and value, with regard to the mobility of objects, with
the aim of tracing the ways in which societies constitute their
valued objects and how the realm of the material reflects upon
society.
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