Material Culture
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Material culture is
culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
manifested by the physical objects and
architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...
of a society. The term is primarily used in
archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
and
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...
, but is also of interest to
sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...
,
geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...
and
history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
. The field considers artifacts in relation to their specific cultural and historic contexts, communities and belief systems. It includes the usage, consumption, creation and trade of objects as well as the behaviors, norms and
ritual A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...
s that the objects create or take part in. Material culture is contrasted with symbolic culture or
non-material culture Culture consists of both material culture and non-material culture. Thoughts or ideas that make up a culture are called the non-material culture. In contrast to material culture, non-material culture does not include any physical objects or artifa ...
, which include non-material symbols, beliefs and social constructs. However, some scholars include in material culture other intangible phenomena like sound, smell and events, while some even consider it to include language and media. Material culture can be described as any object that humans use to survive, define social relationships, represent facets of identity, or benefit peoples' state of mind, social, or economic standing. The scholarly analysis of material culture, which can include both human made and natural or altered objects, is called material culture studies. It is an
interdisciplinary field Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several fields such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, economi ...
and methodology that tells of the relationships between people and their things: the making, history, preservation and interpretation of objects. It draws on both theory and practice from the
social sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...
and
humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...
such as
art history Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...
, archaeology, anthropology, history,
historic preservation Historic preservation (US), built heritage preservation or built heritage conservation (UK) is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance. It is a philos ...
,
folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...
,
archival science Archival science, or archival studies, is the study and theory of building and Curator, curating archives, which are collections of documents, Sound recording and reproduction, recordings, photographs and various other materials in physical or di ...
,
literary criticism A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature's ...
and museum studies.


Material value

Research in several areas looks into the reasons for perceiving an object as having meaning. Common reasons for valuing material lie in their monetary or sentimental value. A well-known related theory is
Daniel Kahneman Daniel Kahneman (; ; March 5, 1934 – March 27, 2024) was an Israeli-American psychologist best known for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making as well as behavioral economics, for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memor ...
's
endowment effect In psychology and behavioral economics, the endowment effect, also known as divestiture aversion, is the finding that people are more likely to retain an object they own than acquire that same object when they do not own it. The endowment theory ca ...
theory. According to Kahneman, people infuse objects they own with a higher value than they do if they do not own the object. The endowment effect is found to occur as soon as an item is acquired and the effect increases over time. Another way in which material can hold meaning and value is by carrying communication between people, just like other communication forms such as speech, touch and gesture. An object can mediate messages between time or space or both between people who are not together. A work of art, for example, can transfer a message from the creator to the viewer and share an image, a feeling, or an experience. Material can contain memories and mutual experiences across time and influence thoughts and feelings. A study found that couples who have more items that were jointly acquired and more favorite items among them had higher-quality relationships. Researchers from the fields of sociology, psychology, and anthropology have also been fascinated by gift-giving, a universal phenomenon that holds emotional meaning using material culture. According to Schieffelin, "gift-giving is a vehicle of social obligation and political maneuver." Mauss defines the gift as creating a special bond between the giver and the receiver. According to Mauss, the giver never really leaves the gift but becomes part of the receiver's future by inserting the gift into their life. A gift leads at some point to another gift in response, which creates a special reciprocal bond between people.


History

Material culture studies as an academic field grew along the field of
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...
and so began by studying non-Western material culture. All too often, it was a way of putting material culture into categories in such a way that marginalized and hierarchized the cultures from which they came. During the "golden age" of
museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...
-going, material cultures were used to show the supposed evolution of society from the simple objects of non-Westerners to the advanced objects of Europeans. It was a way of showing that Europeans were at the end of the evolution of society, with non-Westerners at the beginning. Eventually, scholars left the notion that culture evolved though predictable cycles, and the study of material culture changed to have a more objective view of non-Western material culture. The field of material culture studies as its own distinct discipline dates to the 1990s. The '' Journal of Material Culture'' began publishing in 1996.
Collecting The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining items that are of interest to an individual ''collector''. Collections differ in a wide variety of respects, most obvi ...
habits date back hundreds of years.


Contributors

Leslie White was an American anthropologist, known for his advocacy of theories of
cultural evolution Cultural evolution is an evolutionary theory of social change. It follows from the definition of culture as "information capable of affecting individuals' behavior that they acquire from other members of their species through teaching, imitation ...
,
sociocultural evolution Sociocultural evolution, sociocultural evolutionism or social evolution are theories of sociobiology and cultural evolution that describe how Society, societies and culture change over time. Whereas sociocultural development traces processes t ...
, and especially neoevolutionism and for his role in creating the department of anthropology at the
University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
Ann Arbor. He was president of the
American Anthropological Association The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an American organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropo ...
(1964). He wrote ''The Science of Culture'' in 1949 in which he outlined schema of the world as divided into cultural, biological, and physical levels of phenomenon. White believed that the development of culture rested primarily on technology and that the history of human technology could be understood through the study of human-produced materials. American anthropologist James Deetz, known for his work in the field of historical archaeology, wrote the book "In Small Things Forgotten" in 1977 and published a revised and expanded version in 1996. He pioneered there the ideas of using neglected substances such as trash pits, potshards, and soil stains to reveal human actions. By analyzing objects in association with their location, the history of that location, the objects they were found with, and not singling out the most valuable or rarest ones, archaeologists can create a more accurate picture of daily life. Deetz looks at the long view of history and investigates the impact of European culture on other cultures across the globe by an analysis of the spread of everyday objects. Ian M. G. Quimby's ''Material Culture and the Study of American Life'', written in 1978, tried to bridge the gaps between the museum world and the university and between curator and historian. Quimby posits that objects in museums are understood through an intellectual framework that uses non-traditional sources. He also describes the benefits of work on exhibit design as a vehicle for education. Thomas Schlereth, Professor Emeritus of American Studies at the
University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac (known simply as Notre Dame; ; ND) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1842 by members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a Cathol ...
, wrote about philosophies and methods of teaching history outside the traditional classroom. In his book ''Artifacts and the American Past'', Schlereth defines material culture study as an attempt to explain why things were made, why they took the forms they did, and what social, functional, aesthetic, or symbolic needs they serve. He advocates studying photographs, catalogues, maps and landscapes. He suggests a variety of modes for interrogating artifacts. Professor Kiki Smith of
Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smit ...
, asserts that "…clothes can reveal much about lives from the past", and that garments preserved in collections are akin to other artifacts, including books, diaries, paintings and letters. She established the Smith College Historic Clothing Collection with 3000 items for the college's theater department. This archive of women's clothing and accessories, from all social classes, is a resource for courses in costume design, history, material culture, and literary history and curatorial practices. Gerd Koch, associated with the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, is known for his studies on the material culture of
Tuvalu Tuvalu ( ) is an island country in the Polynesian subregion of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean, about midway between Hawaii and Australia. It lies east-northeast of the Santa Cruz Islands (which belong to the Solomon Islands), northeast of Van ...
,
Kiribati Kiribati, officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island country in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania in the central Pacific Ocean. Its permanent population is over 119,000 as of the 2020 census, and more than half live on Tarawa. The st ...
and the
Santa Cruz Islands The Santa Cruz Islands form an archipelago in Temotu Province, Solomon Islands. They lie approximately to the southeast of the Solomon Islands (archipelago), Solomon Islands archipelago, just north of the archipelago of Vanuatu and are con ...
. During his early field work in 1951 to 1952, Koch developed techniques in the recording of culture, including the use of tape recorders and cinematographic cameras.


Archaeology

Archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
is the study of humanity through the inferential analysis of material culture to ultimately gain an understanding of the daily lives of past cultures and the overarching trend of human history. An
archaeological culture An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...
is a recurring assemblage of the artifacts from a specific time and place, most often that has no written record. These physical artifacts are then used to make inferences about the ephemeral aspects of culture and history. With more recent societies, written histories, oral traditions, and direct observations may also be available to supplement the study of material culture. Beginning in the European
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
and the culture's fascination with classical antiquities, the study of artifacts from long-lost cultures has produced many forms of
archaeological theory Archaeological theory refers to the various intellectual frameworks through which archaeology, archaeologists interpret archaeological data. Archaeological theory functions as the application of philosophy of science to archaeology, and is occasion ...
, such as
trans-cultural diffusion In cultural anthropology and cultural geography, cultural diffusion, as conceptualized by Leo Frobenius in his 1897/98 publication ''Der westafrikanische Kulturkreis'', is the spread of culture, cultural items—such as ideas, fashion, styles, rel ...
,
processual archaeology Processual archaeology (formerly, the New Archaeology) is a form of archaeological theory. It had its beginnings in 1958 with the work of Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips, ''Method and Theory in American Archaeology,'' in which the pair stated ...
, and
post-processual archaeology Post-processual archaeology, which is sometimes alternatively referred to as the interpretative archaeologies by its adherents, is a movement in archaeological theory that emphasizes the subjectivity of archaeological interpretations. Despite havin ...
. Additionally, archaeological sub-disciplines have emerged within the field, including prehistoric archaeology, classical archaeology, historical archaeology, cognitive archaeology, and
cultural ecology Cultural ecology is the study of human adaptations to social and physical environments. Human adaptation refers to both biological and cultural processes that enable a population to survive and reproduce within a given or changing environment. Th ...
. Recently, a scientific methodology and approach to the analysis of pre-historic material culture has become prevalent with systematic excavation techniques producing detailed and precise results.


Anthropology

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...
is most simply defined as the study of humans across time and space. In studying a human culture, an anthropologist studies the material culture of the people in question as well as the people themselves and their interactions with others. To understand the culture in which an object is featured, an anthropologist looks at the object itself, its context, and the way that it was manufactured and used. The first anthropologist interested in studying material culture was Lewis Henry Morgan, in the mid-19th century. He is most known for his research on
kinship In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that ...
and social structures, but he also studied the effect of material culture, specifically technology, on the evolution of a society. Later in the 19th century,
Franz Boas Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and ethnomusicologist. He was a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the mov ...
brought the fields of anthropology and material culture studies closer together. He believed that it was crucial for an anthropologist to analyze not only the physical properties of material culture but also its meanings and uses in its indigenous context to begin to understand a society. At the same time in France,
Émile Durkheim David Émile Durkheim (; or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French Sociology, sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern soci ...
wrote about the importance of material culture in understanding a society. Durkheim saw material culture as one of the social facts that functions as a coercive force to maintain
solidarity Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. True solidarity means moving beyond individual identities and single issue politics ...
in a society.
Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss ( ; ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a Belgian-born French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair o ...
, in the 20th century, included the study of material culture in his work as an anthropologist because he believed that it could reveal a deeper level of structure and meaning unattainable by typical
fieldwork Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct f ...
. According to Lévi-Strauss, material culture can recall the mindset of a people, regardless of intervening time or space. Also in the 20th century, Mary Douglas thought that anthropology was about studying the meaning of material culture to the people who experience it. Marvin Harris, a contemporary of Douglas, put forward the theory of cultural materialism and said that all aspects of society have material causes.


Sociology

In archaeology, the idea that social relations are embodied in material is well known and established, with extensive research on exchange, gift giving and objects as part of social ceremonies and events. However, in contradiction to archaeology, where scientists build on material remains of previous cultures, sociology tends to overlook the importance of material in understanding relationships and human social behavior. The social aspects in material culture include the social behavior around it: the way that the material is used, shared, talked about, or made. An object cannot hold meaning in and of itself and so when one focuses on the social aspects of material culture, it is critical to keep in mind that interpretations of objects and of interactions with them are the ones to evoke importance and meaning.


Heritage industry

Museums and other material culture repositories, by their very nature, are often active participants in the heritage industry. Defined as "the business of managing places that are important to an area's history and encouraging people to visit them," the heritage industry relies heavily on material culture and objects to interpret cultural heritage. The industry is fueled by a cycle of people visiting museums, historic sites, and collections to interact with ideas or physical objects of the past. In turn, the institutions profit through monetary donations or admission fees as well as the publicity that comes with word-of-mouth communications. That relationship is controversial, as many believe that the heritage industry corrupts the meaning and importance of cultural objects. Often, scholars in the
humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...
take a critical view of the heritage industry, particularly heritage tourism, believing it to be a vulgar oversimplification and corruption of historic fact and importance. Others believe that the relationship and the financial stability it brings is often the element that allows curators, researchers, and directors to conserve material culture's legacy.


See also

* Symbolic culture *
Non-material culture Culture consists of both material culture and non-material culture. Thoughts or ideas that make up a culture are called the non-material culture. In contrast to material culture, non-material culture does not include any physical objects or artifa ...
* Museum anthropology * Museum folklore


References


External links

* {{Authority control Philosophy of technology Methods in archaeology Cultural studies Western culture eo:Materia kulturo