Sensible Objects: Colonialism, Museums and Material CultureElizabeth Edwards, Chris Gosden, Ruth Phillips Anthropologists of the senses have long argued that cultures differ in their sensory registers. This groundbreaking volume applies this idea to material culture and the social practices that endow objects with meanings in both colonial and postcolonial relationships. It challenges the privileged position of the sense of vision in the analysis of material culture. Contributors argue that vision can only be understood in relation to the other senses. In this they present another challenge to the assumed western five-sense model, and show how our understanding of material culture in both historical and contemporary contexts might be reconfigured if we consider the role of smell, taste, touch and sound, as well as sight, in making meanings about objects. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Part 1 The Senses | 33 |
1 Enduring and Endearing Feelings and the Transformation of Material Culture in West Africa | 35 |
2 Studio Photography and the Aesthetics of Citizenship in The Gambia West Africa | 61 |
The Fate of Practical Knowledge | 87 |
Part 2 Colonialism | 119 |
Chiseling the Living Face Dimensions of Maori Tattoo | 121 |
Taste and Smell among the Kwakwakawakw | 141 |
The AudioVisual Nexus DelhiLondon 191112 | 169 |
Part 3 Museums | 197 |
Western Sensibilities and Indigenous Artifacts | 199 |
The Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples at the American Museum of Natural History | 223 |
Museums and the Lost Body Problem | 245 |
Fragmentary Museums and Archaeologies of Archive | 269 |
| 302 | |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic African ahanonko American Museum Anlo Anlo-Ewe Anthropology archaeology archive artifacts Atsatsa Boas body bread machine British calabash Cambridge century chapter Classen collection colonial color contact point contemporary context cooking created curator discourse display drinking Durbar eating Elgar’s embodied Empire encounter environment ethnographic eulachon European example exhibition experience feast feeling forms gallery Gambia Hall Holocaust human images imperial India indigenous Ingold Jane knowledge kple Kwakwaka’wakw London Maori Margaret Mead masks material culture Mead Mead’s meaning memory metonymic modern moko Mughal multisensory museology museum objects Museum of Natural National one’s Oxford Pacific parlor photographs Pitt Rivers Museum political portrait postcolonial potlatch practice production quipu recipes representation role Routledge sandpainting sensations senses sensory seselelame shoes skill smell social Sorkpor sound space studio suggests ta moko taste tattoo things touch traditional Tukano University Press visitors visual Visual Anthropology Western women York