Material and visual cultures of development
Tutor: Dr Karen Wells
Room 406, 30 Russell Square.
Mondays 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. January 7th – March 17th and Saturday 15th and Sunday
16th March 2007.
MODULE SYLLABUS
Week
1
January 7
2
January 14
3
January 21
4
January 28
5
6
February 4
February 11
February 18
7
8
February 25
March 3
9
March 10
10
March 15
11
March 15
12
March 16
13
March 16
14
March 17
What is material culture and what is its significance for
development studies.
All that is solid melts into air’: development and the
destruction of objects
Development and the preservation of objects:
Museums, heritage and tourism
Development and the preservation of objects:
Commemoration
Capitalism and the object.: the gift
READING WEEK
Symbolic exchange, material culture and representation.:
globalisation
Symbolic exchange, material culture and representation:
nationalism
Symbolic exchange, material culture and representation:
religion
Visual culture, representation and the gaze of
development: Art, representation and development
Visual culture, representation and the gaze of
development:Photography, representation and
development
Visual culture, representation and the gaze of development
Film, representation and development.
Visual culture, representation and the gaze of development
Film, representation and development.
Course review.
RATIONALE
Economic development changes objects and their symbolic meanings. It literally
changes how the world looks and feels. The importance of material culture and visual
culture to understanding how people organize and explain their social and political
relationships has long been recognized in anthropology and sociology. This module
will focuses on the relationship between people and things and their representation as
a way of thinking about how development materially changes people’s lives and why
such changes might be resisted and represented.
MODULE AIMS
1. To extend students’ understanding of the impact of development on society,
culture and household economy through an examination of the impact of
development on objects and representation.
2. To introduce students to the key texts in the proximate disciplines of sociology
and anthropology and religious studies on material culture and representation
as they relate to development.
3. To extend students critical tools for thinking about the impacts of development
policy and practice by focusing the use of objects and representation on
everyday life and symbolic exchange.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. A critical understanding of key texts on material culture across the disciplines
of anthropology, sociology and religious studies.
2. An appreciation of the interdisciplinary character of development studies as a
field of inquiry.
3. An understanding of the importance of symbolic exchange to everyday life
and how this links to advocacy of, as well as resistance to, development.
TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGY
The module is assessed by one 2,000 word critical annotated bibliography and one
4,000 word essay. These contribute 20 per cent and 80 per cent of overall marks
respectively. The bibliography must be submitted on March 3rd and the essay on April
16th 2008.
Teaching consists of a one –hour tutor led session and a one-hour student-led seminar
each week. Students are required to make a presentation to the seminar at least once
over the duration of the module. The presentation should take the form of the
theoretical analysis of an object. Students who are not presenting will be required to
read an article or chapter and use their reading of this source to raise questions in the
seminar discussion. The tutor led session will deploy a range of teaching strategies
including lectures, outside speakers, the analysis of objects and places in the local
area, and visiting speakers.
The weekend session of this module will be an interactive engagement with art,
photography and film. Students are welcome to make suggestions for inclusion of
particular films or collections they would like to view, discuss and analyse.
READINGS
Ashkenazi, Michael & Clammer, J. R. 2000. Consumption and material culture in
contemporary Japan London: Kegan Paul International, 2000.
Barrie Reynolds, Margaret A. Stott (eds) Material anthropology : contemporary
approaches to material culture. Lanham ; London : University Press of America,
c1987
Barringer, T. and Tom Flynn. (eds) Colonialism and the object : empire, material
culture, and the museum London: Routledge, 1998.
Bates, C. (ed) 2006. Beyond representation : colonial and postcolonial constructions
of Indian identity New Delhi ; Oxford : Oxford University Press.
Bauer, Arnold Jacob 1994 Goods, power, history : Latin America's material culture
Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter
Brewer, J. and Trentmann, F. 2006. Consuming cultures, global perspectives :
historical trajectories. Oxford Berg
Coombes, A. 2003. History After Apartheid: Visual Culture and Public Memory in a
Democratic South Africa, (Duke University Press, 2003;
Coombes, A. Reinventing Africa: museums, material culture and popular imagination
in late Victorian and Edwardian England. New Haven (USA); London : Yale U.P.,
1994
Dicks, B. 2003. Culture on display : the production of contemporary visitability
Maidenhead : Open University Press.
Edwards, E. and J.Hart (eds) 2004. Photographs, objects, histories : on the materiality
of images London : Routledge , 2004
Edwards, E., Chris Gosden, and Ruth B. Phillips. (Eds) 2006. Sensible objects :
colonialism, museums, and material culture Oxford ; New York : Berg.
Ferme, Mariane C. The underneath of things : violence, history, and the everyday in
Sierra Leone Berkeley, Calif. : London : University of California Press, 2001.
Frank Herreman (ed) Material differences : art and identity in Africa. New York :
Museum for African Art, 2003.
Gosden, Christopher and Knowles, Chantal. Collecting colonialism : material culture
and colonial change Oxford : Berg, 2001.
Hallam, Elizabeth and Jenny Hockey 2001. Death, memory and material culture New
York : Berg,
Hay, M. 1994. Material culture and the shaping of consumer society in colonial
western Kenya. Boston, Mass. : African Studies Center, Boston University.
Hitchcock, M. and Ken Teague. (eds) 2000. Souvenirs : the material culture of
tourism. Aldershot : Ashgate.
Hoskins, Janet. 1998. Biographical objects: how things tell the story of people’s lives.
New York: Routledge
Hodder, I. (ed) 1989. The meanings of things : material culture and symbolic
expression. London : Unwin Hyman.
Kerlogue, F.. (ed) 2004. Performing objects: museum, material culture and
performance in Southeast Asia Contributions in Critical Museology and Material
Culture series. London: Horniman Museum and Gardens.
Kingery, D.W. 1996. Learning from things: method and theory of material culture
studies . Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press.
Klechler, S. and Daniel Miller.(eds) Clothing as material culture. Oxford ; New York
: Berg, 2005.
Knappett, Carl. 2005. Thinking through material culture : an interdisciplinary
perspective Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press.
MacKenzie, Maureen Anne. Androgynous objects : string bags and gender in central
Lock, M. and Judith Farquhar. (eds) Beyond the body proper reading the
anthropology of material life Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
Martin, Paul, 2002. The trade union badge: material culture in action Aldershot :
Ashgate.
Martinez, K. & Ames, Kenneth L. 1997. The material culture of gender, the gender of
material culture
Miller, D. 1998 (Ed) Material cultures : why some things matter Chicago : University
of Chicago Press ; London : UCL Press
Miller, Daniel (ed) 2005. Materiality Durham, N.C. : Duke University Press,
Miller, Daniel (Ed) 2001. Home possessions : material culture behind closed doors
Oxford, UK ; New York, NY, USA : Berg, 2001.
Myers, Fred R. 2005. The empire of things : regimes of value and material culture.
Oxford : Berg,.
Pearce, S.M. (Ed) 1999. Museum studies in material culture /. JWI [Pea]
Piper, Jacqueline M. Rice in South-East Asia : cultures and landscapes. Kuala
Lumpur :
Rehder, John B. 1999. Delta sugar : Louisiana's vanishing plantation landscape
Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press.
Riggins, Stephen Harold, 1994. The socialness of things : essays on the sociosemiotics of objects. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyer.
Sciama, Lidia D. & Eicher, Joanne B.(eds) Beads and bead makers : gender,
material culture and meaning. New York : Berg, 1998.
Seremetakis, C.N..(ed) 1996. The senses still : perception and memory as material
culture in modernity. Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Stocking, G.W. Jr (ed) 1985. Objects and others : essays on museums and material
culture. D Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press
Suthrell, Charlotte A. 2004. Unzipping gender : sex, cross-dressing and culture
Oxford ; New York : Berg.
Tilley, C. et al (Eds) Handbook of material culture London; New York: Sage.2006.