Theme:
1. The Material Record: Current Trends and Future Directions
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Ethnographies of Makers and Making: Traditional Craft and Technology in Contemporary Societies
Content:
This session brings together archaeologists interested in contemporary contexts and sociocultural anthropologists concerned with material culture to discuss projects that cross disciplinary lines. Our focus is on highlighting research that investigates material culture practices in present-day societies around the globe as they relate to issues of broader anthropological significance. In particular, we invite contributions from scholars working on makers and making, broadly construed. Ethnoarchaeology as originally practiced had a keen interest in craft as an analogical tool for understanding non-industrial technologies; post-processual developments in 'the archaeology of the present' opened the field to investigations of the technologically diverse present, but, with exceptions such as French technologie culturelle, tended to address questions of consumption and infrastructure rather than craft. We aim to revive ethnoarchaeology's interest in traditional and non-industrial makers and making from a position of engagement with contemporary concerns. How do traditional crafts contribute to resilience in an age of climate catastrophe? How do communities use and understand the making of things as they construct and reconstruct themselves in a rapidly changing world? How do crafts interact with industrial commodities in a globalized economy? How does craft shape ontology, epistemology, sociality, and politics, and what consequences stem from the loss of traditional craft knowledge and practice around the world?
Keywords:
Ethnography, Ethnoarchaeology, Contemporary World, Craft, Material Culture, Technology
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Kristen Pearson (United States) 1
Co-organisers:
Geoffrey Hobbis (Netherlands) 2
Affiliations:
1. Anthropology and Inner Asian Studies, Harvard University
2. Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation, Wageningen University and Research
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