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Exploring Materiality and Connectivity in Anthropology and Beyond

Exploring Materiality and Connectivity in Anthropology and Beyond provides a new look at the old anthropological concern with materiality and connectivity. It understands materiality, not as defined property of some-thing, nor does it take connectivity as merely a relation between discrete entities. It sees materiality and connectivity as two interrelated modes in which an entity is, or more precisely – is becoming, in the world. Throughout the four-year research process that led to this book, the authors approached this question not just from a theoretical perspective; taking the suggestion of 'thinking through things' literally and methodologically seriously, the first two workshops were dedicated to practical, hands-on exercises working with things. From these workshops a series of installations emerged, straddling the boundaries of art and academia. Throughout the pages of this volume, the reader is invited to travel beyond imaginaries of a universe of separate planets united by connections, and to venture with us instead into the thicket of thing~ties in which we live.
 

282 pages | 41 color plates | 6.14 x 9.21 | © 2020

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Table of Contents

Introduction: Materiality and Connectivity Martin Saxer and Philipp Schorch Part 1    Conceptual Grounds 1. In the Gathering Shadows of Material Things Tim Ingold 2. Doing/Changing Things/Us Philipp W. Stockhammer Part 2    Movement and Growth 3. Becoming Imperial: The Politicisation of the Gift in Atlantic Africa Julia Binter 4. How Pilgrimage Souvenirs Turn to Religious Remittances and Powerful Medicines Catrien Notermans and Jean Kommers 5. Invocating the Gods or the Apotheosis of the Barbie Doll Natalie Göltenboth 6. Stallions of the Indian Ocean Srinivas Reddy 7. Labelling, Packaging, Scanning: Paths and Diversions of Mobile Phones in the Andes Juliane Müller 8. Establishing Intimacy through Mobile Phone Connections Anna-Maria Walter                Part 3    Dissolution and Traces 9. Smoky Relations: Beyond Dichotomies of Substance on the Tibetan Plateau Gillian G. Tan 10. What Remains: The Things that Fall to the Side of Everyday Life Marc Higgin 11. Apocalyptic Sublimes and the Recalibration of Distance: Doing Art-Anthropology in Post-Disaster Japan Jennifer Clarke 12. Towards a Fragmented Ethnography? Walking Along Debris in Armero, Colombia Lorenzo Granada 13. Remembering and Non-Remembering Among the Yanomami Gabriele Herzog-Schröder 14. The Matter of Erasure: Making Room for Utopia at Nonoalco-Tlatelolco, Mexico City Adam Kaasa 15. Refugee Life Jackets Thrown Off but Not Away: Connecting Materialities in Upcycling Initiatives Elia Petridou 16. Tamga Tash: A Tale of Stones, Stories, and Travelling Immobiles Lisa Francesca Rail Index

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