Material Culture In Anthropology

“Recent thinking in anthropology defines material culture as an ‘event’ or ‘effect’ that emerges from the performance of material things, bodies and spaces” (Kim 2017:194). Material culture shapes the way that we live today and has a huge role in our social lives. This essay will explore what material culture is, how is can be used, and how it can form and identify identities and culture. Material culture helps us understand our social life by looking at physical evidence to determine certain cultural and identity traits of individuals or groups of people in the past and present in order to interpret our own lives.

What is Material Culture?

“The human-thing relationship is complex but concrete, not mystical. People interact importantly with

This is done with the help of material culture. Material culture is used by historians to describe, categorize, and compare characteristics of artifacts. They also determine how they were made, distributed, when and where they appeared, how they were used and they even relate objects to one another. This helps grasp the concept of culture. Objects show relationships and mediate progress through the social world and can show the rules, belief patterns, cultural constrains, moral standards, and quality of life of those who made or used these objects. An example of what could be taken from material culture is through homes. The exteriors and interiors or homes can reveal how people got food, shelter, warmth, privacy, security, etc. (Grassby 2005:591-593). Archeologists have developed an appreciation for the role that material culture plays in social behavior. They found that in order to use material culture to reconstruct past behavior, they also have to look at the way people use material culture today. Their studies include comparing the past to the present and analyzing the relationship between material culture and human behaviors. (Rathje

Guindon is one archaeologist who conducted research on the Neeposh Indigenous family. This shows a specific example of a process that researchers can go along in order to retrieve valuable information from material culture. Indigenous peoples transformed their material culture between the 1940s and 2012 to meet their needs for well-being. During the 1940s to the 1970s, the material culture of Indigenous peoples were extremely affected as this is when they experienced the most social and material transformations (Guindon 2015:77-78). In Guindon’s research, he interviewed a Mistissini Indigenous family, the Neeposh family, which was affected by the Hydro-Quebec’s Rupert River Diversion. Together, they recorded the archaeological heritage and memories associated with meaningful places in their hunting grounds. He stated that developing a relationship with them has been a way for him to continue to learn about their ways, language, skills, and their pasts. 1403 artifacts from the 1940s to the 1970s were collected and analyzed and these artifacts also stimulated conversations with elders. These interviews consisted of them identifying the objects, their functions, and commenting upon what was observed during the archeological analyzes. They would sometimes also bring in their personal items to help them discuss their pasts and contemporary technology. These objects, along with