The Inbetweenness of Things: Materializing Mediation and Movement between Worlds

Description

We habitually categorize the world in binary logics of ‘animate’ and ‘inanimate’, ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’, ‘self’ and ‘other’, ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic’. The Inbetweenness of Things rejects such Western classificatory traditions – which tend to categorize objects using bounded notions of period, place and purpose – and argues instead for a paradigm where objects are not one thing or another but a multiplicity of things at once. Adopting an ‘object-centred’ approach, with contributions from material culture specialists across various disciplines, the book showcases a series of objects that defy neat classification. In the process, it explores how ‘things’ mediate and travel between conceptual worlds in diverse cultural, geographic and temporal contexts, and how they embody this mediation and movement in their form. With an impressive range of international authors, each essay grounds explorations of cutting-edge theory in concrete case studies. An innovative, thought-provoking read for students and researchers in anthropology, archaeology, museum studies and art history which will transform the way readers think about objects. Cover Half Title Title Copyright Contents Figures List of contributors Acknowledgements 1 The inbetweenness of things A cabinet of curiosities Fetish Rhizome Gift Prism References Museums as sites of inbetweenness 2 The inbetweenness of the vitrine: Three parerga of a feather headdress The plume, the vitrine and the parergon Vitrine 1: Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck, 1595 Vitrine 2: Museum für Völkerkunde, Vienna, 2012 Vitrine 3: Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 1940 Conclusion – smashing the vitrines? Note References 3 The buzz of displacement: Liminality among Burmese court objects in Oxford, London and Yangon Orientations Separation Liminality Reincorporations Concluding remarks Notes References 4 Object and spirit agency: The G’psgolox poles as mediators within and between colonized and colonizer cultures Introduction The journey of the G’psgolox poles in and between cultures The power of objects Spirit agency The G’psgolox poles and their spirits Notes References Masquerades and mediation 5 At the centre of everything? A Nigerian mask and its histories Meeting Onogidi The mask and its attachments Overt male authority and covert female power From ekuecici to ekuobanyi Onogidi’s genealogy Ownership and performance Ec’ane, the ‘feast of women’: The ritual cycle and the marking of time Ec’ane, Onogidi, performance and inter-lineage collaboration Emblematic or inbetween? References 6 Amòdu and the material manifestation of Eégún The cloth closest to the masquerade is called Jépè Categories and divisions Gesture Manifestation and the productive inbetween Note References Syncretism, intercession and iconoclash 7 Desire, imitation and ambiguity in Asmat sculpture Acknowledgement References 8 Animating relationships: Inca conopa and modern illa as mediating objects Social relations between people and things: Mediating objects Illa: The sympathetic communicative power of objects Conopa: The Inca state’s insertion within household rituals Seek and destroy: La Extirpación de la Idolotría en el Perú Display objects: Conopa and illa as museum accessions Objects are always inbetween Acknowledgements References 9 Visual diplomacy: Art circulation and iconoclashes in the Kingdom of Bamum International relations and material exchanges Competitive displays and commercial entrepreneurship Ambiguous objects and iconoclashes Semantic brokerage and canonical inventions Blurred boundaries and contaminated taxonomies Notes References Hybridity in form and function 10 Mediating between Mayas and the art market: The traditional-yet-contemporary carved gourd vessel History and usage of gourds The inbetweenness of carved gourds Agency, messages and mediation Conclusion Notes References 11 Queen Victoria’s Samoan bonnet Introduction The Samoan bonnet Turtleshell Missionaries Clothing as a weapon of conversion The West on the head Missionary collections Thomas Heath: Collecting the bonnet The inbetweenness of the bonnet Mimicry as inbetweenness Creative transculturation Conclusions Notes References 12 The indigenization of the transcultural teacup in colonial Canada Encountering Indigenous teacups Theorizing the teacups The inbetweenness of tea culture Indigenous integration of ‘European’ teacups Settler markets for Indigenous teacups Conclusion: Indigenous teacups today Acknowledgements Notes References Between image, text and object 13 ‘Curious statues so cunningly contrived’: Plato’s Silenus, inwardness and inbetweenness Plato’s Silenus Between metaphor and the material Significant insides: Some Silenic models Writing the Silenus-figure Beyond fixed dichotomies References 14 Coinage between cultures: Mediating power in Roman Macedonia Ambiguity Mobility Appropriation Unfamiliarity? Acceptability Conclusions References Index