Introduction -- Too sturdy to be mundane : a baruya garden fence -- Entwined by nature : eels, traps, and ritual -- The anthropological complexity of unremarkable drums -- Artefacts as images or how to relate relations -- Racing-cars, dinky toys, and aging boys -- What materiality means : objects as resonators -- What's new? : blurring anthropological borders but keeping "technology" in mind" -- The paradox of marginal changes
Summary
This concise book shows the importance of objects that are considered ordinary by cultural outsiders and scholars, yet lie at the heart of the systems of thought and practices of their makers and users. This volume demonstrates the role of these objects in non-verbal communication, both in non-ritual and in ritual situations. Lemonnier shows that some objects, their physical properties and their material implementation, are wordless expressions of fundamental aspects of a way of living and thinking, as well as sometimes the only means of expressing the inexpressible
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-191) and index
