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MARY JO ARNOLDI is Curator for African Ethnology in the Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.
CHRISTRAUD M. GEARY is Curator of the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.
KRIS L. HARDIN is a Research Associate with the Smithsonian Institution.
List of contents
INTRODUCTION: Efficacy and Objects ¿ Kris L. Hardin and Mary Jo Arnoldi
PART I: TECHNOLOGY AND THE PRODUCTION OF FORM
1. Technological Style and the Making of Culture: Three Kono Contexts of Production ¿ Kris L. Hardin
2. Magical Iron Technology in the Cameroon Grassfields ¿ Michael Rowlands and Jean-Pierre Warnier
3. When Nomads Settle: Changing Technologies of Building and Transport and the Production of Architectural Form among the Gabra, the Rendille, and the Somalis ¿ Labelle Prussin
4. Ceramics from the Upemba Depression: A Diachronic Study ¿ Kanimba Misago
5. Objects and People: Relationships and Transformation in the Culture of the Bambala ¿ Kazadi Ntole
PART II: CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES: PRESENTING SELF AND SOCIETY WITH OBJECTS
6. Sticks, Self, and Society in Booran Oromo: A Symbolic Interpretation ¿ Aneesa Kassam and Gemetchu Megerssa
7. Material Narratives and the Negotiation of Identities through Objects in Malian Theatre ¿ Mary Jo Arnoldi
8. The Consumption of an African Modernity ¿ Michael Rowlands
9. Household Objects and the Philosophy of Igbo Social Space ¿ Chike Aniakor
10. Hoes and Clothes in a Luo Household: Changing Consumption in a Colonial Economy, 1906-1936 ¿ Margaret Jean Hay
PART III: LIFE HISTORIES: CHANGING INTERPRETATIONS OF OBJECTS AND MUSEUMS
11. The Passive Object and the Tribal Paradigm: Colonial Museography in French West Africa ¿ Philip L. Ravenhill
12. Art, Politics, and the Transformation of Meaning: Bamum Art in the Twentieth Century ¿ Christraud M. Geary
13. Mami Wata Shrines: Exotica and the Construction of Self ¿ Henry John Drewal
14. Zaïrian Popular Painting as Commodity and as Communication ¿ Bogumil Jewsiewicki
Contents
INTRODUCTION: Efficacy and Objects ¿ Kris L. Hardin and Mary Jo Arnoldi
PART I: TECHNOLOGY AND THE PRODUCTION OF FORM
1. Technological Style and the Making of Culture: Three Kono Contexts of Production ¿ Kris L. Hardin
2. Magical Iron Technology in the Cameroon Grassfields ¿ Michael Rowlands and Jean-Pierre Warnier
3. When Nomads Settle: Changing Technologies of Building and Transport and the Production of Architectural Form among the Gabra, the Rendille, and the Somalis ¿ Labelle Prussin
4. Ceramics from the Upemba Depression: A Diachronic Study ¿ Kanimba Misago
5. Objects and People: Relationships and Transformation in the Culture of the Bambala ¿ Kazadi Ntole
PART II: CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES: PRESENTING SELF AND SOCIETY WITH OBJECTS
6. Sticks, Self, and Society in Booran Oromo: A Symbolic Interpretation ¿ Aneesa Kassam and Gemetchu Megerssa
7. Material Narratives and the Negotiation of Identities through Objects in Malian Theatre ¿ Mary Jo Arnoldi
8. The Consumption of an African Modernity ¿ Michael Rowlands
9. Household Objects and the Philosophy of Igbo Social Space ¿ Chike Aniakor
10. Hoes and Clothes in a Luo Household: Changing Consumption in a Colonial Economy, 1906-1936 ¿ Margaret Jean Hay
PART III: LIFE HISTORIES: CHANGING INTERPRETATIONS OF OBJECTS AND MUSEUMS
11. The Passive Object and the Tribal Paradigm: Colonial Museography in French West Africa ¿ Philip L. Ravenhill
12. Art, Politics, and the Transformation of Meaning: Bamum Art in the Twentieth Century ¿ Christraud M. Geary
13. Mami Wata Shrines: Exotica and the Construction of Self ¿ Henry John Drewal
14. Zaïrian Popular Painting as Commodity and as Communication ¿ Bogumil Jewsiewicki
About the author
MARY JO ARNOLDI is Curator for African Ethnology in the Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.
CHRISTRAUD M. GEARY is Curator of the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.
KRIS L. HARDIN is a Research Associate with the Smithsonian Institution.
Summary
Contains essays that open fresh perspectives for understanding African societies and cultures through the study of objects. This title treats topics ranging from the production of material objects to the meaning of sticks, masquerades, household tools, clothing, and the television set in the contemporary repertoire of African material culture.
