Title A material culture : consumption and materiality on the coast of precolonial East Africa / Stephanie Wynne-Jones

Edition First edition Published Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2016

Click on the following:
ProQuest Ebook Central
EBSCO eBooks

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xiii, 232 pages, 8 pages of plates) : illustrations, maps Contents 1. A material culture: introduction -- 2. Objects in the Swahili world -- 3. Kilwa Kisiwani : establishing a town -- 4. Vumba kuu : negotiating similarity and difference -- 5. Moving inland from the coast -- 6. Community and identity in material culture -- 7. The Indian Ocean before the arrival of Europeans -- 8. Swahili material worlds Summary A Material Culture focuses on objects in Swahili society through the elaboration of an approach that sees both people and things as caught up in webs of mutual interaction. It therefore provides both a new theoretical intervention in some of the key themes in material culture studies, including the agency of objects and the ways they were linked to social identities, through the development of the notion of a biography of practice. These theoretical discussions are explored through the archaeology of the Swahili, on the Indian Ocean coast of eastern Africa. This book suggests that the Swahili are a highly-significant case study for exploration of the relationship between objects and people in the past, as the society was constituted and defined through a particular material setting. Further, it is suggested that this relationship was subtly different than in other areas, and particularly from western models that dominate prevailing analysis. The case is made for an alternative form of materiality, perhaps common to the wider Indian Ocean world, with an emphasis on redistribution and circulation rather than on the accumulation of wealth. The reader will therefore gain familiarity with a little-known and fascinating culture, as well as appreciating the ways that non-western examples can add to our theoretical models."-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed October 14, 2016) Subject Material culture -- Africa, East Archaeology -- Africa, East Swahili-speaking peoples -- Africa, East -- Social life and customs Swahili-speaking peoples -- Africa, East -- History HISTORY -- Africa -- Central. Archaeology Material culture Swahili-speaking peoples Swahili-speaking peoples -- Social life and customs Sachkultur History. SUBJECT Africa, East -- Civilization. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85001590 Subject Africa, East Ostafrika Genre/Form History Form Electronic book LC no. 2015954096 ISBN 9780191077166 019107716X 9780191917042 0191917044 9780198759317 0198759312

  Permalink