Michael Dietler
Weatherhead
Resident Scholar 2002-2003
Biography and the Luo Material World: Relating
Lives, Objects, and Memory in Rural Africa
At
the core of the archeological endeavor is a fundamental problem: Without
access to the people who lived in past societies, scholars must piece
together information about these cultures from the remnants and shards
of objects left behind. "Basically everything we have to say
about the past is based on some kind of inference from the material
objects that we find," says Michael Dietler. "In order for
us to make valid inferences, we really have to understand the relationships
between the material and non-material aspects of a culture and society.
And, unfortunately, we still don't have a good theoretical grasp of
that."
As part of the recent revival of interest
in material culture within anthropology and the development of "ethnoarchaeology,"
Dietler and his collaborator, archeologist and ethnographer Ingrid
Herbich, are writing two books this year based on extensive fieldwork
among the Luo people of Kenya. By conducting ethnographic studies
of material culture in living contexts "where both sides of the
relationship can be observed," Dietler explains, a set of theoretical
tools might be developed that can craft "a more adequate window
of entry for perceiving social relations and processes in ancient
societies."
"Because the Luo make pots for their
own consumption, not for an art or tourist market, studying their
active pottery system offers fascinating possibilities for archaeologists,"
Dietler observes, noting that "pottery constitutes about ninety
percent of the evidence we have from societies of recent periods."
The Luo study is unusual among ethnoarchaeological
projects because of its scale and temporal depth, covering a region
of over 10,000 square kilometers and lasting three years. Focusing
particularly on the lives and works of potters, the study illuminates
"the dynamic interrelationships between the life histories of
craftspersons, of the objects they produce and consume, and of the
social, material, and conceptual landscapes they inhabit." Drawing
from the work of Mauss, Bourdieu, and the French tradition of technologie,
Dietler and Herbich trace the "biography" of pots and settlement
patterns among the Luo, returning to these basic questions: How does
material culture originate in its social context and how does material
culture reciprocally condition social structures and processes?
The scholars have geared one of these books
toward ethnographers interested in biography and material culture;
the other, "more data-heavy" book is directed at archaeologists
using ethnography to understand pottery.
Affiliation at time of fellowship: Associate Professor, Department
of Anthropology, University of Chicago
