Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Material and Immaterial Culture'
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Malta, Renata Barreto. "A COMUNICAÇÃO NO MERCADO DO IMATERIAL: Tensões e distensões da produção simbólica em uma era pós-material." Universidade Metodista de São Paulo, 2013. http://tede.metodista.br/jspui/handle/tede/675.
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This thesis is constituted by two complementary stages, the theoretical and the empirical ones, which are essential to reach the following aims we have proposed. 1) Confirming a change in the publicity praxis in which material and functional elements become less relevant and immaterial and intangible elements more important. 2) Investigating, objectively and comparatively, the corpus content, demonstrating which themes prevail in different social periods and punctuating their tangible and intangible essence. 3) Presenting and delineating the Market of Immaterial , the outline of a new model of marketing segmentation which has the immateriality as base. The theoretical discussion based on Cultural Studies and in authors who discourse about the Post Modernity and its consumption relations is the bottom-line of this research and only by it we could elaborate the assumptions which have originated the two hypotheses, extremely connected, which sustain this thesis. The empirical research applies as a method the quantitative content analysis of the corpus, composed by advertising videos, carefully defined. Following the analytical and theoretical path, it was possible to conclude that we are in a post material era, ruled by the intangible, which modifies the market communication.
A tese é constituída por duas etapas complementares, a teórica e a empírica, essenciais para que os seguintes objetivos propostos sejam devidamente cumpridos. 1) confirmar uma mudança da práxis publicitária na qual elementos materiais e funcionais passam a ser minimizados e elementos imateriais e intangíveis evidenciados. 2) investigar de forma objetiva e comparativa o conteúdo do corpus e demonstrar quais temáticas prevalecem em diferentes períodos sociais, pontuando sua natureza tangível e intangível. 3) Apresentar e delinear o Mercado do Imaterial , o esboço de um novo modelo de segmentação de mercado que tem a imaterialidade como base. O aprofundamento teórico-conceitual alicerçado nos Estudos Culturais e em autores que discorrem sobre a pós-modernidade e suas relações de consumo é ponto de partida desta pesquisa e só por meio dele chegamos às premissas que dão origem às duas hipóteses, extremamente interligadas, que sustentam esta tese. A pesquisa empírica utiliza como procedimento metodológico a análise de conteúdo quantitativa do corpus, composto por vídeos publicitários criteriosamente definidos. Por meio do trajeto analítico e teórico, é possível concluir que estamos em um período pós-material regido pelo intangível, o que modifica a comunicação de mercado.
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ANGELINI, Dario. "ECOMUSEI E LA CULTURA MATERIALE E IMMATERIALE." Doctoral thesis, Università degli Studi di Palermo, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10447/91346.
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Carvalho, Conceição de Maria Belfort de [UNESP]. "A genealogia do patrimônio em São Luís: da Athenas a capital da diversidade." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/103556.
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Análise da produção de identidades em São Luís, Maranhão. Busca-se compreender, por meio da genealogia foucaultiana, como se constituiu, histórica e discursivamente, uma simultaneidade de identidades, que nomeiam, atualmente, a ―São Luís da diversidade‖, a partir do conceito de patrimônio cultural, edificado por várias práticas discursivas. Faz-se uma análise de diversos discursos, buscando a emergência de acontecimentos que os fabricaram e criaram São Luís como Athenas Brasileira, como Manchester do Norte, como Jamaica, e, atualmente, como diversidade (num espaço que reúne a multiplicidade, onde tudo acontece ao mesmo tempo, agora). O corpus assinala a longa duração histórica recortada nesta pesquisa (séculos XVIII-XXI). Em cada momento da irrupção do discurso de ―patrimônio‖ ele se materializa em textos e suportes de diferentes naturezas: livros e imprensa ilustram práticas discursivas que constroem a identidade de Athenas Brasileira (séculos XVIII-XIX); leis, documentos oficiais, documentos fotográficos registram o epíteto Manchester do Norte (início do século XX); várias mídias – impresso, outdoors, planfletos, busdoors – na atualidade, destacam uma simultaneidade de identidades. A pesquisa orienta-se pela proposta teórico-metodológica adotada pela Análise do Discurso de base foucaultiana, na direção que é dada no Brasil pelos trabalhos de Gregolin (2004), Sargentini e Navarro-Barbosa (2004), Fernandes (2007) e nas preocupações de um grupo de pesquisadores, que vêm, a partir da AD, pensando as identidades maranhenses (CRUZ, 2005; SANTOS, 2002; MATOS, 2002; CARVALHO, 2001). Para a constituição histórico-discursiva de uma ―São Luís da diversidade‖, a pesquisa parte da genealogia do conceito de patrimônio, destacando duas concepções que o performaram enquanto um elemento constitutivo de identidade: o patrimônio material...
An analysis of the production of identifies in São Luís – Maranhão. This paper tries to understand, through the genealogy of Foucault, how a simultaneity of identities constituted itself, historically and discursively, which it is considered, nowadays, the ―São Luís of the Diversity‖, from the concept of cultural patrimony, constructed by several discursive practices. It is done an analysis of several discourses and so looking for the emergency of happenings which they fabricate, so creating São Luís like a Brazilian Athens, a Manchester of the North, id est a Jamaica; and for the present like a diversity (in a space which gets together the multiplicity; where everything happens at the same time, now). The corpus signs the long historical length performed in this field research (XVIII – XXI Centuries). In every moment of the irruption of the discourse of ―patrimony‖ it materializes itself into texts and supports of different natures: books and press illustrates discoursive practices which construct the identity of Brasilian Athens (XVIII – XIX Centuries); laws, official documents, photographical documents register the epithet Manchester of the North (beginning of the XX Century); several midia – printed, outdoors, pamphlets, birsdoars – nowadays, emphasize a simultaneity of identities. This paper guides itself to the theoretical methodological proposal adopted by the analysis of the discourse from Foulcantian basis, in that direction whide is given in Brazil by works of Gregolin (2004), Sargentini and Navarro-Barbosa (2004), Fernandes (2007) and also based upon the preoccupations of a group of researchers who come, since AD, considering the Maranhense identifies (CRUZ, 2005; SANTOS, 2002; MATOS, 2002; CARVALHO, 2001). To the construction of the historical – discoursive approach of a ―São Luís of the diversity‖, this perper departs from the genealogy... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)
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Slavet, Eliza Farro. "Freud's Moses memory material and immaterial /." Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 2007. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3252818.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2007.Title from first page of PDF file (viewed April 19, 2007). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 302-325).
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Anzellotti, Elisa. "Memoria e materia della danza : problemi conservativi di un patrimonio culturale immateriale." Thesis, Paris 8, 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015PA080130.
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Ce document vise à répondre à un discours sur la conservation du patrimoine culturel immatériel, qu’est la danse.A partir d'un postulat philosophique esthétique, nous étudierons les problèmes qui se posent avec un art dont l'essence réside dans l’éphémère.Une nouvelle perception du temps et de l’espace entrent en jeu et font que la danse est plus adaptée que les autres arts à l'évolution de ce siècle fluide et remplie de dichotomies.Pour bien comprendre l'importance de la préservation de ces biens, nous avons consacré un chapitre à la législation sur le patrimoine culturel immatériel, en référence notamment à la danse et aux droits d'auteur, point essentiel, lorsque nous allons aborder les problèmes liés aux archives, thème sur lequel se concentre une grande partie de notre travail.Après avoir enquêté sur les matériaux de la danse (avec une attention particulière sur le corps du danseur, le nouvelle technologies et sur le rapport avec les arts plastiques), nous traiterons la problématique de la préservation de la danse. Les principales questions concernent l'avenir, la préservation dans l'ère numérique, avec une référence particulière aux changements des musées et des archives.Nous prendrons pour exemples des cas européens et italiens pour étudier la situation de la protection de la danse et comprendre son évolution. Le critère qui a guidé ce choix fut précisément celui de souligner le danseur (nous nous somme appuyé sur la collaboration d’importants danseurs, comme les Dupuy, aussi avec de les entretien).De cette façon, nous avons jeté les bases théoriques d'un centre idéal pour l'étude et la préservation de la danse en ItalieThis paper aims to discuss the difficulties involved in the preservation of the an intangible cultural heritage: the Dance.We shall begin from an aesthetic and philosophical premise as we investigate the problems that arise with an art form whose virtual essence lives in the ephemeral. However, this quality and the different perception of time and space that the dance create, that allows this art form to adapt to the fluidity of the 21st century - an era encumbered by dynamic dichotomies.In order to fully understand the importance of preserving this cultural heritage, an entire chapter has been devoted to “intangible cultural heritage legislation” which includes particular reference to dance works and copyright laws. An understanding of this aspect is essential - especially when confronting problems related to exploring and researching within dance archives - a prominent theme in this work. The thesis then moves onward to define the element of dance itself, with particular attention placed on the dancer’s instrument (the body) and the new technology. Only after thoroughly exploring this fundamental aspect, we will then discuss the sensitive issue of dance archive preservation.The preliminary exploration and definition in the thesis then brings us to the main question: How can we preserve and protect dance masterpieces in the digital era, especially with respect to current changes in National museums and archive conservation.Specific examples with regards to dance conservation and its evolution have been hued from selected European Institutions and in particular, those in Italy. One of the overriding concepts throughout this thesis has been to focus on the topic from the dancers point of view and therefore, collaborating with important dance figures such as the French master, Dupuy, has offered invaluable insight. It is the hope of this thesis to lay the ground work of a theoretical basis for an ideal center to study and preserve the evolution of dance in Italy
Il presente lavoro ha come obiettivo quello di affrontare un discorso conservativo di un bene culturale immateriale, qual è la danza.Partendo da una premessa estetico filosofica, si indagano le problematiche che si pongono in essere con un’arte la cui essenza risiede nell’effimero. Questa caratteristica, insieme alla diversa percezione di spazio e tempo che si ha con la danza, fanno sì che si adatti meglio di altre arti ai cambiamenti di questo secolo fluido e pieno di dicotomie.Per comprendere appieno l’importanza della salvaguardia di tale bene è stato dedicato un capitolo alla legislazione dei beni culturali intangibili, con particolare riferimento alla danza e al diritto d’autore, fondamentale anche quando si vanno ad affrontare le problematiche riguardanti gli archivi, punto su cui è incentrato molto del lavoro. Tema cardine è infatti la questione della conservazione della danza sia nelle sue componenti materiali, ma soprattutto nella sua immaterialità. Ruolo centrale è rivestito dal corpo del danzatore, elemento sfuggente come in tutte le arti performative. Particolare attenzione viene data alle nuove tecnologie (fotografia, cinema e video) senza tralasciare la documentazione e la conservazione che si ha con la scrittura e le immagini (con specifico riferimento al rapporto con le arti plastiche). Vengono presi in esame poi specifici esempi europei e italiani per indagare la situazione inerente la conservazione della danza. Un criterio che ha guidato la scelta è stato proprio quello di dare risalto al danzatore. In questo modo si sono volute gettare le basi teoriche per un ideale centro per lo studio e la conservazione della danza in Italia sul modello francese del CND
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Carvalho, Conceição de Maria Belfort de. "A genealogia do patrimônio em São Luís : da Athenas a capital da diversidade /." Araraquara : [s.n.], 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/103556.
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Orientador: Maria do Rosário de Fátima Valencise GregolinBanca: Vanice de Oliveira Sargentini
Banca: Luzia Sigoli Fernandes Costa
Banca: Marisa Gama Khalil
Banca: Antonio Suárez Abreu
Resumo: Análise da produção de identidades em São Luís, Maranhão. Busca-se compreender, por meio da genealogia foucaultiana, como se constituiu, histórica e discursivamente, uma simultaneidade de identidades, que nomeiam, atualmente, a ―São Luís da diversidade‖, a partir do conceito de patrimônio cultural, edificado por várias práticas discursivas. Faz-se uma análise de diversos discursos, buscando a emergência de acontecimentos que os fabricaram e criaram São Luís como Athenas Brasileira, como Manchester do Norte, como Jamaica, e, atualmente, como diversidade (num espaço que reúne a multiplicidade, onde tudo acontece ao mesmo tempo, agora). O corpus assinala a longa duração histórica recortada nesta pesquisa (séculos XVIII-XXI). Em cada momento da irrupção do discurso de ―patrimônio‖ ele se materializa em textos e suportes de diferentes naturezas: livros e imprensa ilustram práticas discursivas que constroem a identidade de Athenas Brasileira (séculos XVIII-XIX); leis, documentos oficiais, documentos fotográficos registram o epíteto Manchester do Norte (início do século XX); várias mídias - impresso, outdoors, planfletos, busdoors - na atualidade, destacam uma simultaneidade de identidades. A pesquisa orienta-se pela proposta teórico-metodológica adotada pela Análise do Discurso de base foucaultiana, na direção que é dada no Brasil pelos trabalhos de Gregolin (2004), Sargentini e Navarro-Barbosa (2004), Fernandes (2007) e nas preocupações de um grupo de pesquisadores, que vêm, a partir da AD, pensando as identidades maranhenses (CRUZ, 2005; SANTOS, 2002; MATOS, 2002; CARVALHO, 2001). Para a constituição histórico-discursiva de uma ―São Luís da diversidade‖, a pesquisa parte da genealogia do conceito de patrimônio, destacando duas concepções que o performaram enquanto um elemento constitutivo de identidade: o patrimônio material... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo)
Abstract: An analysis of the production of identifies in São Luís - Maranhão. This paper tries to understand, through the genealogy of Foucault, how a simultaneity of identities constituted itself, historically and discursively, which it is considered, nowadays, the ―São Luís of the Diversity‖, from the concept of cultural patrimony, constructed by several discursive practices. It is done an analysis of several discourses and so looking for the emergency of happenings which they fabricate, so creating São Luís like a Brazilian Athens, a Manchester of the North, id est a Jamaica; and for the present like a diversity (in a space which gets together the multiplicity; where everything happens at the same time, now). The corpus signs the long historical length performed in this field research (XVIII - XXI Centuries). In every moment of the irruption of the discourse of ―patrimony‖ it materializes itself into texts and supports of different natures: books and press illustrates discoursive practices which construct the identity of Brasilian Athens (XVIII - XIX Centuries); laws, official documents, photographical documents register the epithet Manchester of the North (beginning of the XX Century); several midia - printed, outdoors, pamphlets, birsdoars - nowadays, emphasize a simultaneity of identities. This paper guides itself to the theoretical methodological proposal adopted by the analysis of the discourse from Foulcantian basis, in that direction whide is given in Brazil by works of Gregolin (2004), Sargentini and Navarro-Barbosa (2004), Fernandes (2007) and also based upon the preoccupations of a group of researchers who come, since AD, considering the Maranhense identifies (CRUZ, 2005; SANTOS, 2002; MATOS, 2002; CARVALHO, 2001). To the construction of the historical - discoursive approach of a ―São Luís of the diversity‖, this perper departs from the genealogy... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)
Doutor
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Eimke, Andrea. "Liminal Space - an investigation of material and immaterial boundaries and their space in between." AUT University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10292/916.
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This visual arts project investigates notions of liminality and hybridity regarding the ambiguity of the interstitial position of the migrant. An examination of the migrant’s perspective and perception of cultural identity and the sense of home and belonging also underpins these studies. The project examines how the space between two cultures is experienced, and explores ways in which this might be visually expressed through the construction of fibre and textile art works. The researcher’s personal experience, as a German national now resident in the Cook Islands, provides the basis for reflections on cultural liminality and the ambivalence of feelings towards inclusion and exclusion. Material elements from European and Polynesian cultures such as cloth, fibres, and thread, and non-material elements like concepts and rituals are investigated for their potential to transcend the boundaries of their original culture to reveal the liminal space as source of energy and change. The 80% practice based work is accompanied by a 20% written exegesis
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O'Connor, Kaori. "Lycra, baby boomers and the immaterial culture of the new midlife : a study of commerce and culture." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.406396.
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Rosario, Deborah Hope. "Milton and material culture." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:45542c8d-0049-49cf-8d19-6d206195d9a7.
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In contradistinction to critical trends which have rendered Milton’s thought disembodied, this thesis studies how seventeenth-century material culture informed Milton’s poetry and prose at the epistemic level and by suggesting a palette of forms for literary play. The first chapter explores the early modern culture of fruit. At the epistemic level, practices of fruit cultivation and consumption inform Milton’s imagination and his vocabulary, thereby connecting their historic-material lives with their symbolic ones. Milton further turns commonplace gestures of fruit consumption into narrative devices that frame discussions of agency, aspiration, sinful and right practice. The second chapter examines two floral catalogues to discover how they find shape through the epistemologies of flowers, ceremony, and decorative arts. Here material culture shapes literary convention, as one catalogue is found to secret ceremonial consolation in its natural ingenuousness, while the other’s delight in human physicality upsets the distinctions between inner virtue and outer ornament, faith and rite. In the third chapter, urban epistemologies of light, darkness, movement, and space are examined through urban phenomena: skyline, suburbs, highways, theft, and waterways. By interpellating contemporary debates, these categories anatomise fallen character, intent, action, and their consequences. Milton’s instinctive distaste for urban nuisances is interesting in this Republican figure and is subversive of some ideologies of the text. Discursive and material aspects meet again in the fourth chapter in a discussion of his graphic presentations of geography on the page. Usually prone to analyses of textual knowledge, they are also informed by the embodiment of knowledge as material object. Milton’s search for a fitting cartographic aesthetic for the Biblical narrative and for the rhetoric of his characters leads him to an increasing consciousness of the ideologies energising these material forms. The fifth chapter explores Milton’s engagement with forms of armour and weapons. Military preferences for speed and mobility over armour help Milton explore the difference between unfallen and fallen being. Milton also uses his inescapably proleptic knowledge of arms and armour as a field of imaginative play for representations that are both anachronistic and typological. These lead to a discussion of imitation in the mythic imagination. In each of these studies, we witness Milton’s consciousness of his temporal and proleptic location, and his attempts to marry the temporal and the pan- or atemporal. In the conclusion I suggest that Milton’s simultaneous courting of the atemporal while he is drawn to or draws on temporal material culture imply an incarnational aesthetic.
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MacIntyre, Hector. "Material Culture and Technological Determinism." Thesis, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31939.
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This dissertation has two results. First, I argue that each of the two basic components of technological determinism (TD)—what I call the inexorability thesis and the autonomy thesis—are plausible claims on a naturalistic stance. Second, I argue that a normative model for the design of cognitive systems can guide the practice of cognitive engineering, e.g. the task of building cognitive aids and enhancements. TD conjoins two logically independent but empirically related claims. The inexorability thesis is the claim that technology change is an evolutionary process. I defend this claim against considerations raised by Lewens, most notably the lack of a robust account of artifact reproduction that would underwrite genuine transmission. I consider (but reject) the solution of memeticists to this problem. I find that theorists of cultural evolution, e.g. Boyd and Richerson (among others), do present a plausible response. Technologies can be said to evolve via the cumulative selective process of cultural retention. The autonomy thesis is the claim that features of human cognitive agency arise from material culture. I argue for this thesis through a consideration of the merits of Preston’s theory of material culture. Her sociogeneric approach attributes human cognitive agency to a material cultural genesis, and this approach is backed by strong anthropological evidence. Preston would not accept the thesis but she does not manage to exclude it, despite an admirable attempt to develop an account of innovation. I also consider the design of technologies in the practice of cognitive engineering and propose adopting a normative theory of factitious intellectual virtue as a model to guide design in this arena.
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Kelt, Jonathan Mark. "Material culture, temporality and meaning." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.625057.
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Roberts, Sharon Emma. "Childhood material culture and museum representations." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.427292.
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Koca, Asli. "Authentication Of Space: The Photograph As A Raw Material For Architectural Production." Master's thesis, METU, 2009. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12611454/index.pdf.
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This thesis is a critical reconsideration of the relationship of architectural production with its unique mode of representation: &ldquophotography.&rdquo
Photography has been interpreted essentially as a technique and a visual medium to document architecture in general. The &ldquo
photograph,&rdquo
in this sense, is regarded as a representational form of documentation and an artistic and material expression of architecture. Besides this conventional value, this study argues that photography not only provides a new medium for the reinterpretation of architectural space, but also a new material and technique for architectural production. In this respect, this study discusses photography as an emerging tool for architecture in which the photograph is conceived as a raw material. As in the manufacturing of a raw material in an industrial process, the main argument of this study is that as long as a photograph is processed with required components, it contributes to architectural production in a comparable manner. Even it has the potential to produce architectural space in its own right. To understand the nature of this architectural space supported by a variety of physical and non-physical characteristics of photography, this study compares two different ways of architectural production with the aid of photographs. Starting with the assumption that there is a radical change in the conception of photography in architecture from an immaterial quality to material essence, this study argues that the photograph is a raw material that can be used to authenticate architectural space from the initial idea to the built object. Therefore, drawing attention to the changed value of photography for architecture over time, the aim of this study is to establish a critical framework to understand and discuss this contemporary function of photography in architecture.
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Sonnenberg, Liesl. "A comparison of the commoner material culture to that of the elite material culture at Great Zimbabwe." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25526.
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This dissertation presents the results of a study done on the area situated outside of the Outer Perimeter Wall, believed to be the commoner area at Great Zimbabwe. The methodology used in this study combined archival with artefact studies and archaeological field work. The study aimed to acquire an understanding of the uses at the commoner area at Great Zimbabwe. Focus was aimed at material culture used by the underclass to understand how it compares with that of the upper class. The comparison between the elite and non-elite areas showed that there was not a large difference between the material cultures. The ceramic analysis showed an expansion of Great Zimbabwe over time. These results are important and offer a new perspective on the social stratigraphy of the Great Zimbabwe civilization. The differences found related to objects of power, such as stone walling and soapstone artefacts; these objects only being seen in the elite areas. This study offers a new perspective in the analysis of Great Zimbabwe, and the methodology could be used as a foundation for future studies of ancient civilizations world-wide.
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Ayers, Drew R. "Vernacular Posthumanism: Visual Culture and Material Imagination." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2012. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/communication_diss/34.
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Vernacular Posthumanism: Visual Culture and Material Imagination uses a theory of image vernaculars in order to explore the ways in which contemporary visual culture both reflects on and constructs 21st century cultural attitudes toward the human and the nonhuman. This project argues that visual culture manifests a vernacular posthumanism that expresses a fundamental contradiction: the desire to transcend the human while at the same time reasserting the importance of the flesh and the materiality of lived experience. This contradiction is based in a biodeterminist desire, one that fantasizes about reducing all actants, both human and nonhuman, to functions of code. Within this framework, actants become fundamentally exchangeable, able to be combined, manipulated, and understood as variations of digital code. Visual culture – and its expression of vernacular posthumanism – thus functions as a reflection on contemporary conceptualizations of the human, a rehearsal of the posthuman, and a staging ground for encounters between the human and the nonhuman. Each chapter of this project begins in the field of film studies and then moves out toward a broader analysis of visual culture and nonhumanist theory. This project relies on the theories and methodologies of phenomenology, materialism, posthumanism, object-oriented ontology, actor-network theory, film and media studies, and visual culture studies. Visual objects analyzed include: the films of Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg, and Krzysztof Kieślowski; Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997); the film 300 (2006); the TV series Planet Earth (2006); DNA portraits, the art of Damien Hirst; Body Worlds; human migration maps; and remote surgical machinery.
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Philp, Jude. "Resonance : Torres Strait material culture and history." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.411074.
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McGrew, William Clement. "Chimpanzee material culture : implications for human evolution." Thesis, University of Stirling, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/2016.
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The chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes, Pongidae) among all other living species, is our closest relation, with whom we last shared a common ancestor less than five million years ago. These African apes make and use a rich and varied kit of tools. Of the primates, and even of the other Great Apes, they are the only consistent and habitual tool-users. Chimpanzees meet the criteria of working definitions of culture as originally devised for human beings in socio-cultural anthropology. They show sex differences in using tools to obtain and to process a variety of plant and animal foods. The technological gap between chimpanzees and human societies living by foraging (hunter-gatherers) is surprisingly narrow, at least for food-getting. Different communities of chimpanzees have different tool-kits, and not all of this regional and local variation can be explained by the varied physical and biotic environments in which they live. Some differences are likely customs based on non-functionally derived and symbolically encoded traditions. Chimpanzees serve as heuristic, referential models for the reconstruction of cultural evolution in apes and humans from an ancestral hominoid. However, chimpanzees are not humans, and key differences exist between them, though many of these apparent contrasts remain to be explored empirically and theoretically.
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Bolland, Charlotte. "Italian material culture at the Tudor court." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2012. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/26963.
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This thesis analyses the means by which items of Italian material culture came into the possession of the Tudor monarchs. The different modes of acquisition provide the structure for an investigation into Anglo-Italian relations during the sixteenth century. Although the items that came to England took many forms a synthesising approach is made possible by the fact that the 'biographies' of the objects which have been selected all share a common element - they reached England and were owned by the Tudor monarchs as a result of direct contact with Italian individuals. As a result, disparate items such as glass, armour, books, textiles and horses can be discussed as part of a broader whole in which elements of one culture travelled to another. This is not a discussion of the developing dominance of Italian culture over Western Europe during the sixteenth century, for, although the adjective 'Italian' carried clear connotations in late sixteenth-century England it appears to have been rarely used in relation to material culture. Instead it is a study of the appreciation of technical skill and the attempts that were made to appropriate it, which in turn provides a point of access to the life histories of the Italians who came to England in the sixteenth century and the way in which their interaction with the highest levels of the court played a role in shaping the idea of Italy and the Italian in England.
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Kuritsky, Orit. "Transformational tales : media, makeovers, and material culture." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/46660.
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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Comparative Media Studies, 2009."February 2009."
Includes bibliographical references (p. 94-101).
This thesis probes into current American makeover culture, thorough three detailed case studies that represent an increasing confluence of commerce, entertainment, and, at times, spirituality. Each of the chapters is devoted to a niche media property, or genre, dedicated to the domestic sphere. The first chapter focuses on the genre of home decorating TV shows and practices of their consumption. The second centers on a single television program - TLC's What Not to Wear, and the interpretative activities it provokes among viewers. The third chapter examines the FlyLady - a transmedia property with a strong internet base, described by its founder as a "behavior modification system" that coaches its subscribers in getting their houses in order. This study was driven, among other things, by the following questions: as the 'commodity frontier' gets increasingly intermingled with our daily lives, with the help of increasingly pervasive media, how do certain communities respond, and with what methods of meaning-making? What draws audiences to engage with media properties so intermingled with commerce in the first place? And, what constitutes these properties' entertainment value as well as the other values audiences find in them? The answers vary with each case study, yet, there are many commonalities pertaining to meanings associated with consumer goods in late capitalism. The media properties described here capitalize on the movement of meaning from culture through consumer goods to individuals. At the same time these three chapters exemplify many cases of redirecting, filtering, and damming up the flow of meaning on the part of viewers and subscribers.
by Orit Kuritsky.
S.M.
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Douny, Laurence. "A praxeological approach to Dogon material culture." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2007. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1445424/.
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Grounded in long-term fieldwork, this thesis develops an ethnography of two aspects of Dogon material culture: the Dogon landscape and the Dogon habitation, both of which are defined as containers. The examination of these two discrete metaphorical and material epistemologies, which are conceptualised as 'skin envelopes', seeks implicit forms of worldviews that are objectified in their materiality. In other words, the research focuses on the expressions of a daily generative cosmology as it is grounded in pragmatic, material and routine embodied activities that relate to the 'making' and 'doing' of these two forms of container. Framed within an Anthropology of Techniques, the study employs a combined praxeological and phenomenological approach entailing the participant observation of body-kinetic and sensory experience of containers. In addition, observations of the body movements involved in the making and storing of things in the compound expose the containers in a visual sequence called 'chaine operatoire' that also constitutes a frame of analysis, one devised through the recording of the manufacturing and use of the containers. Thus, through an empirical, descriptive, reflexive, and processual approach to Dogon containers and related worldviews, my research elaborates theoretical perspectives on a Dogon philosophy of containment that is defined within a materiality perspective. In doing so, I demonstrate that particular local ways of 'being-in-the-world' or 'being-at-home in a world container' are generated through the material qualities of the Dogon landscape, or cosmoscape, and the domestic sphere of the compound. These operate through a gathering process and boundary-making devices that create the inside/outside locales in which people dwell and which generate a sense of ontological security in a particular scarce environment.
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Korwin-Pawlowski, Wendy. "Material Literacy: Alphabets, Bodies, and Consumer Culture." W&M ScholarWorks, 2017. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1499450053.
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This dissertation posits that a new form of material literacy emerged in the United States between 1890 and 1925, in tandem with the modern advertising profession. A nation recalibrating the way it valued economic and cultural mass consumption demanded, among other things, new signage – new ways to announce, and through those announcements, to produce its commitment to consumer society. What I call material literacy emerged as a set of interpretive skills wielded by both the creators and audiences of advertising material, whose paths crossed via representations of goods. These historically situated ways of reading and writing not only invited Americans to interpret a world full of representations of products, but also to understand – to read – themselves within that context. Commercial texts became sites for posing questions about reading behavior more generally, and they connected members of various professions who stood to benefit from that knowledge. In this dissertation, I explore how reading and consumption converged for advertising experts, printers, typographers, and experimental psychologists. Despite their different occupational vantage points, their work intersected around efforts to understand how modern Americans decoded printed texts, and how this behavior might be known and guided. To establish their professional reputations, the authors I study positioned themselves as being uniquely capable of observing and interpreting the behavior of readers. The body served as a key site, and metaphor, for their inquiries – a means of making both literacy and legibility material.
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Shaw, Elizabeth. "Recycled Narratives: Contemporary Jewellery - Material Culture - Praxis." Thesis, Griffith University, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/376858.
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This exegesis outlines research undertaken in the studio in tandem with the study of theoretical texts along with analysis of work by contemporary artists and metalsmiths. My studio approach is framed within ethical approaches to use of material and sustainable practices in production. The use of non-precious materials in contemporary jewellery is well established as a method to critique preciousness and question value, as is the reuse and repair of component parts of existing jewellery part of a global recycle movement across many disciplines. The work created in this project aims to investigate a wider use of humble materials and broken or discarded consumer objects by investigating the potential for exploiting their symbolic power and functional possibilities through reimagining as well as repurposing as jewellery. In demonstrating that jewellery can offer a critical reflection on contemporary society this project aims to also reinvigorate the important role jewellery has played as a key conveyance at the intersection of materials, the symbolic order and social, economic and environmental values.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Queensland College of Art
Arts, Education and Law
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Fernandez-Llorente, Esther. "Material morality : success, material culture and the realist novel, 1848 to 1883." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2015. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/396524/.
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This thesis explores how the Victorian concept of success – fundamental to Victorians’ understanding of themselves as such – was characterised and problematised by the demonstration of moral worth through material wealth. Critics, including David Trotter, ask ‘under what generic conditions have objects appeared as objects in a literary text?’ (Trotter 2008). I argue that between the 1840s and 1880s it is frequently the reflection of the discourse of success and failure in society, reflected through objects, that gives material things symbolic value within plot and form of realist novels, where success and failure are persistent themes. I analyse gender roles and the circulation of objects to uncover the instabilities of Victorian characterisations of success. Focus within Victorian society on the material qualities of objects and the sense of permanence that they could create led, I argue, to the creation of a Victorian ‘Reality Effect’ (Barthes 1968). Things were emptied of meanings created through their production or circulation in order to signify the moral and material success of their current possessor through an ostensibly uncomplicated materiality which was nonetheless deeply unstable. I suggest that the exhibitionist, performative nature of this culture of success offered a potentially powerful role for middle-class women, which realist novelists challenged on moral and political grounds while making use of its aesthetic. My three chapters trace reflections of this discourse in arenas from the triumphalist ‘public’ sphere of the Great Exhibition to the ostensibly ‘private’ sphere of the home. I evaluate Vanity Fair, Great Expectations, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, Villette and The Portrait of a Lady in particular, but allude to other novels to prove the range and depth of the theme, as well as works by Thomas Carlyle, Karl Marx, and John Ruskin. Through their attitude to Victorian material culture, I attempt to see, as Dehn Gilmore puts it, ‘not what but rather how the Victorians saw’ in this culture of intensely moralised display. This reveals the conflicted attitudes of Victorian realist novelists to the culture of success and its role in the moral, economic and social challenges of Victorian culture.
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De, Finis Serena. "Service design for cultural intangible heritage: tra conoscenza dell’architettura contemporanea e turismo sostenibile il caso di Matosinhos." Master's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2022.
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Questo lavoro nasce dal desiderio di approfondire alcuni aspetti della vita legati alle architetture della città, a seguito della mia esperienza di ricerca di tesi svoltasi in Portogallo, nello specifico a Matosinhos, presso la fondazione Casa da Arquitectura.
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Ysselstein, Geraldine Marion. "East German material culture : building a collective memory." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/31499.
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One way of remembering life as it was lived in the German Democratic Republic
(GDR) is through everyday objects. This thesis looks at the Alltagsgeschichte (history of
everyday life) to understand the interaction between the East German state and society
through material culture. Museums have collected East German material objects and
popular culture with the help of the internet and television has assisted to both preserve
and re-imagine the memories of the past.
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the cultural and economic significance of
material culture of the German Democratic Republic both before and after 1989. It seeks
to understand, how and why ex-GDR consumer objects have emerged as new historical
markers of the socialist experience and collective memory. Additionally, the thesis
explores whether East Germany, a socialist country that was despised for its poor quality
and quantity of consumer goods can be remembered after the fall of the Berlin Wall as a
genuine consumer society.
While the GDR no longer exists, its legacy is still very much alive in the renewal
and revival of a number of significant material objects. It has even manifested itself into
what is called Ostalgie, nostalgia for all things from the former GDR, including such
items as the Trabant (an East German car), the Ampelmannchen (traffic light figure) and
Florena body lotion.Arts, Faculty of
Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of
Graduate
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Jay, Phyllida. "The material culture of ethical and sustainable fashion." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.675416.
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Armstrong, Pamela. "Byzantine and Ottoman Torone material culture as history." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.599931.
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This work concerns the results of excavations that took place at Torone, on the southern tip of the central peninsula of the Chalkidiki region of northern Greece. It looks at two castles on the site, remnants of which were standing when the excavations began, and the material culture associated with them. Particular attention is paid to the ceramics, and their pJace within the ceramics of the region. With its location on the very edge of Europe, looking across the Aegean to Asia, Torone is a suitable vehicle for casting an eye round the region at the Byzantine and Ottoman archaeological framework into which the excavations there fit. Modern political divisions mask the former political, cultural, and socia-economic structures of the countries that encompass the north Aegean and its islands. While much archaeological work is being conducted, there is a tendency for it to be carried out in isolation so that, for instance, recent work on the Troad does not consider what is happening in Bulgarian or Greek Thrace, yet they are connected. To this end a study of the Thraco-Macedonian area is timely since so much evidence has recently been made available. The present work attempts to synthesize archaeological studies in Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey for the late Byzantine and Ottoman periods. At the centre sits Torone which is the key to drawing this information together .
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Tacchi, Jo Ann. "Radio sound as material culture in the home." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1997. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1317663/.
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This thesis is an anthropological exploration of the contemporary role and use of radio sound in the home in Bristol, a city in the south west of England. Based on qualitative research, and taking an ethnographic approach, this study contributes to a growing field within social anthropology: the study of mass media. After establishing the ways in which the radio industry in the UK researches and constructs radio audiences, this thesis examines how academic research on audiences has operated in Britain. It is demonstrated how this thesis relates to, and is different from both of these perspectives. Radio sound is approached as a part of the material culture of the home. It is seen to contribute to domestic soundscapes. The medium of sound is investigated, and it is shown that radio sound has particular qualities that make it well suited to domestic, everyday life. It is revealed as aiding in the creative constitution of affective dimensions of the self in society. Domestic relationships, and the role of radio sound and affect are explored. Notions of intimacy and the role of fantasy in domestic relationships are investigated. Radio sound's role in mood creation for individuals in the home is then examined, and the notion of affective rhythms established. Radio sound's connecting powers are then given some attention; how radio sound helps to make links across time and space. Memories and nostalgia are shown to operate in creative and integrated ways in domestic contexts through the medium of sound. Finally, it is concluded that cultural knowledge and experience take place in large part in the sensory and affective dimensions of everyday life.
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Reindl, Eva Maria. "On the developmental origins of human material culture." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2017. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/7853/.
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Material culture – tools, technology, and instrumental skills – has allowed humans to live in almost every habitat on earth. This thesis investigates the developmental roots of human material culture by examining basic tool-use skills and cultural learning abilities in young children. The introduction presents the concepts of the Zone of Latent Solutions (Tennie, Call, & Tomasello, 2009), cumulative culture, and Vygotsky’s (1978) theories as the theoretical background for the following five experiments. Chapter 2 identifies a list of tool-use behaviours that children can invent individually and thus represent an ontogenetic and phylogenetic basis of human tool culture. Chapter 3 extends this list by several behaviours involving the use of two tools in combination (Associative tool use). Chapter 4 focuses on a cultural behaviour that children can only acquire socially. It uses an adapted version of the spaghetti tower task (Caldwell & Millen, 2008a) to study whether children can copy a material cultural product that they could not have invented on their own and whether they can do so without action information. Chapter 5 uses the same task to investigate whether groups of children can produce a ratchet effect. The discussion summarizes the findings and presents limitations and directions for future research.
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Flavin, Susan. "Consumption and material culture in sixteenth-century Ireland." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.550301.
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This thesis argues that Irish consumption underwent major changes over the course of the sixteenth century, based primarily on evidence from eleven annual Bristol 'particular' accounts and Port Books. The study uses the customs data as a statistical framework on which to establish how, why and to what extent patterns of consumption changed in Ireland. The available qualitative evidence, including wills, archaeological evidence, pictorial evidence, contemporary literature and legislation are considered alongside the quantitative data to examine who was consuming the increasing range and volume of commodities that were imported into Ireland from Bristol and what changing consumption patterns reveal about the nature of Ireland's economy, society and culture during this period. The thesis also shows how the Exchequer customs accounts can be used to shed light on the changing consumption patterns / material culture of a pre-consumer society, with the intent of revealing the potential value of this source for consumption historians. This work contributes to the current historiography in a number of important ways. It shifts the chronological focus of consumption studies from the conventional eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the sixteenth century, thus illustrating that marked changes in consumption can occur even in the most unlikely of pre-industrial societies. Also, by focusing on Ireland during this critical period, the lead up to the Elizabethan re-conquest, the thesis shows the extent to which changes in consumption habits map onto major political and social changes, thereby shedding light on the impact of colonisation and conquest on the acquisition, and interpretation of everyday. goods. The study also makes a distinctive methodological contribution to consumption historiography, which currently suffers from a distinct lack of quantitative based studies.
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Anderson, Gavin. "Andriesgrond revisited : material culture, ideologies and social change." Bachelor's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19515.
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Bibliography: pages 127-137.The original aims of this thesis were to analyze all the material remains from the previous excavations and collate all written reports on Andriesgrond Cave. Only one article has been written on Andriesgrond Cave (Parkington 1978), while several articles have referred to single unpublished reports or additional projects. Artefacts are analyzed and grouped according to their relevant chapters, and in the conclusion an interpretation of these finds is given in conjunction with social psychological theory of stress coping strategies and inter- and intragroup processes.
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Good, Katherine L. "Adaptive Re-use:Interventions in an Existing Material Culture." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1282575826.
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Ion, Sabina A. "Identity and Material Culture in Seleucid Jebel Khalid." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin147981964305723.
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Slade, Mary Ann Barbara Carleton University Dissertation Sociology and Anthropology. "Sleeping beauty, the material culture of Tsimshian Shamans." Ottawa, 1994.
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Hourigan, Sally. "Clothing, Mothers and Daughters: A Material Culture Study." Thesis, Griffith University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367488.
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This thesis contributes a sociological treatise of clothing to the multi-disciplinary area of material culture studies. In the context of the adult mother-daughter relationship, it aims to account for first person experiences with the materiality of clothing as these intersect with women’s personal and collective narratives. This thesis thereby explores the intersection of object and interpersonal relationships in a situated and contextualised manner. To achieve this end, a user based methodology is designed and executed to allow for women’s first person accounts of clothing individually and collectively. Utilising this methodological approach avoids those observer based assumptions that arise from the semiotic examinations of clothing that flood the sociological literature. Furthermore, this is the first comprehensive study to account for clothing as it appears in the adult mother-daughter relationship from the perspective of both, mother and adult daughter. Considering clothing as an important object of investigation in the lives of women forces us to rethink traditional accounts of such research pursuits as frivolous or unworthy of attention within the academy (Crane and Bovone 2006). A series of four findings chapters are presented in this thesis that work to provide a marriage of first person and collective mother-daughter narratives to a discussion of the materiality of clothing.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Humanities
Arts, Education and Law
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Vasey, April Jean. "Seneca Hair Combs as Material Culture: A Study." W&M ScholarWorks, 1991. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539625652.
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Pringle, Wendy Suzanne. "Chorioallantoic membrane culture : its potential for toxicity assessment and its limitations for skeletal tissue culture." Thesis, University of Southampton, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.328538.
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Turrin, Daniela Anna. "Slippages .... exploring the aesthetic encounter from the perspective of Merleau-Ponty's ontology." University of Sydney. n/a, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/698.
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This paper addresses the aesthetic encounter from the perspective of the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty on the visible and the invisible. It begins with the premise that from time to time we encounter situations which precipitate a sense of slippage in our experience of the world. The paper proceeds to argue that the arts can provide a point of access to this experience, and that aesthetic theory has, for example, responded to it through the development of the notion of 'the sublime'. The writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and, in particular, aspects of his text The Visible and the invisible, are presented with a view to augmenting this aspect of aesthetic theory. Proceeding from a 'Merleau-Pontian' perspective, the paper explores how the arts can serve to disrupt our conventional sense of space and time - creating ripples in the substance Merleau-Ponty names as 'flesh' - so as to expose the chiasm or blind spot in our experience of the world. The methodology adopted is an experiential one, which draws on the writer's interaction with the selected works of various artists as well as her own practice in glass.
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Van, Wormer Heather. "Ideology in all things material culture and intentional communities /." online access from Digital Dissertation Consortium access full-text, 2004. http://libweb.cityu.edu.hk/cgi-bin/er/db/ddcdiss.pl?3129552.
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Gumbley, Warren, and n/a. "A comparative study of the material culture of Murihiku." University of Otago. Department of Anthropology, 1988. http://adt.otago.ac.nz./public/adt-NZDU20070619.111844.
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This thesis is an attempt to assess the degree of differentiation between two regions, Otago and Southland, to be found in the styles of four types of artefact; Bird-spear points, One-piece fish-hooks, Composite hook points, Adzes. In order to assess the significance of these differences the comparison has been made not only between the two regions mentioned above but also with a set of samples from the northern North Island used as a bench-mark.
The data has been collected in the form of non-metrical (presence/absence) and metrical (continuous or ratio-type) variables specific to each artefact type. The method of analysis of the data is concerned with the study of the relative frequencies of these ranges of variables. This is supported by Chi� and Student�s T tests.
As well as seeking to establish the degree of differentiation between the material cultures of the regions the interpretation also seeks to distinguish between causal factors for these differences (for example, variations in functional requirements, differing or limited access to material types, etc.).
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Holt, Timothy James Peter. "Material culture : an inquiry into the meanings of artefacts." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1996. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2313/.
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The main purpose of the following inquiry is to emphasise the importance of a phenomenon long neglected by the majority of the human sciences, the artefact; each one of us, no matter what age, sex or culture, is in contact with artefacts every moment of our lives yet despite this they have received scant attention. The study begins by outlining a definition of the artefact, highlighting those characteristics which, in combination, ensure its centrality to social life before, through a discussion of Popper's ideas, proceeding to see how material culture can be conceptualised as meaningful. In order to understand how meaning becomes attached to the artefact the notion of objectification will be analysed and, consequently, so shall the importance of both the type of activity and the physical nature of the materials involved in the artefact's production. Picking up on the theme of materiality this aspect of material culture will be shown to pose major problems to any interpretation of the artefact along semiological lines; language and material culture are evinced to possess fundamentally distinct characteristics which make comparisons between them far from straightforward. These differences will be analysed further, concentrating specifically on the role of context in the establishment of meaning. This leads on to the proposal that our understanding of artefacts can occur on three levels; three forms of knowledge are thus described of which a linguistically formulated type constitutes just one kind. The penultimate chapter tackles the ways in which artefacts affect us, how they are active elements in our relationships with them; therefore, a dialectical position is postulated in which both artefacts and agents take part. Finally, the study concludes by stressing some of its wider implications and suggests a few of the practical situations to which it can be applied.
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Hohti, Paula Sofia. "Material culture, shopkeepers and artisans in sixteenth-century Siena." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.426267.
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Gaydarska, Bisserka Ivanova. "Landscape, material culture and society in South East Bulgaria." Thesis, Durham University, 2004. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/3052/.
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The PhD study focuses on long-term settlement histories in the late prehistory of South East Bulgaria, based upon three contrasting microregions. Two of them have been destroyed by intensive coal mining, which has necessitated the application of GIS as a rescue tool to reconstruct the landscape. The third, undestroyed microregion was included in the study to enable the comparison of settlement patterns in three neighbouring valleys. The main research aims are the social and economic aspects of the human/landscape interrelation, as well as the patterns of change and continuity from the initial occupation at the beginning of the Neolithic until the end of the Late Bronze Age. Along with the GIS technique, which proved to be a relevant analytical tool, a set of modern interpretative modes in archaeology was applied to achieve the research targets. The general and specific approaches in the study are prompted by the state of the primary data, which but rarely allows precise contextual analysis.As a result of the introduction of the concepts of landscape archaeology and social practices in the studies of Bulgarian late prehistory, it was possible to establish crucial links between the identity of people, places and objects. The identification of a suite of social practices has integrated the Bulgarian evidence in a broader context of human development and has contributed to the radical re-interpretation of most of the current explanations of the evidence at the study area. The reconstruction of past landscapes in the three microregions, together with the newly reconciled concepts of landscape and environment, have facilitated the reconstruction of past settlement patterns, resource potential and inter-site transport networks. Through the evaluation and re-interpretation of site evidence for all settlements and burials, it was possible to make a comparative interpretation of diachronic changes in settlement, society, material culture and landscapes.
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Boksmati, Nadine Tarek. "Hellenisation deconstructed : space, material culture and identity in Beirut." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.612937.
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Mikkel, Bille. "Negotiating protection : Bedouin material culture and heritage in Jordan." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2009. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/16121/.
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This thesis examines protection against risks as material and social phenomena among the Ammarin tribe in Petra – a settled Bedouin community in southern Jordan. By examining the active role of material culture that is often disregarded in risk studies, the thesis discusses how protective strategies are entangled in cultural, religious, and national identities. Using ethnographic methods, I investigate protection against selected risks: harm from evil eyes, violation of domestic sanctity, and cultural heritage dilapidation. Protection against these risks is examined through studies of architecture, the social use of luminosity, prophylactic items, saint veneration, Qur’anic items, and heritage production. The thesis challenges the preoccupation with “meaning” in material culture studies, by focusing on conceptualizations of “presence” and “absence” as equally important to protective efficacy. Some informants, for example, adopt an orthodox scriptural Islamic approach to protection and denounce certain material registers as un-Islamic and materialistic leftovers from an ignorant past, and rather prescribe Qur’anic remembrance. For other informants the very physicality of such contested strategies are confirming their efficacy, and act as material anchors for negotiating Bedouin identities in response to a rapid transformation from nomadic pastoralists to sedentary wageworkers. The tensions surrounding the materiality of protection, along with the role of the past in the present is further investigated through the contested public representations of Ammarin culture, along with a detailed study of the process leading to the protection of Bedouin culture by UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. The overall conclusion of this research is that negotiating efficacious protection against perceived risks, is about actively taking a stance on senses of exposure, vulnerability and uncertainty towards the people, places and things that are cherished. These strategies simultaneously act as potent public exposure of social, religious, and national moral identities that may empower, exclude, or ostracize people.
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Kim, Koni Cecilia. "Korea as seen through its material culture and museums." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/31151.
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Since the 1990s, South Korean institutions have actively engaged in providing grants for the establishment of permanent and independent Korean galleries in renowned museums abroad. The point of departure of this thesis is to provide insights into this recent serial pattern, focusing on the notion of Korea. This is based on the belief that these events should be understood as the outcomes of large-scale historical processes.;In this thesis, the notion of 'Korea' is taken as the point of convergence between the three major agents: people (i.e. Koreans and others), Korean material culture, and museums. The thesis aims to explore the nature of the three agencies and their interaction in relation to the notion of Korea, by examining how Korean people came to understand their identity as being Korean in relation to other, different such identities, and to their material culture and museums; how other people understood Korea and Korean material culture; and how far both Korean and other people's perceptions of the relationship between the notion of Korea and Korean material culture has influenced the museum field. This will lead to an understanding of South Korean efforts to open Korean galleries abroad.;The thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter Two explores the notions of Korea and Korean identity. Chapters Three to Five follow the chronological framework of Korean history, Chapter Three dealing with the period from the second half of the nineteenth century to 1910, Chapter Four with that up to 1945, and Chapter Five with that up to the contemporary period. Each chapter attempts to investigate the points made above from a historical perspective. Finally, Chapter Six considers some emerging issues concerning Korean identity in South Korea, and the potential roles of museums and Korean material culture.
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Han, In-Sung Kim. "Islamic material culture in medieval Korea and its legacy." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2016. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/26513/.
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Eastop, Dinah. "Stuff happens : a material culture approach to textile conservation." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2009. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/169895/.
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Textile conservation, defined here as the preservation, investigation and presentation of textiles, is often viewed largely as a technical and aesthetic problem. This research develops an alternative view by understanding objects as being subject to both material and social change. The dynamic aspects of this material and social process is emphasised as ‘stuff happens’. This research proposes, and provides evidence for, a material culture approach to textile conservation, and demonstrates its development and application. An analysis of case studies shows how the material and the social interact at the point of assessment and intervention. Examination of the material aspects of textile conservation reveals that social values influence decision-making. Values held at the time of conservation are shown to depend on the categories used. Investigation of these categories demonstrates that any anomalous quality of the textile undergoing conservation allows for contestation of social values. As values change over time, analysis of each conservation assessment and intervention reveals a comparison of values held at different times viewed retrospectively. The resulting approach is centred on the interaction between things, persons and language where each mediates relations of the others. It is argued that this material culture approach enhances understanding of the dynamic material and social environment of textile conservation principles and practices.
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Thorpe, Ruth. "Elite women and material culture in Ireland, 1770-1840." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2018. https://pure.qub.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/elite-women-and-material-culture-in-ireland-17701840(051f45b2-20fd-411c-9dab-d549b528d4d1).html.
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Through an extensive exploration of the archives of Irish estate houses, the thesis explores the involvement of women in the architecture and design of buildings, rooms and furniture. It documents the interest which women took in drawing and designing buildings and the layout of rooms. It also looks at the involvement of elite women in the consumer revolution of the late eighteenth century and their purchases of furniture, carpets and wall paper in Ireland, England and further afield. A final chapter looks at women's emotional investment in objects which they willed mainly to female relatives. The thesis was examined in November 2017 and was enthusiastically passed by the examiners who recommended publication with very few editorial changes.
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Weir, Patricia M. "Lawyers' experience of exposure to traumatic material." Thesis, Griffith University, 2023. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/420865.
Full textAbstract:
In the last decade or more there has been increasing interest in the mental health and wellbeing of practising lawyers, both in Australia and internationally. Research reports surveying lawyers’ perceptions of their work life have found an alarming rate of mental health problems such as depression and substance abuse (Kelk, et.al., 2010). One of the potential areas of concern for legal practice and the mental health of lawyers is exposure to potentially traumatic material. The empirical research to date has found that lawyers who report high levels of depression and psychological distress are at risk from exposure to traumatic material (Levin, (2004), Maguire & Byrne (2016) and Vrklevski and Franklin (2008). While these empirical studies indicated lawyers’ mental health and wellbeing was adversely affected by their exposure to indirect trauma, there were limitations to the research. For example, researchers have not examined what type of material may affect lawyers, how the material affected lawyers, if at all, and what if anything, lawyers do in response to such exposure. Moreover, no qualitative studies exist to better understand the experience of lawyers who practise in areas of exposure risk.
The aim of the thesis was to explore what material was potentially traumatic for lawyers, the effect on lawyers of the material, how they managed day to day, and over time, and the influence if any, of the organisational and professional work context on their experience. It is known that organisational culture can play a large role in how lawyers perceive and behave in the workplace (Baron, 2015). Hence, the studies in the thesis incorporated the potential influence of organisational factors and the professional legal culture on the experience of lawyers. Thus, the research reported in this thesis answered the overarching question, “What is the experience of lawyers who are regularly exposed to potentially traumatic material in their work context?”.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Applied Psychology
Griffith Health
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