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- Convenors:
-
Taylor Erin
(Canela Consulting)
Daniel Miller (University College London (UCL))
Send message to Convenors
- Formats:
- Workshops
- Location:
- C1
- Sessions:
- Thursday 12 July, -, -, Friday 13 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Paris
Short Abstract:
If materiality is integral to poverty, can poor people have positive relationships with materiality? This workshop critically explores the possibilities and limitations of material forms as vehicles for self-creation and social transformation among the poorest sectors of societies.
Long Abstract:
A problem with ethnographies of poverty is that they may reduce the relationship of low income people with material culture largely to the expression of inequality as seen in their lack of income and possessions. Inadvertently this only serves to impoverish them further as we pay less attention to their cultural engagement with the material world than we would for less impoverished populations. But just like everyone else, 'poor' people use material forms to creatively construct their social identities and communities, and transform their socioeconomic situations. Indeed their relationship to homes, clothes and other material goods may be more complex and nuanced precisely because the range is more constrained.
This workshop recognizes the stratifying effects of materiality, while rethinking how poverty and the poor are defined and encouraging new ways of viewing poverty and materiality. We suggest that a more balanced view can achieve three things: 1) illustrate the actual relationships that poor people have with material forms on their own terms, not just in relation to poverty; 2) demonstrate some of the capacities that material forms provide to poor people to combat their social stratification; 3) taking these capacities into account, illuminate the limits that poverty places on the use of material forms for sociocultural production. Taking both capacities and limitations into account, we explore the possibility that materiality may have a heightened importance for poor people because, in possession of fewer resources, they may value them more highly, and depend upon them more heavily, than wealthier social groups.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 12 July, 2012, -Paper short abstract:
An 'enabling constraint' is a condition that permits action precisely because it limits options. This paper examines how the built environment of a Santo Domingo squatter settlement can facilitate creativity and change precisely because of its economic and symbolic limitations.
Paper long abstract:
In the Caribbean, the phrase 'creativity within constraint' refers to the remarkable cultural repertoires developed in the region despite extreme limitations, especially the violence of slavery. I take the concept one step further to argue that without constraints, certain forms of creativity would probably never take place. People with little power and few resources are compelled to find new ways to overcome the constraints that bind them, at times generating remarkable innovations out of the material or conceptual resources that are available to. Switching focus from limitations to 'enabling constraints' draws attention to the abilities, capacities and agencies of people in the Caribbean and elsewhere.
In Santo Domingo's squatter settlements, the lifelong process of building one's own home on untitled land is a compelling example of a positive trade-off gained by living in a stigmatized neighbourhood. Lack of land title severely constraints residents' practices and aspirations, but it can also act as an enabling constraint. Through building and furnishing a home over many years, residents eventually provide themselves with a measure of security from natural disasters and economic crises, and space for aesthetic expression. Importantly, they also literally construct a community whose architecture and planning permit an embedded sociality that many middle-class Dominicans lament is disappearing from their lives as the country develops. This paper explains the basis of the barrio's material character and sets the stage for a critical examination of the positive and negative impacts that materiality has on life and life chances in poor communities.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines meanings of denim and stratification in Brazil through quantitative and qualitative data. We investigate impoverished persons’ strategies (credit, counterfeit) to seasonally buy the newest models and styles, and denim as an item of fashion and beautification, to understand how denim is used to produce a sense of egalitariannes.
Paper long abstract:
Engaging with Miller's 2010 "anthropology in blue jeans" and Miller's and Woodward's 2007 "manifesto for a study of denim," this paper adds to the theorizing of denim as a global commodity by examining meanings ascribed to both denim and stratification in Brazil. Based on qualitative and quantitative data, we argue that, for the impoverished, though the "blindingly obvious" ubiquity of denim and its use in resolving anxieties are similar, denim here is not used primarily to produce "ordinariness," but to rethink stratification through a sense of egalitariannes. We make four points: (a) while denim is marked by class and distinguishes consumers by income, all classes incorporate each seasons' models, styles, and brands - albeit through credit strategies or purchase of fake items - and use them differently according to occasion, climate, body weight, etc.; (b) "being in fashion" is a feature of the Brazilian everyday for all classes and denim is a fashion item, not a commonplace garment one unthinkingly resorts to; (c) "beauty" is a central concept used to describe people's relationship to denim; it is used to make the body beautiful and to stand out, not to blend in; and (d) through access to middle-class ideals of fashion and beauty materialized in denim, the working classes aim at a sense of egalitarianness and belonging. We thus argue that Brazilian denim cannot be subsumed into a notion of a "post-semiotic garment" as an antithesis to identity, since it both replicates and adds new meaning to processes described in the above articles.
Paper short abstract:
Far from the popular analysis of overseas medical research that usually reduces what is at stake to an unequal relation between powerful rich pharmaceutical companies and voiceless poor non-western participants, this paper shows, through the local actors’ appropriation and diversion of medical research materials that it convey a much more complex sociality.
Paper long abstract:
According to many studies about medical research in overseas countries, poor populations would easily accept to participate in trials because these offer access to free medical care and pharmaceutifcals that the people can hardly obtain otherwise. The danger of this assertion is that it vehicules a utilitarian and passive approach of the poor people towards health care and materials. This paper offers a more complex perspective of this matter. Based on an ethnographic study of a rural area of Senegal that has been hosting clinical trials for several decades, it proposes to discuss the social uses of two medical research commodities that local actors particularly value: all-road-vehicles and working suits. It will demonstrates, the ingenuity mobilized by local actors (participants, fieldworkers, researchers ) in order to optimize the use of all-road vehicles, during and after clinical trials, according to their own local perception of "ethics" (sanitary evacuation services, local transportation etc..). It will show the ambiguous identities these trials may also convey, through the analysis of the way working suits (labeled with the initials of the French research institute coordinating these trials) are valued by local actors (nurses and fieldworkers). The popular analysis of overseas medical research usually reduces what is at stake to an unequal relation between powerful rich pharmaceutical companies and voiceless poor non-western participants. However, this paper shows that studying how local actors appropriate and divert medical research materials constitutes an innovative way to access the complexity, intimacy and ambiguity of post-colonial relations.
Paper short abstract:
In opposition to the widespread idea that Gypsies are unconcerned with material durable goods, this paper shows through photography and analysis of consumption, use and care practices, how the poorest Portuguese Gypsies of Alentejo are intensely concerned with some objects as symbolically valuable treasures related to social and moral distinction.
Paper long abstract:
This paper arises from long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Évora (Southern Portugal) with people who regard themselves as Ciganos (Gypsies). My communication focuses on people living in a situation of deprivation, combining horse trade, clothing sales and social benefits, and alternating mobility and permanence. Many authors (e.g. Gay Blasco (1999); Pascualino (1997); Seabra (2006)) have provided ethnographic proof that Gypsies are unconcerned with material goods, that they use them intensely, in an almost destructive way, and that they invest relatively little in "durable goods." These explanations show that self-affirmation is mainly carried out through one's own body, and ways of saying and doing things. However, I found myself at odds with ethnographies concerning situations of poverty and marginalisation among Ciganos. Instead of examining objects that were lacking or not taken care of, I took note of the practices of consumption, use, keeping and care of objects that are symbolically valuable. My communication takes into account the different ways that permanent and temporary residents in a "nomad camp" decorate their shacks, tents and vans, how the trousseau is prepared and kept for the "mozas," and how they care about sepulchres and their decoration. Analysing these practices, I will shed light on how those who identify themselves as "poor Ciganos" do in fact show concern for material objects, and have strong intentions of harmony and beauty. This corresponds not only to an aesthetic recreation and consolidation of ethnic boundaries, but to aspirations toward social and moral distinction in inter/intra-ethnic processes of identity/otherness.
Paper short abstract:
When the rural poor leave their settings and arrive in big cities to earn a livelihood, they choose a life of daily struggle. This paper aims to analyze that despite their limited disposable income, how their consumption pattern changes and leads to their social transformation in the new setting.
Paper long abstract:
Dhaka experiences a massive influx of rural population entering its vicinity, in search of a better life. Although uncertainty forms the crux of this migration, the hope of earning a livelihood does not deter this population from taking the challenge. Although they have to endure periods of prolonged helplessness and insecurity, eventually the law of nature takes over and things fall into place. In doing so, the population starts to imbibe values of the urban setting whilst holding on to some values of the rural setting.
This paper aims to analyze the changes in the consumption pattern of this segment in their new setting. The study will focus particularly on domestic helpers (housemaids), who come from poor rural backgrounds and end up working for the household of the more solvent families living in Dhaka.
A single cross-sectional survey design was used to gain insight into the lives and minds of the domestic helps. The survey provides quantitative information that will be used to describe and provide tentative explanations into the variables of interest. We use primarily univariate and bivariate statistical techniques to describe the demographic parameters and explore possible relationships among variables. Due to the scale of the study, it can be considered exploratory and ad-hoc in nature.
The paper will concentrate in finding out the state of their material ownership at the time of arrival from the rural setting, and how their values, perceptions and significance of the material forms shift with passage of time, in the new setting. It will also highlight how this change in their perceptions transcend to their family members still living in the rural settings, who now have greater disposable income due to the increase in the aggregate income in the families.
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores the experiences of a group of migrant families who were forced out of Mozambique leaving most of their things behind. It addresses the impacts of loss and downward mobility in the relationships with materially and how it intervenes in the stabilization of their new routines in Portugal.
Paper long abstract:
The Carnations Revolution, in 1974, has profoundly altered the Portuguese society.
The end of the right-wing dictatorship and the massive return of people from the former colonies caused a reconfiguration of the social structure that, subsequently, affected the composition and the particular features of all social classes. Based in three years of ethnographic work, the paper examines how a group of high-middle class returnee families experienced strong impoverishment, due to a forced migration from Mozambique to Portugal. In particular, it discusses the processes of sorting out what things to retain and to let go before travelling, the new functions and significations things 'from the past' acquired, and how they co-existed with the materially of a new and significantly different setting. According to the subjects, 'having to live with much less' profoundly altered their relationship with materiality. Many things underwent physical transformations in order to fit their new homes, their values were revaluated and their visibilities altered. Also, material culture played a central part in helping families reorganising their routines and adjusting to new objective life conditions resulting from impoverishment. The capacity of things to participate in this new stage of the families' lives positively contributed to depict and highlight central aspects of this still understudied manifestation of social mobility and helped understand the interconnections between materiality and the subjective and objective dimensions of social stratification.
Paper short abstract:
How are material objects implicated in the production and operation of development and social policy categories such as 'poverty'? How are they tactically reworked by those defined in relation to them? This paper examines 'ration cards', allotment slips and houses in a 'slum' neighbourhood in Delhi.
Paper long abstract:
In social and development policy poverty is defined in 'absolute' and 'relative' terms as the relative or absolute 'lack' of material possessions and income. These material possessions and income serve as indicators enabling the identification, classification and enumeration of individuals as 'poor', a category visible to policy makers and planners. Yet simultaneously, development and social policy creates its own objects through which social and political relations are transformed and defined. Drawing on the experiences of residents of a 'resettlement colony' (a 'slum' clearance neighbourhood) in East Delhi, this paper examines the assemblage of social and political relations tied up in key development objects as they are tactically reworked by the people defined in relation to them? This paper examines 'ration cards', allotment slips and houses in a 'slum' clearance neighbourhood in Delhi.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper I explore the nexus between beauty and purchasing power through a network of agents of a Brazilian musical movement. As ‘poor’ people, their productions are explained by analysts through the lens of what is lacking or absent. I interpret their aesthetics as a political project guided by strategies of visibility and a search for connectivity.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper I explore the nexus between beauty and purchasing power. It is based on ethnographical data from my doctoral research, carried out through a network of agents of a Brazilian urban musical movement - called Funk Carioca - mainly produced by inhabitants of the shantytowns of Rio de Janeiro. As 'poor' people, their productions are often explained by analysts through the lens of what is lacking or absent. I depart from these views by instead interpreting their body aesthetics as a political project guided by strategies of visibility and a search for connectivity. Material objects are carefully selected, and have their meaning manipulated, so as to establish ambiguous relations with 'high taste', with an 'official' world and a hegemonic culture. In this context, a wad of cash, or indeed a gold-plated rifle, can be used as empowering adornments, just as golden jewellery and hair extensions can also extend a person, be it a man or woman. From this perspective, understanding the role of these different items of material culture help us unveil the logic governing gender relations.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores everyday objects - baskets, bags etc. - made by indigenous peoples in the northern Philippines. In rattan and wood, these objects are tribal art. Made from plastic, these objects subvert ascribed indigenous identities and question the categories of both art and poverty.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores objects created by contemporary indigenous Filipino artisans and artists who work with plastic. Plastic materials are sourced from domestic and industrial waste or 'liberated' from commercial enterprises. Artists and artisans use plastic to replace wood and rattan in objects made with 'traditional' tribal skills. Dealers and collectors see plastic art objects as problematic because they disrupt the fictions of continuity, atemporality and cultural isolation on which a continued market for Filipino tribal art depends. By using plastic materials, indigenous artists position themselves as 'not tribal, just poor'. In Filipino, 'plastik' denotes insincerity, inauthenticity and unreliability, as well as being the cheapest, most accessible material - the material of the poor, which clogs their living areas, underpins their squatter shacks and figures strongly in their purported preferences for bright, kitsch and easily-disposable home and personal decorations. Plastic, cheap and widely accessible, enables artists and artisans to call into question the stereotype of the poor as a-cultural, while refiguring their relationship with waste as a positive one. The paper explores an exhibition of collaborative work created by artists and artisans, juxtaposing their intended messages with the responses of dealers, collectors, cultural critics and the general public to plastic tribal art. Focusing on the social contexts of art production, circulation and reception that define - or reject - plastic objects as art, the paper asks what happens to 'the poor' as a category when tribal artists appropriate the materiality of poverty to their political interventions.
Paper short abstract:
The impoverished rural area of Kitui, Kenya enduringly appears as object of intervention to mobilize its natural resources. I describe the engagements of poor people with the ‘revelatory’ capacities of technologies as comments that force us to rethink development through the materiality of natural resources such as water.
Paper long abstract:
The Kitui district of Kenya has long been recognised as a landscape of absences: repeated droughts, lack of development, lack of accessible natural resources. For more than 80 years external organisations tried to harness these natural resources, mainly through small technological interventions that aim to provide water. During my fieldwork in the area I noticed how poor people engaged with water development technology in a way that could not be conceptualised as either a 'cultural' rejection, or a wholehearted embrace of progress and modernity. Both these options left too little room to explain how people recognised the influence of the landscape and the materiality of substances as agents in the process of turning water into a resource or commodity. In Kitui, springs can dry after interventions, but they can also appear somewhere else, and it is said about some (spring) water that it 'does not like cement' and can disappear when wells are sunk. Instead of seeing this as a form of knowledge opposing modernity, the comment is more on the ambiguous materiality of natural resources in combination with technology. To understand poor peoples engagement with technology, I argue we need to look into the material forms natural resources might (or might not) take. The theorem of materiality provides the analytical means to do so. It can make claims about the tangible materials people engage with, but it can also take in the variety of expressions with which people negotiate the absence of these materials.
Paper short abstract:
This paper is based on fieldwork in North India, during which I followed high quality luxury embroidery from its production to its consumption, across the social landscape of contemporary India. It looks at the aesthetic sensibilities of poor rural women who embellish high-end designer garments and at their understandings of the nature of their selves and the aesthetic.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I will look at how poor yet highly skilled village women living at the suburbs of Lucknow, employed by high-end fashion designers from New Delhi, conceptualize their daily activity, namely 'embroidering luxury' and how they, in this meeting and dialogue, mediated by the material, between what some like to call two parallel Indias, create their own sense of aesthetics and thus also self. This aesthetics is often a consciously chosen antidote to what most 'modern maharajas' of contemporary India would deem desirable. Not because they are poor and cannot afford the so called 'luxury' or because they would want to challenge or resist, but because they perceive the 'luxury' they themselves produce as plain 'boring' in aesthetic terms. They are unable to comprehend where the 'magical' properties of designer garments are really supposed to come from, after all they are those who embelish these garments and there is nothing magical about that process. While the upper classes are seduced by the rhetoric, personality and phantasms created by the designers, the aesthetic of the craftswomen is concerned more with the sheer materiality, the color, the feel, the detail, and the form - rarely the words. How do these 'poor' women, exposed to and dependent on the big names in Indian fashion industry, create themselves in relation to the material? How do they deal with what we like to perceive as 'exploitation'? Are they poor? What lesson can they teach us?