Poking holes in things: A view from the museum

Wingfield, Chris ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8127-6548 (2024) Poking holes in things: A view from the museum. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa. ISSN 0067-270X

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Abstract

This paper is not intended as a conventional research report, but rather as an experimental ‘think piece’ that attempts to situate African beads in relation to alternative geographical, temporal and theoretical frames. Throughout the history of archaeology, museums have (re)assembled artefacts to create new contexts for them by establishing new associations and juxtapositions with other artefacts. In pursuing a similar approach, this paper attempts to constitute a ‘view from the museum’ rather than from any particular disciplinary field. Museum practice promises an alternative model of speculative ‘free association’ where artefactual form enables sometimes seemingly unlikely connections to be made. The paper’s intention is to highlight the theoretical richness with which beads can be approached as artefacts. In pursuing this agenda, it builds on David Graeber’s important work synthesising and advancing anthropological theories of economic, political and cultural value. A central aim of Graeber’s project was to put coins back in their place as rather peculiar denominators of value. Beads, with their considerably deeper history and wider geographical distribution, offer an alternative starting point from which to address questions of value in human lives.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Author Acknowledgements: I should like to thank the guest editors for their invitation to take part in this special issue of Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa and the workshop in Norwich that preceded it. I would also like to acknowledge the support of a British Museum’s Endangered Material Knowledge Programme small grant (number EMKP2020SG12), for fieldwork in Botswana during 2022.
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Centres > Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	31 Oct 2024 12:30
Last Modified:	18 Nov 2024 20:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/97370
DOI:	10.1080/0067270X.2024.2411139

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