Making and Growing

Anthropological Studies of Organisms and Artefacts

Elizabeth Hallam editor Tim Ingold editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:8th Nov '16

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Making and Growing cover

Making and Growing brings together the latest work in the fields of anthropology and material culture studies to explore the differences - and the relation - between making things and growing things, and between things that are made and things that grow. Though the former are often regarded as artefacts and the latter as organisms, the book calls this distinction into question, examining the implications for our understanding of materials, design and creativity. Grounding their arguments in case studies from different regions and historical periods, the contributors to this volume show how making and growing give rise to co-produced and mutually modifying organisms and artefacts, including human persons. They attend to the properties of materials and to the forms of knowledge and sensory experience involved in these processes, and explore the dynamics of making and undoing, growing and decomposition. The book will be of broad interest to scholars in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, material culture studies, history and sociology.

’A provocative response to the so-called post-human turn in contemporary social theory, this volume concertedly blurs the boundaries between human design and vital process - the being of artefacts and the becoming of life. The result is a pulsating adventure into the inner workings of things’ and people’s co-constitution through processes of growth, decay and their ever-mutual transformations.’ Martin Holbraad, University College London, UK ’This refreshing and far-reaching collection challenges many of the analytical distinctions inherent in recent anthropological investigations of the relationship between persons and things. Drawing on a range of nuanced studies, the authors demonstrate different and often unexpected ways that making and growing are intrinsically interrelated. An indispensable volume for social scientists and historians interested in the emergence of new biological, social and artefactual forms.’ Anita Herle, University of Cambridge, UK 'Through the device of juxtaposing making and growing, the contributions to Making and Growing offer refreshing perspectives on material culture and its processes that attend to the transformability of things and present object lessons in the co-constitution of organisms, artifacts, and understanding.' Huntington Library Quarterly

ISBN: 9781138244597

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 453g

258 pages