To browse Academia. Historical archaeology of Indigenous societies can aid in challenging the often-flawed ethnographic models that emphasise static identities rather than the dynamic nature of these societies Flexner Objects are important to a multivocal past, in the Pacific particularly as the history of the last two hundred years is mainly to be found in written sources by outsiders Kirch ; Spriggs Though it does not have a reflective surface, it nonetheless forces reflection and recalls the power of the object to which it alludes in the need to self-scrutinise.
The irony of the looking glass that is so often held up to our own culture in the study, and the critique of the study Jebens of cargo cults and colonial contexts is encapsulated in this object. The Australian Journal of Anthropology 20, 3β In the introduction to this collection of essays, we examine the role of the ethnography of Oceania in the develop- ment of our anthropological perspectives on materialisation, the dynamic process by which persons and things are inter-related.
Building upon the recent resurgence of theoretical interests in things we use the term materialisation rather than material culture or materiality to capture the vitality of the lived processes by which ideas of objectivity and subjectivity, persons and things, minds and bodies are entangled. Taking a processual view, we advocate for an Oceanic anthropology that continues to engage with things on the ground; that asks what strategies communities use to materialise their social relations, desires and values; and that recognises how these processes remain important tools for understanding historical and contemporary Oceanic societies.
Examining these locally articulated processes and forms contributes to a material re turn for anthropology that clarifies how we, as scholars, think about things more widely. Oceania occupies an intriguing place within anthropology's genealogy. In the introduction to this collection of essays, we examine the role of the ethnography of Oceania in the development of our anthropological perspectives on materialisation, the dynamic process by which persons and things are inter-related.
Records of the Australian Museum, Supplement, The ethnographic collection made by Sir Raymond Firth in Tikopia, Solomon Islands, in and is used as a case study for the examination of the different meanings and interpretations attributed to museum collections. This collection is now housed at the Australian Museum in Sydney. In the s the collection was subject to a repatriation request by the National Museum of the Solomon Islands, but the collection was not returned.
