An introduction to material culture

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Contents
Introduction 4
Learning Outcomes 5
Why study things? 6
A piece of broken masonry 7
The study of objects 8
How to study material culture 10
Object-centred approaches 10
Object-driven approaches 10
Describing objects 11
What is material culture? 12
Everyday objects 12
Making assumptions 13
Conclusion 16
References 16
Acknowledgements 16

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Introduction

Introduction
Why study things? Or put another way, what can we learn from objects that we can’t find
out from the reading of texts? There’s no simple answer to these questions but, as we
shall discover in the course of this course, there’s no getting around the ubiquity of things.
This OpenLearn course provides a sample of Level 1 study in Arts and Humanities.

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Learning Outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:
● understand what material culture is
● understand the origin of material culture as an area of study in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
● understand the concepts of 'object biography' and the 'life cycles' of things.
Why study things?

Why study things?

Ever since the dawn of humankind, men and women have surrounded themselves with
material objects, some of which have practical value (tools, utensils, clothing, etc.), and
others for their aesthetic or decorative attributes (works of art). Today, many people, and
whole societies, are said to have become obsessed with the purchase and collection of
material things, so much so that some have even questioned the impact of such
acquisitive habits upon the sustainability of the planet.

Activity 1
The films below were made by three different members of the course team and provide
interesting insights into why we might study objects in the first place. People acquire
and collect objects for many different reasons that can include cultural, economic and
personal motivations.
Watch the films now. As you watch, make some brief notes on each, suggesting what
you think may have motivated each individual to focus on their chosen object. How, if
at all, do they differ from each other?

Video content is not available in this format.

Encountering a pilgrim’s medal

Video content is not available in this format.

Encountering a Greek vase

Video content is not available in this format.

Encountering a body

Discussion
While all three are clearly passionate about their chosen objects, one of the three
stood out for me as his choice was not made on the grounds of academic intrigue, but
rather because of the highly personal nature of the choice. Piers Baker-Bates, in
choosing the pilgrim’s medal, was doing what we all do in life. He was investing a
material object with symbolic and personal meaning, or, to put it another way, for Piers,
the object represents a crucial aspect of his very identity.

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Why study things?

Figure 1 Pilgrim medal from Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Photo: Mark Simmons.

Shortly, I shall ask you to think about an object in a similar way. But to get things started,
and to show just how much importance we can invest in things, let me begin by
showcasing an object which has personal meaning for me.

A piece of broken masonry

On the surface, my object has little real value, either practical or aesthetic, and, as if to
underline the point, it currently occupies an unpromising location next to my downstairs
toilet. And if that isn’t bad enough, it has also suffered from the ravages of time; what was
once a single piece of spray-painted concrete is now broken into three fragments, the
largest measuring 4 x 4 inches.
This seemingly unpromising piece of broken masonry nonetheless signifies a great deal,
on a global scale as well as personally. It is, in fact, a small fragment from the Berlin Wall,
the destruction of which in 1989 probably marks one of the most important events of the
late twentieth century. It is, then, a hugely significant artefact and one that I am proud
to own.

Figure 2 Pieces of concrete taken from the Berlin Wall after its destruction in
November 1989. Photo: Peter Elmer.
Objects such as this clearly have a meaning and value beyond their constituent parts (in
this case spray-painted rubble otherwise fit only for the dump). As a historian and
someone concerned for the rights of fellow citizens in Europe, these shards carry huge
meaning and relevance, acting as a symbolic reminder of one of the most important

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events in my own lifetime. Created from an act of mass destruction or popular iconoclasm,
their existence today represents a victory for the oppressed individual and nation, as well
as a constant reminder of other less fortunate people in the world who remain in thrall to
tyrants. The eagle-eyed will also have noticed that I have chosen to ‘exhibit’ them, albeit in
somewhat downbeat fashion. In doing so, there is a sense in which I am consciously
echoing the role of the modern museum.
These fragments of the past also convey other meanings for me, their owner. The
fragment was given to me and my partner as a wedding present in 1990, and thus
reminds me of one of the most important and happiest events in my own personal life. As
a gift, it also reminds me of the giver, a friend who we visited in Berlin before the Wall
came down and who remains close to our family.
Finally, should I be inclined to do so, I could probably sell the fragments as they now
possess a monetary value. One of the rich ironies of the physical destruction of the Berlin
Wall and the consequent collapse of Soviet communism in eastern Europe lies in the fact
that within days of these momentous events pieces of the Wall came onto the open
market and began to sell around the world. Today, even small pieces of the Wall similar to
my own sell on the internet for between £40 and £50. Elsewhere, companies advertise
fragments of the wall as a unique accessory fit to adorn any corporate headquarters, both
as an investment and as a reward to corporate go-getters who help to ‘break down
barriers’ in the workplace.

Activity 2
Think of an object in your ownership which possesses both personal and wider
significance for you. What is the object and why it is important to you?
Discussion
Possession of things – the ability to hold and touch them – clearly affords a degree of
intimacy and significance that transcends both the written word and the vicarious
pleasure of seeing objects in glass cases in museums. Our memories and very identity
as human beings are closely wrapped up in the physical objects with which we
surround ourselves. Some help create direct connections to our past and forbears;
others, such as commemorative mugs, replica sports shirts and holiday souvenirs, say
much about how we see ourselves and create identities. They thus form part of our
consciousness, both individual and collective, and as such are clearly worthy of further
study.

The study of objects

The study of objects constitutes a relatively new field of academic enquiry, commonly
referred to as material culture studies. Students of material culture seek to understand
societies, both past and present, through careful study and observation of the physical or
material objects generated by those societies. The source material for study is
exceptionally wide, including not just human-made artefacts but also natural objects and
even preserved body parts (as you saw in the film ‘Encountering a body’).
Some specialists in the field of material culture have made bold claims for its pre-
eminence. In certain disciplines, it reigns supreme. It plays a critical role in archaeology,
for example, especially in circumstances where written evidence is either patchy or non-

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existent. In such cases, objects are all scholars have to rely on in forming an
understanding of ancient peoples. Even where written documents survive, the physical
remains of literate cultures often help to provide new and interesting insights into how
people once lived and thought, as in the case of medieval and post-medieval archaeology.
In analysing the physical remains of societies, both past and present, historians,
archaeologists, anthropologists and others have been careful to remind us that objects
mean different things to different people. A Roman Catholic or Buddhist would view a relic
of their faith in a very different light from either a Protestant or an atheist. What our
ancestors once worshipped, we might discard or disdain. One great advantage of
adopting such a relativist pose (where meaning is relative to the culture or individual that
produced it) is that it ought to promote greater sensitivity to the multicultural nature of our
modern world. We may not agree with those of other faiths and beliefs, but we can at least
begin to understand why they think the way they do. Words, of course, can also
accomplish these ends, but objects seem to play a special role in human societies in
forging a sense of understanding, identity and belonging.

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How to study material culture

How to study material culture

Crucially, those with a special interest in the study of material culture tend to cross
disciplinary or subject boundaries, and work in what we describe as an interdisciplinary
fashion. At the same time, specialists from specific fields bring different approaches and
insights to the study of material culture. We aim here to introduce you to some of the more
accessible approaches to this exciting and new field of academic enquiry.

Object-centred approaches
One simple way of approaching our subject is to adapt the work of the American art
historian Bernard Herman, a leading pioneer in the field of material culture studies.
Herman has suggested that the study of things, broadly speaking, can be allocated to two
distinct but overlapping approaches (Herman, 1992). In the first instance, he speaks of an
‘object-centred’ approach to the subject, one in which the focus of study is on the object
itself. Here, we need to pay attention to the specific physical attributes of the object. The
ability to describe the object – to engage, that is, with a list of descriptive criteria – is at the
forefront of this approach. A typical checklist of the kinds of questions we might ask about
an object include:

● how, and with what materials, was the object made?

● what is its shape, size, texture, weight and colour?
● how might one describe its design, style and/or decorative status?
● when was it made, and for what purpose?

By focusing on the object itself, we are thus being asked to concentrate on the materiality
of things, or, in the words of historian Robert Friedel, to appreciate the simple fact that
‘everything is made from something’ and that ‘there are reasons for using particular
materials in a thing’ (Friedel, 1993, pp. 41–50). Knowledge of this kind, for example, plays
a crucial role for archaeologists and art historians in their attempt to place objects into
broader categories or groups, or to identify the works of single artists or broader artistic or
aesthetic movements.

Object-driven approaches
At the same time, Herman has identified a second strand to material culture studies, one
which he describes as ‘object-driven’. Here, the focus shifts toward an emphasis on
understanding how objects relate to the peoples and cultures that make and use them. In
particular, ideas about contextualisation and function become all important. As we have
already noted, what objects mean may change through time and space. As products of a
particular time and place, objects can tell us a great deal about the societies that gave
birth to them. That is, they often help to reflect, or speak to us, of the values and beliefs of
those who created them. At the same time, it is also important to remember that objects
are not simply ‘passive’ in this way, but that they can also take on a more ‘active’ role,
helping to create meaning rather than simply reflect it. In other words, they often emit a
kind of power and authority which transcends their material status as simple objects made
of wood or stone. It may not have escaped your notice that one of the first things that

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people do in a revolutionary situation is to attack, deface and destroy material objects

most closely associated with an overthrown regime or dictator. The destruction of the
Berlin Wall is an obvious example. More recently, the iconic images of the assault on the
statue of Saddam Hussein (in which, incidentally, the demonstrators used another object,
a shoe, to demonstrate their hatred for the dictator) in 2003 provide telling evidence of the
importance attached to objects in such situations. Sometimes, the violence to objects is
perpetrated by those in power. In 2001, for example, the Taliban in Afghanistan made
great capital from the destruction of one of the country’s oldest and most treasured
archaeological remains, the Bamiyan Buddhas. Here, religious and political motivations
mixed to create an act of desecration that was widely vilified across the world. However,
such acts of destruction or iconoclasm are not new. During the course of the Protestant
Reformation in sixteenth-century Europe, many of the reformers went to great efforts to
erase the material remains (crosses, statues, etc.) of what they saw as a false religious
faith.

Describing objects
In very plain and simple terms, we might then say that object-centred approaches start
with close description of the object and work outwards, while object-driven approaches
start with the broader context in which objects are located and then work toward greater
understanding of the object.

Activity 3
Now return to think again about the object you chose in the previous activity.
Using the object-centred and object-driven approaches, write a description of the
object, giving brief details of its composition, size and contextual significance. With
respect to the latter, you might wish to consider its broader importance within your
family, your local community, or even as an ‘historical’ artefact.
Discussion
Thinking about objects in this way is helpful because it reminds us that our relationship
to things is often highly contingent on a number of factors, some of which change over
time. Sometimes the most unprepossessing of things take on a significance far beyond
their economic value or practical use. Some objects we pass on to family members as
heirlooms.

Like their owners, objects too have lives. This may seem an odd conceit as, clearly,
inanimate or lifeless objects do not live and breathe as we do. But thinking about objects
in this way can be highly illuminating. We might wish, for example, to think in terms of
‘object biographies’ or ‘life cycles’. Like us, objects are conceived, designed and created.
They then have a use, are consumed and appreciated, and finally dissolve, disintegrate
and ‘die’ (or, in some cases, are afforded a form of afterlife in museums). Like us,
throughout their existence they are subjected to wider forces in the world that help to
shape their destinies. They even go on their travels, like us, and in the process acquire
new identities and meanings.

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What is material culture?

What is material culture?

We all live our lives as part of a network of material things. Some of these things might
strike us as remarkable, but many of the things which we use to shape our world and
which in turn shape us as humans as part of our everyday lives go unnoticed.

Everyday objects
How did you start the day this morning? You might have started it, like I did, to the sound
of a clock radio alarm, with the handle of a teacup in one hand and a bowl of cereal in the
other. These objects – the clock radio, the teacup, the bowl – are unremarkable objects, in
the sense in which I use them every day and have given them very little thought since I
first purchased them. Yet they are integral to defining who I am (both physically and
socially) as a human being, acting as a daily physical interface between myself and the
world. While these objects may have been manufactured by acts of human agency, they
also in turn shape me as a user and consumer of them. They mediate a wide range of
interactions between myself and other objects and human beings, while themselves
constituting a part of my physical world. For example, when I make a cup of tea and hand
it to a family member in the morning, the teacup helps mediate a gesture of care and
affection. Years of use of similar teacups mean that my hand has grown accustomed to
the shape and feel of the cup, which I handle with adeptness and ease, without having to
think of how to balance it between thumb and forefinger while I rush about the house.
Furthermore, these objects are loaded with particular symbolic meanings within my own
society which allow other people inside my culture to ‘read’ things about me from them.
The radio station I listen to, the design of the cup and the brand of cereal in the bowl all
mark me out and help define who I am socially, and all of these things contribute to the
way in which I am represented to my colleagues, friends and family.
One important aim of this course is to help you learn to shift focus, so that you bring those
objects which are normally part of the background into the foreground for critical scrutiny.
This means beginning to see things simultaneously as solid (in the sense in which they
are composed of matter which impacts on us and others as we interact with them) and
mutable (in the sense in which we attribute particular meanings to them, and their
meanings change depending on the contexts through which they travel); as both tangible
and symbolic. Having learned to do this, you will then be able to start thinking of these
things as source materials for your studies in the arts and humanities.

Activity 4
Think about what you did in the last hour before beginning to read this course, and
make a list of all of the objects which you used in that time. What does your list say to
you about your relationship to things? How important are these relationships to the
ways in which we live our lives and conduct our daily activities?
Discussion
In answering this question, I drew up a table, listing actions in the first column and the
objects which were involved in them in the second. Because I wrote this in the
morning, I thought back over the process of waking up and getting out of bed, taking a
shower, drying myself with a towel, brushing my teeth, getting ready for work and –

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because I was working from home this morning – walking into my home office and
turning on my computer to start writing. So my table looked like this:

Action Objects

Wake up Bed (and indeed the bedroom and the flat that contains it, which might also be
considered to be objects in their own right, as might the floor across which I
walked to turn the doorknob to open the bedroom door).
Shower Boiler, shower cubicle, showerhead, taps, shampoo, soap, towel.
Breakfast Pantry, refrigerator, kettle, teacup, teabag, milk, cereal box, cereal bowl, spoon,
chair, table.
Brush Sink, tap, tube of toothpaste, toothbrush.
teeth
Start Chair, table, telephone line, computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, books, pen,
working notebook.

My first reaction when looking back at this list was surprise at the sheer number of objects
involved in the simple operations of starting my day. But the list of objects also very much
defines me as an Anglophone living in the early twenty-first century in the city of London.
In addition to the variations which exist within my own cultural context, parts of this list
would potentially be very different for people living in different times and places. For
example, if I was waking up in a village in Myanmar (Burma) my bed might look different, I
might be using different utensils to prepare and eat my breakfast, and I might have chosen
to eat rice instead of processed breakfast cereal. But by the same extension, many of
these objects would be shared among people living across the contemporary world. Most
people, for example, know and use soap, even in non-modern societies remote from
urban centres. However, if I was waking up in London in the thirteenth century, for
example, my list of objects would probably be even more different. Obviously I would not
have had the computer, or running water, and I wouldn’t have been drinking tea or eating
processed breakfast cereal, as neither was known in England at that time.
One important point to note here is that no matter how distantly we cast our eyes across
time and space, objects support our daily lives and many of these objects go unnoticed as
we undertake everyday activities such as those described above.

Making assumptions

Activity 5
Take a look at the following list of ten objects and then spend some time jotting down
your reflections on what the list suggests about the gender, age, beliefs, likes, dislikes
or interests of a person who owns them. What might the list allow you to surmise about
the owner’s social and economic background?

● 42-inch flat TV
● Porsche 911 car

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What is material culture?

● golf clubs
● rosary beads
● laptop computer
● screwdriver
● bicycle
● tennis racket
● tennis ball
● hammer
You should allow 15 minutes for this activity.
Once you have completed this activity, you might want to make your own list of ten
objects that you own and then find out what other people think of your list of things. You
could then show your list to family or friends, asking whoever you share your list with to
comment on what clues they can glean from the list to guess what sort of person
owned them. Do you agree with other people’s analyses?
Discussion
It is interesting to reflect on the assumptions we feel we can make about people based
on the objects they own or use. Although there is nothing in the list above which
specifies the owner’s gender, it seems to me to indicate the sort of objects which a
man might aspire to own – the large-screen television, the sports car, the sporting
equipment. (Would such an assumption be sexist? How often do we make similar
judgements about what men or women are likely to buy, own and use? The toys we
buy for male and female children are one good example.) Similarly, we might surmise
that the owner of the objects on this list is of reasonable means, in order to be able to
afford such expensive consumer items. There are a number of pieces of sporting
equipment on the list, which might suggest the owner likes to play outdoor sports. The
rosary beads might indicate that the owner is a Roman Catholic. We don’t really know
anything about the hypothetical owner, but already we have begun to form a series of
opinions about who they are, and what they like and dislike, based on the things they
own. Objects are integral to the way we view others and the assumptions we make
about them.
If you decide to take this activity further and share your own lists with others, you might
find that some of the objects that people mention will (like those discussed in the
previous activity) be very generic and shared by many members of your group, in
which case it might be difficult to surmise anything about the identity of the owner(s).
By contrast, other objects will strike you as interesting or noteworthy, in which case you
might see them as indicating something about the identity of the owner. Such
observations do not always turn out to be true – as I am sure this exercise will
demonstrate – but nonetheless this indicates the power of objects to stand in for and
symbolise particular groups of people and the ways in which they are represented (for
instance in the media and in popular culture). Many people will show an implicit
awareness of this through the selection of objects they choose to compile for the
activity. Obviously, this won’t be a randomly selected representative sample list of
objects people own and use; rather, it will be a carefully considered collection which
has been compiled with the aim of presenting oneself in a particular way to one’s
peers, a bit like a Facebook profile. Once again, an important aim of this course is to
provide you with ways of thinking critically about the sort of assumptions we reach
based on the objects people make, own, display and use, and how those assumptions
are formed.

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I hope these activities have helped you appreciate that different kinds of objects are used
by people in different societies, and how it has become normal for us to think of similarities
and differences between human groups across time and space through a study of the
objects they use. How often have we heard the term ‘Stone Age’ used to describe people
who live as hunter-gatherers? And how often do we think of ourselves as living in a
‘computer age’? But it is important to realise that people haven’t always been so closely
defined by the objects they use – in other words, their material culture. This idea
developed as part of the origins of the study of anthropology and archaeology in western
Europe and America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and is closely linked to
the development of modern museums.

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Conclusion

Conclusion
In conclusion, we can all agree, I think, that objects testify to the exciting possibilities
inherent in the study of material culture. Increasingly, scholars are becoming more aware
and attuned to the significance of things, whether human-made or natural, and their ability
to ‘speak’ to us and address audiences. In addition to possessing life cycles and telling
stories, objects speak to us a great deal about the people who make, use, own and
display them.
We would like you to think about material objects as a new and exciting way of accessing
knowledge about both the past and the present, and within a variety of academic
disciplines.

References
Friedel, R. (1993) ‘Some matters of substance’ in Lubar, S. and Kingery, W.D. (eds)
History from Things: Essays on Material Culture, Washington DC and London,
Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 41–50.
Herman, B.L. (1992) The Stolen House, Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia.

Acknowledgements
This course was written by Peter Elmer and Rodney Harrison.
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this
content is made available under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.
The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to
Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources
for permission to reproduce material in this course:
Course image: Roderick Eime in Flickr made available under
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence.
Figure 1: Mark Simmons.
Figure 2: Peter Elmer.
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