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-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.