The end of material culture

It seems that the rationale for this blog (see about) should be rephrased somewhat. In the latest issue of the journal Archaeological Dialogues material culture studies have more or less been declared dead. It contains a discussion article “Materials against materiality” involving some of the pioneering researchers (Christopher Tilley and Daniel Miller) in the interdisciplinary field of material culture studies in the discussion of a proclamation by Tim Ingold. There are a number of things that bother me and might be taken as a sign of a dying field. Incrowd debates are always suspicious, but probably this cannot be helped since material culture studies are firmly based at UCL. Nonetheless, there are enough other researchers working in this field who could have been involved in the discussion (it seems to be an editorial policy since the start of the journal to invite only big shots). Anyway, the result is a non-debate between leading scholars who are more concerned to promote their recent work than making any reference to work being done by other people. It seems that material culture studies are back where they started, with a small group of people talking amongst themselves (but hey, that’s science for you). Unless there is a hidden agenda … on the part of the editors of Archaeological Dialogues to get rid of material culture studies by being sloppy editors of this discussion article, or on the part of the editors of the Journal of Material Culture to tempt the editors of Archaeological Dialogues into publishing an empty shell. Because that is what the article is, a language game, not a serious attempt to engage with material, let alone archaeological material. Although an empty shell could still refer to the materiality of a shell, in this case it’s just made up of words, words, words.

Counting cigarettes

This is not an entry about me trying to quit smoking. That probably will never happen, at least not while I am writing my magnum opus. This entry is about how many cigarettes you can get into a package. You may not be aware of this, but not every package contains the same number (and I am not referring here to different sized packages of 10 15 20 or 25). In the Netherlands the latest tax raise on tabacco sneaked through, not by raising the price of a package (again), but by deducing the number of cigarettes it contains (from 20 to 19). Every time you open one, you see this gaping hole where one additional cigarette should have been. In a Mediterranean country such as Italy prices of cigarettes are generally much lower than in the northwest of Europe. To my surprise, the price of a package turned out to be almost the same in Italy as in the Netherlands. To my greater surprise, the Italians have made up for this price raise by increasing the number of cigarettes in a package (from 20 to 21), in this case not leaving a hole but cramming an additional cigarette in (which incidentally makes it more difficult to take out the first one of a new package). This seems a material metaphor of a distinction in national mentality: in the Netherlands a package of cigarettes is half empty, in Italy it is half full. But now it’s time to enjoy this richness.