http://www.ethnography.com/2007/09/an-ethnography-of-the-african-art-trade/ A group blog on a wide variety of topics realted to anthropology Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:34:11 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.ethnography.com/2007/09/an-ethnography-of-the-african-art-trade/comment-page-1/#comment-35 Donna Wed, 26 Sep 2007 02:17:32 +0000 http://www.ethnography.com/2007/09/an-ethnography-of-the-african-art-trade/#comment-35 And see, here again we have the "culture=stuff" equation, where something has value only if that value is monetary. It's a similar argument driving the theories of the aforementioned Harvard/MIT Economists, and feeds into the obsession with Cool Stuff. Culture is not just material culture--material culture is a possible window into culture, but is not the be-all, end-all. Archaeologists and folklorists deal with material culture insofar as it can point to action and meaning, not because that it is all that is important about human existence. And see, here again we have the “culture=stuff” equation, where something has value only if that value is monetary. It’s a similar argument driving the theories of the aforementioned Harvard/MIT Economists, and feeds into the obsession with Cool Stuff. Culture is not just material culture–material culture is a possible window into culture, but is not the be-all, end-all. Archaeologists and folklorists deal with material culture insofar as it can point to action and meaning, not because that it is all that is important about human existence.

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