The mobility of memory: space/knowledge dynamics in rural potting workshops in Limpopo Province, South Africa (original) (raw)
Related papers
2017, Making things, being mobile: Pottery as intertwined histories of humans and materials
Mobility and Pottery Production: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives.
In this essay, I question current models of central European Neolithic societies that are informed by concepts of sedentarism and cultural homogeneity. Based on pottery styles, they miss out two fundamental conditions of human life: the constant oscillation between movement and stasis and the ongoing engagement with materials. Drawing on T. Ingold's thoughts on the 'making' of things and P. Bourdieu's habitus-theory, I argue that everyday human action like the making of a pot (1), unfolds in spatially and temporally bounded movements and mobilities and (2), emerges from an engagement of humans with their material and social landscapes. Hence, the features of pottery vessels comprise histories of their becoming that intertwine the itineraries of geological materials and their human makers. Some vessels are made and used at the same place ('local vessels'), others are transported over various distances ('translocal vessels'). When humans and things are on the move, encounters with otherness can trigger creative processes , which might also become materialised in pottery ('inbetween vessels'): the appropriation of new materials, different techniques, styles etc. To follow the itineraries of things thus offers an entry point to a deeper understanding of past peoples' mobilities and the negotiation and transformation of temporarily stable cultural forms. I will develop my approach on the pottery of the Neolithic settlement of Hornstaad-Hörnle IA at Lake Constance (DE) (3918-3902 BC).
Communities and Cultural Heritage: Global Issues, Local Values, 2021
The primary case study in this chapter is based on recent fieldwork in south-western Zimbabwe. The rural area has a history of relocation and translocality that results in novel practices. Although predominantly Ndebele-speaking, the community is highly multi-lingual. A significant number of current local residents have only recently settled in the area, for various reasons. This study centres on locals participating in ceramics production workshops, instigated and aided by an external project with the aim of supporting local capacity-building. We explore the aftermath of such well-meant initiatives, after outside support has ceased. This study facilitates a comparison with a similar project across the Limpopo River border, in neighbouring South Africa. For example, a common challenge in both instances is what the term ‘local’ means to different people. In some instances, people classified as ‘local’ felt that the term did not apply to them, with the perception that others in the community were ‘more local’. It is important for craft traditions to be anchored in a deep past and thus for the items that craftspeople make to look old and be ‘locally made’. This study offers a critical view of how local community dynamics and knowledge change and adapt to new situations in unexpected ways, how outside interventions become catalysts for local invention, and how various and often dissonant voices relate to issues that have to do with heritage and the past.