At 03:07 PM 1/21/97 -0700, Terry wrote:
 
>We seem to be drifting from the original question.  There are a lot of
>rabbit trails this is heading down.  I'd like to redirect this back to
>the "how does the stuff (material culture) tell us about ethnicity?"  I
>think we're getting too lost in modern ethnic identities and the outward
>symbols we use to categorize each other.  Let's look at stuff!  Are we
>not archaeologists?
>[snip]
 
It seems to me that one of the major "drifts" to this question is the idea
that the "stuff" is part of many contexts of meaning, only some of which may
be associated with "ethnic identities" (perhaps multiple identities), but
certainly cannot be divorced from these contexts. In that sense, what the
"stuff" alone tells us is problematic. How do you discriminate what the
"army sheet" tells you about your father's identity versus the "headhunters"
identity, especially if all you have is the "stuff?"
 
Contexts of meaningful symbolic interaction of humans with their material
world are the places where these identities are constructed. These contexts
of meaning are as arbitrary and contingent as any other meaningful social
action and relation. Looking at the "stuff" to demonstrate "ethnic identity"
(in use and thought) would seem to be intimately related to "outward
symbols" and how we understand them, and so it seems their study would
profit from a discursive point of view. In contrast, classification and
typology seem poorly designed for this task.
 
Cheers,
 
--Lenny__