Thesis (M.A.)--State University of West Georgia, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-65).

CAPES / A presente pesquisa tem como intuito investigar uma coleção de objetos que compõe o material chamado caixa didática Padrões de Beleza, criado por um grupo da Ação Educativa do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia da Universidade Federal do Paraná (MAE-UFPR). O trabalho está centrado no processo de feitura dessa caixa, buscando, em especial, a compreensão das relações e das mediações formadas entre os agentes encarregados e os objetos museológicos por eles escolhidos para a composição do referido material. As análises se baseiam principalmente nos estudos de cultura material e antropologia dos objetos. A pesquisa envolve a construção de um inventário dos objetos e pesquisa etnográfica, concluindo com a redação da dissertação. / The main purpose of this research is to explore a collection of objects which compose a material named “caixa didática Padrões de Beleza”, created by a group responsible for Educational Actions in the “Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia da Universidade Federal do Paraná (MAE-UFPR)”. This research focuses in the making process of this material, seeking, in particular, the understanding of the relations and interactions developed between the agents in charge and those museological objects chosen by them to be part of this “Caixa”. The analysis is based essentially on material culture studies and anthropology of objects. This research comprises the construction of an inventory of the objects, ethnographic research and the mapping of the information gathered, concluding with the writing of the dissertation.

This search aims to discuss culture studies of lithic material present in mounds. As start point to understand this structures, as to as builders, dedicate itself to analyze of lithic collections. The pieces in question in this search are proceeding from of archaeological excavation realized in the year 2004 in hillocks denominated Butuy 1 and Butuy 2 in São Borja/RS. Our objective is to group theorical and methodological subsidy to analyze the material culture and to understand a few about way of life of mounds builders from south region of Brazil. When studied the lithic material culture, it understood the analyze of lithic material is a derivation that need in information structured that help cultural rebuilding of one or various groups. So, attentive the studies possibilities, finds itself to infer about manufacture technical and utilizations, that reported with decisions cultural and individual of changes groups. It verify that the recurrent tolls are little scrapers and retouch slices. Make´s technical is direct percussion and grate improvement of prime matter. / Este trabalho visa apresentar algumas discussões acerca dos estudos da cultura material lítica presente em montículos (cerritos). Como ponto de partida para o entendimento destas estruturas, bem como de seus construtores, voltou-se para a análise de suas coleções líticas. As peças em questão nessa pesquisa são provenientes de escavações arqueológicas efetuadas no ano de 2004 nos montículos denominados Butuy 1 e Butuy 2 em São Borja/RS. Buscou-se elencar subsídios teórico-metodológicos para analisar a cultura material e entender um pouco sobre o modo de vida dos construtores de cerritos da região sul do Brasil. Ao propor o enfoque desse estudo na cultura material lítica, entende-se que a análise do material lítico é um procedimento que auxilia na estruturação de informações que servem de base para a reconstrução cultural de um ou vários grupos. Assim, atentos às possibilidades de estudo, procurou-se inferir sobre as técnicas de manufatura e utilização, as quais estiveram de alguma maneira relacionadas com seleções e decisões em nível cultural e individual dos grupos que as transformaram. Verificou-se que os instrumentos recorrentes são pequenos raspadores e lascas retocadas. A técnica de fabricação dos artefatos incluiu a percussão direta e grande aproveitamento da matéria-prima.

This thesis examines the representation of glass in French and Belgian poetry associated with the Symbolist and Decadent movements. It incorporates a number of authors, particularly focussing on Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Laforgue, Rodenbach, and Maeterlinck, but also encompassing more minor writers where appropriate, as well as some writers on the periphery of Symbolism and Decadence. The thesis investigates how the growing use of glass in architecture, technology, and visual art influenced late-nineteenth-century poets, providing these writers with a means by which to understand their social context as well as a multi-faceted metaphor through which to interrogate their own poetic mechanisms. Glass, in its various manifestations - windows, lenses, hothouses, aquariums, Exhibition halls, Art Nouveau glasswork, and stained glass - prompts meditation on such questions as: the interaction between subject and object; the relationship between fiction and reality; the infinite; poetic form; nature and artifice; and aesthetic identity. Ultimately, I combat the traditional understanding of this poetry as being solely concerned with the pure realm of dreams, the soul, and the 'Idée'. Instead, I insist on the material world as a starting point for this poetry, demonstrating that it is not immune to environmental factors, but rather that it uses its environment as a route towards the elusive 'Idée'. Glass is key to this process because its very ambiguity makes it a suitable embodiment of the tension between the material and the unknown, invisible, or ideal.

Cette thèse analyse l’expérience migratoire de familles roms roumaines installées en banlieue parisienne. Pour ces Roms, la matérialisation la plus visible de la réussite sociale réside dans la construction d’une maison indépendante dans leur village d’origine. Ce travail est né d’une longue enquête de terrain en France, en Roumanie et sur la route avec ces familles roms, au cours de laquelle je me suis intéressée aux multiples aspects matériels de la vie en migration. Je montre, d’une part, comment les membres de ce groupe parviennent à donner une cohérence au double ancrage qu’ils maintiennent entre la Roumanie et la France, tout en entretenant des liens de parenté forts, malgré la distance qui sépare souvent les membres d’une même famille. En analysant ce premier aspect, je montre, d’autre part, que ces migrants s’organisent en véritables maisonnées transnationales, reconfigurations familiales originales qui permettent aux membres du foyer dispersé de maintenir une dépendance réciproque et ce faisant, d’optimiser les bénéfices nécessaires à la concrétisation des projets immobiliers. Ceux-ci, qu’ils soient modestes ou impressionnants, permettent en retour de signifier aux yeux du groupe, par une action sur l’environnement matériel, la volonté de chacun de continuer à s’élever sur l’échelle sociale. / This work analyses the migratory experience of Romanian Roma families who settled down in the Parisian suburbs. The most visible materialisation of social success lies for them in the building of a new and independent house in their home village. The research is based on a long fieldwork carried out in France, in Romania and on the road with the Roma families, during which I focused on the numerous material aspects of life in migration. On the one hand, I show how members of this group developed a kind of double rootedness between Romania and France, how these attaches are kept coherent in their minds, as they also work keep-up with kinship relationships, when parents are most often scattered in several countries. While investigating this first aspect, I demonstrate, on the other hand, that these migrants structure themselves in genuine transnational households, this original family setup keeping its members interdependent and thus, allowing them to gather the money needed for the building projects. Whether being modest or impressive, these in turn enable their owners to state loud, in the eyes of the group, and through an action on the material environment, their intention to keep climbing the social ladder.

Dans les villes moyennes de Garoua et Maroua, au Nord et à l’Extrême Nord du Cameroun, on dit des « chefs », soit des détenteurs de l’autorité à l’échelle d’une famille, d’un quartier, de la cité ou autrefois d’un royaume, qu’ils doivent être « comme des grands tas d’ordures ». Ce proverbe situe ainsi les relations de pouvoir et l’exercice de l’autorité dans un rapport particulier avec la gestion des déchets : le chef doit se montrer patient et hiératique comme un grand dépotoir, lorsqu’il reçoit toutes les insultes et les plaintes de ses sujets comme autant d’immondices ; mais, selon un registre ésotérique développé par les religions locales puis repris dans le cadre musulman, on attend aussi qu’il fasse preuve de la même puissance, magique notamment, que celle dégagée par une grande et ancienne accumulation de déchets. Les conceptions locales des excrétions corporelles, des objets déchus et des restes des activités du quotidien font en effet du contrôle et de la manipulation des déchets un élément majeur d’une « gouvernementalité » (Foucault) particulière. Celle-ci s’opère via des « techniques du corps » et des « techniques de soi » spécifiques autour du détachement entre soi, ses déchets corporels et ses possessions matérielles. L’analyse généalogique des discours et des pratiques de gestion individuelles et institutionnelles des déchets depuis la fondation des deux villes au XVIIIe siècle jusqu’au début du XXIe siècle, marqué par la privatisation de ce service public, permet alors de saisir comment les tas d’ordures dans ce contexte peuvent être considérés comme de véritables « dispositifs de pouvoir » et le contrôle des immondices comme un instrument puissant de gouvernement de soi et des autres. / In the middle-size cities of Garoua and Maroua in Northern Cameroon, it is said that “chiefs”, those having authority over a family, a town quarter, a city or, formally, a kingdom, should be « like great trash piles ». This proverb thus posits a privileged link between authority and the exercise of power, and the management of waste: a chief should adopt a patient and hieratic attitude towards the insults and complaints he receives from his subjects like so much filth; but also, in keeping with an esoteric understanding developed by local religions and taken up within an Islamic framework, he is expected to exhibit the magical and other powers that are held to arise from large and ancient heaps of rubbish. In the light of local conceptions relating to bodily excreta, refuse and the residues of daily activities, the control and handling of rubbish appears as an essential component of a distinctive “governmentality” (Foucault). The latter operates though specific “techniques of the body” and “techniques of the self” aimed at disentangling oneself from one’s bodily and material waste products. A genealogical analysis of the discourses and practices of individual and institutional waste management, since the founding of these two cities in the 18th century to the privatisation of this public service at the beginning of the 21st century, shows how, in this context, trash piles act as veritable “devices” of power, and the control of filth as a powerful instrument for governing the self and others.

This diploma thesis is called "The sleeping culture of the Netolice burgesses in 18th century" and its aim is to reveal the history of their everyday life in Netolice in 18th century with the emphasis on the material sleeping culture. The probate inventories were used as the main sources. The author focused on the objects which were linked to sleeping - sleeping rooms, beds and bedding. Then the probate inventories were divided by social, professional and gender stratification. This diploma thesis could be the first step of the systematic study of the sleeping culture in the burgesses environmental.

The thesis is entitled Coffee, tea and chocolate as a part of the life of noblemen during the early-modern times period in the Czech countries and it presents the history of everydayness of the nobility in the Czech Kingdom and in the Margraviate of Moravia from the middle of the 17th up to the ending of the 18th century, and it emphasizes the material culture which was used for drinking coffee, tea and chocolate. Castle inventories and municipal palaces inventories were used as an initial source of information. At the very beginning the noble families were chosen and afterwards their residential network was approached in detail. This work also focused on the topography of the residences and on the location of items used for coffee, tea and chocolate consumption within the particular castles or palaces. On this basis the author tried to reconstruct the way of thinking, behavior and attitudes of noblemen, and to explain the symbolic meaning of the decoration of the residences, the symbolic role of items as a representation of noblemen as a mean of the enrichment of their social and cultural habits as well. The set-up of items and other accessories served with coffee, tea and chocolate were not forgotten either. The inventories were put through a deep research which helped to create a social and power stratification on the basis of items used for coffee, tea and chocolate consumption. Another comparison also emerged- the comparison of particular members of various families representation and also the ownership of examined items on the basis of gender definition. This work tried to immerse to the topic of symbolic communication.

How do popular media genres reinforce or provide alternative perspectives to circulating official political discourses, as well as articulate issues of social concern? In what ways do such media offer insights into aspects of cultural practices that inform and represent matters of key significance in people's quotidian lives? This dissertation investigates these two general questions within four distinct Ghanaian popular visual media genres: popular video-films, political cartoons, death announcement posters, and vehicle inscriptions (`mottonyms'). Regarding the Ghanaian popular video-films, I examine how the films (re)present the issue of cyberfraud (`sakawa') in Ghana. I contrast the films' (re)presentation of this phenomenon vis-a-vis that of certain official pronouncements on the issue, and argue that a critical approach to the `sakawa film series' reveals a robust counter discourse to official denunciations. My investigation of political cartoons, examines some of the works of the artist Akosua in the Ghanaian newspaper, Daily Guide. Here I focus on how Akosua's works, utilizing popular cultural allusions, function as an alternative media discourse in contemporary Ghanaian sociopolitical debates. As regards the death-announcement posters, I investigate how, situated as they are within certain well-known Ghanaian cultural values and practices, including funerary caskets, these posters remediate these cultural mores in the context of rapid social change. Lastly, regarding the mottonyms, I explore, through interviews with vehicle owners, the interactions between specific life experiences that spurred them to coin these inscriptions and the cultural fabric within which they have done so. Conceptually, this dissertation draws not only from cultural anthropology and its subfields of visual culture, and religion, media and culture, but also significantly from global/international media studies and from emergent works on African cultural and media studies. The harnessing of interdisciplinary conceptual frameworks, such as phenomenological and social constructionist approaches, to interrogate Ghanaian popular visual media in this dissertation advances our current thinking in the above-mentioned fields in several ways. For example, the social constructionist (Lee-Hurwitz 1995; Morgan 2005) and phenomenological approaches (Langsdorf, 1994; Lanigan 1998) that guide the investigation of vehicle inscriptions and death-announcement posters reveal purposeful intentionality in human communication. Furthermore, this dissertation, with its focus on popular video-films, press cartoons, death-announcement posters and vehicle inscriptions concretely elucidates recent expansive theorizations of `media'. Here `media' is understood as practices of mediation (de Vries 2001; Meyer 2003; Zito 2008), and broadly conceived to transcend narrowly defined traditional mass media formats (Downing 1996). In the latter case, I advocate for global/international media scholars to begin to pay equal `field service' to popular media artifacts within the current ambit of the `practice paradigm' in global/international media studies (Postill 2010:4; Couldry 2004).

Despite shifts in marketing and ideological emphasis from the 1730s to the 1890s, the it-narrative genre (wherein objects and animals recount their own histories) remained surprisingly consistent in the nature of the social commentary it provided. In contrast to earlier studies, mainly devoted to small segments of the phenomenon in Britain or America, this study brings out the transatlantic persistence of the it-narrator’s functioning as a model of moral agency, cognizant of his/her/its obligations within a societal grid. A lens to the contemporary perception of what made it-narratives important is available in the writings of Thomas Reid, an eighteenth-century philosopher who emphasized the tangible reality of moral judgment as a force in "practical ethics." Widely known in Britain and America during this period, Reid’s paradigm, in dialogue with modern histories of material and popular culture, informs my account of how the it-narrative, while certainly responding to specific cultural trends, became ever more solidly perceived as an intertextual forum for understanding moral agency and social justice.