The Gothic people enter European history during the Roman Iron Age. Several groups of Goths come under the power of the Huns while other Gothic groups seek refuge within the borders of the Roman Empire. Groups fleeing across the Danube River defeated Roman troops at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. These Goths will later migrate further and eventually form the Visigothic Kingdom in present-day Spain and France under King Alaric I. In the 5th century, the Goths gained their freedom from the power of the Huns and formed the Ostrogothic Kingdom under King Theodoric the Great in present-day Italy. Finally, the Ostrogothic Kingdom was defeated by the Eastern Roman Empire in the 6th century and the Visigothic Kingdom was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate in the 8th century. What remains are the Gothic historical texts that claim a Scandinavian origin. Ever since these times, this origin has been debated by historians, archaeologists, and linguists. This essay investigates the support of this Scandinavian origin in four source materials. The ancient textual sources, linguistics, material culture and DNA-studies and then analyze and compare the results. The DNA-studies show that parts of the gothic people had a connection with Scandinavia and parts of them had a genetic diversity. This together with the results of the ancient texts, linguistics and material culture indicate a strong connection between Scandinavia and the gothic people and a probable Scandinavian origin at least amongst the gothic elite.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the production of flemish weaving done by the handicraft association Malmöhus läns hemslöjdsförening between the years 1960 - 1975. The thesis examines a group of flemish weaves to answer questions about how they were made, which material were used and how they were designed during the period. This study is supplemented ny a study of annual reports, which describes the associations work during the period. This is to put the flemish weaves into a wide context where the purpose and function of the flemish weave are analysed. The study also aims to discuss the development and ideas in the association, and how thoes thoughts changes shaped the use of the flemish weaves in the association.  The result of this thesis shows how the production of flemish weaves during the period was influenced by variation and renewal. This is shown in the technical variation and a modernisation with abstract designs. The study has also shown the purpose of the weaves as products for mediation. In relation with the study of annual reports, the reports put the flemish weaves in a wider context as a popular technic for weaving courses in the association. In conclusion the results show a development, where new conditions and competition made the association strive for new products where "hemslöjd" was made into an important trademark.

The author of the graduation research on the theme Visual Matter of Hezbollah on Southern Suburb of Beirut deals with the issue by unconventional approach of sociocultural anthropology. Through the application of Alfred Gell's and Robert Layton's art theory he assess what are the values incorporated in material culture of Hezbollah using to its self presentation. The author provides a description of examples and subsequently finds parallels in the material objects and what kind of an agency these objects are carrying. The paper is divided into theoretical and empirical part. The opening of the work also briefly deals with the history of Lebanon's shia confession and as well as history of the movement itself. Further, the empirical part is divided into three sections. The first is devoted to poster's and billboard's expression of Hezbollah, the second is focused on the urban estate of southern suburbs of Beirut and in the last section the author focused on small souvenir items and things of daily use. Finally, he concludes that the material culture of Hezbollah in Dahieh seem to be connected in logical but unexpected contexts - the art with politics, communication with the urban space and technology with culture. Moreover, the author also describes a noticeable trend in the commoditization of goods bearing...

This master thesis is based on a five-month research of a relationship between the children and material culture of a forest kindergarten. The main focus of the work is casted on the analysis of the significance of material objects during the children s information internalization by means of the sensual experience. The evocative role of concrete material items that are presented in everyday life of children in the forest kindergarten is shown in this thesis. The children senses are activated by material items and these items serve as an impulse for the children learning process. The work also contains an analysis of the important objects from the children s point of view. The conventional anthropological methods were used within the research in this master thesis - the participant observation in the forest kindergarten and the non-formal interviews with the kindergarten staff. Moreover, the picture analysis method was used to indentify the material items having an important role for the children in the forest kindergarten. The collected photodocumen- tation is employed to illustrate the specific environment and activities in the forest kindergarten. Keywords: forest kindergarten, material culture, sensual experience, learning process

The thesis "Fashion, Originality and Style: an Ethnographic Probe into a Fashion Atelier" deals with the phenomenon of fashion from the perspective of anthropology and sociology. It's based on the key theoretical approaches that view fashion as a marker of class and competition of wealth, but also as an expression of one's individuality. The thesis also pays attention to the connections between fashion and cultural environment, and the analysis of fashion in the contexts of material culture studies and the shifting perception of the fashion designer and his work. The work on this thesis also included a field research in the fashion atelier of Ivana Follová, a Czech fashion designer. In the course of several months, the daily operations of the atelier were observed together with the influences affecting the production of fashion goods, and the making of designs. Attention was also paid to the regular customers who frequent the fashion atelier and use its services. The research combined collecting data from participant observations and half-structured interviews. The aim of the study was to find out what principles the fashion industry is based on with a special focus on tailor-made fashion, but also to describe the customers of the atelier and their motives for the need of fashion products.

This diploma thesis focuses on the phenomena of homelessness as a situation in which individuals do not have enough money to secure the conventional accommodation. This leads to them constructing their home in the public space or squatting abandoned buildings. This thesis refuses to interpret homelessness as a pathological phenomenon or as a violation of order (in order to demonstrate this, individual approaches are usually being used). The author of the thesis presents homelessness as a consequence of the economic system which orders out a certain part of population. This part cannot attain the minimum measure of the chance to consume which would sustain a secure life. The concept of hybrid, which is the integral part of the actor-network-theory and it originates in the works of Bruno Latour, allows us to interpret home through the interconnection of material objects and social relationship. This approach leads to disengagement from the atypical form of unconventional homes and to thinking about them as about a normal way of housing. The basis of the ethnographic research is the perspective of the material culture studies. In the framework of this perspective, individual dwellings (inhabited by the class of the poorest) are examined. The research contains an analysis of nine such dwellings in...

American undertakers first began relocating from downtown parlors to mansions in residential neighborhoods around the First World War, and by midcentury virtually every city and town possessed at least one funeral home in a remodeled dwelling. Using industry publications, newspapers, photographs, legal documents, and field work, this dissertation mines the funeral industry's shift from business district to residential district for insights into America's evolving residential landscape, the impact of consumer culture on the built environment, and the communicative power of objects. Chapters one and two describe the changing landscape of professional deathcare. Chapter three explores the funeral home's residential setting as the battleground where undertakers clashed with residents and civil authorities for the soul of America's declining nineteenth-century neighborhoods and debated the efficacy and legality of zoning. The funeral home itself became a site for debate within the industry over whether or not professionals could also be successful merchants. Chapters four and five demonstrate how an awareness of both the symbolic value of material culture and the larger consumer marketplace led enterprising undertakers to mansions as a tool to legitimate their claims to professional status and as a setting to stimulate demand for luxury goods, two objectives often at odds with one another. Chapter five also explores the funeral home as a barometer of rising pressures within retail culture, from its emphasis on merchandising and democratized luxury to the industry's early exodus from the downtown as a harbinger of the postwar decentralization of shopping to the suburbs. Amidst perennial concerns over rising burial costs and calls for greater simplicity, funeral directors created spaces that married simplicity to luxury, a paradox that became a hallmark of modern consumer culture. Notwithstanding their success as retail spaces, funeral homes struggled for acceptance as ritual spaces. Chapter six follows the industry's aggressive campaign to dislodge the home funeral using advertisements that showcased the funeral home's privacy and homelike comforts. In the end, a heightened emphasis within consumer culture on convenience and the funeral home's ability to balance sales and ceremony solidified its enduring and iconic place within the vernacular landscape.

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Native American and African American material culture of mid-19thcentury to present day appear to hold evidence for a more ancient spiritual and cultural relationship between these two diverse peoples. There is evidence of strikingly similar, and in some instances, identical, pre-Columbian (before 1492) symbols from Africa and North America which allows us to examine questions of diffusion or independent invention. This thesis provides an examination of cultural practices and spiritual beliefs of the Indigenous peoples of North America and Africa through symbols incorporated in the material culture of each, focusing primarily on textiles and it provides an exploration into the traditional knowledge systems that under-lie the adaptations and syncretism of these culture groups in creating objects and ascribing meaning to symbols. In order to understand the similarities, along with the continuity and retention of ancient belief systems, it is necessary to travel the path back, as far as possible. Anthropological debates such as diffusion vs. independent invention are encountered and examined. Through the many processes of colonization, the histories of Indigenous peoples have been sanitized or erased to accommodate European hegemony and perceptions of superior knowledge systems. In searching for that which has been misplaced or stolen through colonization, the necessity of supporting an Indigenous praxis of Theory and Method in the discipline of Anthropology is presented. By recognizing Indigenous knowledge systems, and from such a perspective, it would be disingenuous to believe that there was no intercontinental contact between the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and those of Africa prior to 1492.

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