material culture people artifact: AMERICAN MATERIAL CULTURE

material culture people

who uses artifacts?

just about everyone. people who use material culture in specific and culturally significant ways include:

producers: artists and artisans, manufacturers, workers.
consumers at home, at work, in public, at liesure.
interpreters: scholars (students, teachers, researchers), museum professionals (curators, registrars, exhibit designers, guides), dealers, collectors, artists, decorators.

of course, these categories are not mutually exclusive, and often a single person practices all three at once... the same artisan who makes chairs, for example, uses tools to fabricate them, and in the process provides a particular vision of "chair" through her creation. she may further be responsible for marketing her works, or she may use the chairs she creates to furnish her own home or office, in other words, to sit on. she probably occasionally sits on a chair while working on fabricating others. she may very well own chairs that she did not fabricate herself -- these may be purely utilitarian in function, or they may be part of a collection she has assembled. she may give the chairs she makes as gifts. despite these complications, however, it is still useful to think about each of these multiple contexts for artifact use in its own right... [under construction]

this page is maintained by susan garfinkel on behalf of the material culture caucus of the american studies association, and the department of american studies at the university of maryland, college park. last updated june 9, 1999.