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"Were, Graeme"
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How Materials Matter
How does design and innovation shape people's lives in the Pacific? Focusing on plant materials from the region, How Materials Matter reveals ways in which a variety of people - from craftswomen and scientists to architects and politicians - work with materials to transform worlds. Recognizing the fragile and ephemeral nature of plant fibres, this work delves into how the biophysical properties of certain leaves and their aesthetic appearance are utilized to communicate information and manage different forms of relations. It breaks new ground by situating plant materials at the centre of innovation in a region.
eBook
Rural Heritage, Museum Development and the Commodification of Folk Life in Vietnam
This article addresses the growth of heritage tourism in rural Vietnam. Focusing on agricultural tourism in close vicinity to a UNESCO World Heritage site, it examines the competing visions of the local community, government bureaucrats and international agencies in the development of a rural museum. It shows that what is at stake is not just sensitivities over representations of folk life but also control over the structures to effectively generate profit. The article argues that the museum can be understood as an integral component in the commodification of the rural landscape rather than a tool necessary for nation-building or cultural preservation.
Journal Article
How Materials Matter
How does design and innovation shape people’s lives in the Pacific? Focusing on plant materials from the region, How Materials Matter reveals ways in which a variety of people – from craftswomen and scientists to architects and politicians – work with materials to transform worlds. Recognizing the fragile and ephemeral nature of plant fibres, this work delves into how the biophysical properties of certain leaves and their aesthetic appearance are utilized to communicate information and manage different forms of relations. It breaks new ground by situating plant materials at the centre of innovation in a region.
eBook
Thirty years of Doi Moi in the museum
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe an exhibition that celebrated 30 years of reform in the Vietnamese National Museum of History, which opened in 2016. It contributes to anthropological understandings of the way exhibitions create new forms of cultural heritage, and so operate as a kind of technology of governance for legitimising state transformations that seek to celebrate neoliberal ideologies and the rise of the individual.Design/methodology/approachUsing an ethnographic methodology, it explores some of the behind-the-scenes decisions involved in producing a narrative of national development since the Doi Moi reforms of 1986.FindingsIn analysing how imported memory approaches were innovatively employed alongside conventional historical facts, this paper reveals ways in which old revolutionary narratives make way for expansive and more acceptable concepts of development that embrace well-being and quality of life as well as national achievements.Originality/valueThis research is based on original ethnographic research conducted by the author and contributes to an emerging field of museum and heritage studies in East and South-East Asia.
Journal Article
How materials matter : design, innovation and materiality in the Pacific / Graeme Were
How does design and innovation shape people's lives in the Pacific? Focusing on plant materials from the region, How Materials Matter reveals ways in which a variety of people - from craftswomen and scientists to architects and politicians - work with materials to transform worlds. Recognizing the fragile and ephemeral nature of plant fibres, this work delves into how the biophysical properties of certain leaves and their aesthetic appearance are utilized to communicate information and manage different forms of relations. It breaks new ground by situating plant materials at the centre of innovation in a region.
eBook
On the materials of mats: thinking through design in a Melanesian society
This article examines the selective use of plant materials in design in Melanesia. It explores — through an analysis of pandanus leaf mats in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea — how makers select fibres on the basis of their capacity to express social relations to varying temporalities before their natural decay. J.J. Gibson's theory of affordance and Donald Norman's concept of mapping are critically applied for this purpose. This approach emphasizes how social and temporal relations are condensed into objects, and refocuses anthropological attention towards materials and their affordances in the production of material culture. L'article examine la mise en oeuvre sélective des matières végétales dans le design en Mélanésie. En analysant les nattes en feuilles de pandanus de Nouvelle-Irlande, en Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée, il explore la manière dont les fabricants sélectionnent les fibres en fonction de leur capacité à exprimer les relations sociales à des temporalités variables, avant leur dégradation naturelle. La théorie de Yaffordance de J.J. Gibson et le concept de mapping de Donald Norman sont appliqués pour cela selon une approche critique, soulignant la façon dont les relations sociales et temporelles sont condensées dans les objets et ramenant l'attention de l'anthropologue vers les matières et leurs utilisations possibles (affordances) dans la production de la culture matérielle.
Journal Article
Material Histories and the changing Nature of Museum Collections
In the previous chapter, I argued that the uptake and use of digital heritage technologies in rural communities in the Pacific was transforming ritual and political structures by reinforcing hierarchies and elevating social status because the technology (as an object and as a process) provided access to material histories that were themselves understood as authoritative of the past. The discussion focused primarily on the end users of digital media and the new forms of engagement with material knowledge that have emerged through the mobility of objects and images from museum storage facilities over the course of a consultation process between
Book Chapter
Conclusion
Considering new approaches to materials is not only about searching for the novel and the innovative; many techniques and practices associated to fibres, timbers, barks and cloth are centuries old and are unlikely to change. Rather, to consider materials and innovation is to focus on the social context of design; the way in which design itself is orientated towards building a better future for society (Forty 1986; Norman 1988). This raises questions not only about the nature of design and its significance but also warrants further investigation as to why design takes on such an important role in society as
Book Chapter