Afterword: : Thinking Through Material Thinking as Placing and Arrangement

Abstract

This book has demonstrated how the study of material culture has come of age. From being the preserve of a few hardy souls working in disconnected island Communities — the social and economic history of consumption, ethnographies of contemporary consumption, the anthropology of goods, such as clothing and pottery, material culture studies in archaeology — it has become the stamping ground of many. The concluding article here demonstrates how the study of material culture has come of age. From being the preserve of a few hardy souls working in disconnected island communities — the social and economic history of consumption, ethnographies of contemporary consumption, the anthropology of goods, such as clothing and pottery, material culture studies in archaeology — it has become the stamping ground of many. Things have now become a key part of worlds. That was always true in the sense that the layout of things has always been a powerful pointer to a culture's propensities and dispositions.