The Material Life of Human Beings: Artifacts, Behavior and Communication

by Schiffer,Michael Brian

• ISBN13: 9780415200325
• ISBN10: 0415200326
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-05-14
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

In this ground-breaking work, the distinguished anthropological theorist, Michael Schiffer, presents a profound challenge to the social sciences. Through a broad range of examples, he demonstrates how theories of behavior and communication have too often ignored the fundamental importance of objects in human life. InThe Material Life of Human Beings, the author builds upon the premise that the most important feature of human life is not symbolic language but the incessant and diverse transactions that take place between people and myriad artifacts. The author shows that artifacts are involved in al modes of human communication--be they visual, auditory or tactile. By creatively folding elements of postmodernist thought into a scientific framework, he creates new concepts and models for understanding and analyzing communication and behavior. Challenging established theories within the social sciences, the author offers a reassessment of the centrality ofmaterialityto everyday life.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	1	(10)
The nature of human existence	1	(4)
Material-culture studies	5	(1)
An archaeological perspective	6	(3)
A preview	9	(2)
What is human behavior?	11	(19)
Introduction	11	(1)
Interactors in the material medium	12	(1)
Interaction modes	13	(3)
Performance and performance characteristics	16	(4)
Analytic units	20	(3)
Interactors and activities revisited	23	(4)
Defining human behavior	27	(1)
Summary	28	(2)
Artifacts and ``interpersonal'' communication	30	(21)
Introduction	30	(1)
Communication modes and performance modes	31	(2)
Visual performance	33	(12)
Acoustic performance	45	(1)
Tactile performance	46	(1)
Chemical performance	47	(2)
Conclusion	49	(2)
Some first principles	51	(16)
Introduction	51	(1)
The nature of archaeological inference	52	(3)
Toward a general communication theory	55	(10)
Summary and conclusion	65	(2)
A general theory of communication	67	(23)
Roles and role playing	67	(1)
Communication processes	68	(2)
Constructing inferences in communication processes	70	(1)
The receiver	70	(9)
The emitter	79	(1)
The sender	80	(2)
Artifacts that play supporting roles	82	(1)
Methodological implications	83	(5)
Discussion and conclusion	88	(2)
Basic communication processes	90	(12)
Introduction	90	(1)
Processes with three interactors	90	(6)
Processes with two interactors	96	(4)
Processes with one interactor	100	(1)
Final remarks	101	(1)
Explaining performance: a general model of receiver response	102	(18)
Introduction	102	(1)
The explanatory question	103	(1)
The model	104	(11)
Discussion	115	(4)
Conclusion	119	(1)
Glossary	120	(6)
Notes	126	(3)
References	129	(22)
Index	151