Objects and Imagination

Øivind Fuglerud is professor of social anthropology at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. His research interests include Diaspora formations, politics of cultural representation and aesthetics. He has published a number of works on the conflict in Sri Lanka and its consequences, including Life on the Outside – the Tamil Diaspora and Long-Distance Nationalism (Pluto Press 1999).

• List of IllustrationsIntroductionØivind Fuglerud & Leon WainwrightPART I: MUSEUMSChapter 1. Contemporary Iroquois Art between Ethnographic Museum, Art Gallery and Global Market Place: Reflections on the Politics of Identity and RepresentationSylvia S. KaspryckiChapter 2. De-connecting Relations: Exhibitions and Objects as ResistancePeter BjerregaardChapter 3. Materializing Islam and the Imaginary of Sacred SpaceSaphinaz-Amal NaguibPART II: PRESENCEChapter 4. Visible While Away: Migration, Personhood and the Movement of Money amongst the Mbuke of Papua New GuineaAnders Emil RasmussenChapter 5. Being there while Being here: Long-distance Aesthetics and Sensations in Tamil National RitualsStine BrulandChapter 6. Food Presentations Moving Overseas: Ritual Aesthetics and Everyday Sociality in Tonga and among Tongan MigrantsArne Aleksej PerminowChapter 7. Imaginations at War: The Ephemeral and the Fullness of Life in Southwest ChinaKatherine SwancuttChapter 8. How Pictures Matter. Religious Objects and the Imagination in GhanaBirgit MeyerPART III: ARTChapter 9. Art as Empathy: Imaging Transfers of Meaning and Emotion in Urban Aboriginal AustraliaFiona MagowanChapter 10. Transvisionary Imaginations: Artistic Subjectivity and Creativity in  Tamil NaduAmit Desai and Maruška SvašekChapter 11. An Indian Cocktail of Value/s and Desire: On the ‘Artification’ of Whisky and FashionTereza KuldovaNotes on ContributorsIndex

“In this volume, Fuglerud and Wainwright and their contributors break new theoretical ground in the study of human-object relationships in a synthesis of ideational and material studies. The new material perspective of Objects and Imagination succeeds in synthesizing physical and ideational perspectives with a collection of ethnographic studies grounded in social imaginaries which lays new foundations for the study of human-object relations.” · Anthropological Forum“All in all, Objects and Imagination is a compelling collection of perspectives and understandings of the relationships between humans and objects that accounts for both materiality and collective imaginaries.” · Social Anthropology“The volume offers a valuable new addition to recent publications on material culture by introducing the concept of the imaginary as a framework for the study of objects…With a variety of case studies in different regional settings it deals with the ‘enchantment of materiality’ (Naguib in the volume), the meaningfulness of objects, their sensual and emotional capacities, and the negotiation of value in their representation or movement across cultural regimes.” · Barbara Plankensteiner, Weltmuseum Wien