Thinking through houses

The materiality of kitchen houses and histri on Mere Lava, Vanuatu

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2391065
AutoresMarie Durand (0000-0002-6619-1466, Aix-Marseille Université, autor de correspondencia)
Año2016
Volumen21
Número2
Páginas253-273
Fecha de publicación2016-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Material Culture (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1359183515601452
OpenAlexW2403085854
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas33

Houses in Vanuatu are prominent artefacts that materialise people's links to the land, actualising their presence on places. Nowadays on Mere Lava, a striking emphasis is put on the building or re-building of the kitchen houses. Drawing upon recent theories of material efficacy that consider objects as potent media through which people think, this article questions the underpinnings of the major cultural part these buildings play. It suggests that their prominence is grounded precisely in the ways their material features relate to people's conceptualisation of the world, such as the notion of histri, 'history'. Key material features of kitchen houses as well as the values they embody are explored through the lens of the building technical process. The mechanisms that bind these artefacts to values such as balance and collaboration are highlighted, in order to show how artefacts themselves become a form through which histri is thought

Aesthetics · Art · Environmental ethics · Materiality (auditing · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Philosophy