The Value in Things

In anthropological museums material objects serve to depict relationships between people, objects, and the physical world. Thus there is an obvious link between the museological side of anthropology and that branch of folklore or folklife studies which focuses on material culture. Both study objects as indices of the minds of their makers. Recently, however, the proponents of both of these subdisciplines have been taken to task for an over-emphasis on the object in and of itself which leads them to ignore or obscure the "environment" within which that object originally existed. Folklorists who wish to discern both the form and meaning of material items and those who recognize the importance of studying all aspects of a multi-faceted event have benefited from the performance-centered approach which extends its focus from the folkloric item to the total context within which that item was generated. It is this approach which enables folklorists to view verbal or visual forms in relationship to various cultural processes and to address topics in ethnoaesthetics, ethics, and education which folklore shares with anthropology and museology. The following is a brief discussion of the way in which concepts from folklore theory can be used in the anthropological museum exhibit to present a more dynamic and accurate picture of the relationship between people and things

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