Development Things

A Case of Canned Meat

Bibliographic Data

ID7212926
AuthorsPhilip Fountain (0000-0002-4015-6478, National University of Singapore, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume11
Issue1
Pages39-73
Publication date2014-05-30
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSites a journal of social anthropology and cultural studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0112-5990 • E-ISSN: 1179-0237
PublisherUniversity of Otago Library (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.11157/sites-vol11iss1id246
OpenAlexW2048683853
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited51

Development scholarship in the social sciences has an awkward relationship with development things, often ignoring or sidelining materiality for analysis of cultures, discourses and power dynamics. Yet things are pivotal for how development works. This paper brings the anthropology of development into conversation with the burgeoning field of the anthropology of materiality. It focuses on a particular development thing: canned meat. The Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), a North American Christian NGO, has facilitated the production of canned meat for relief since the mid-1940s. Despite ideological shifts in conceptualising development, fluctuating financial constraints, changing hygiene regulations, arguments over labels, and the spectre of mad cow disease, canned meat remains a fixture in MCC’s programmatic repertoire. Every winter 10,000 volunteers from rural Mennonite communities can a million pounds of meat for relief. In tracing the surprising voyages of canned meat to Indonesia I probe into how material things might be relocated as a vital area of research on development and in so doing open new lines of investigation. Specifically, and despite the apparent paradox, I propose that a focus on material things can help invigorate research into the emerging field of “religion and development” by drawing attention to what can be called the theological life of things

Aesthetics · Art · Conversation · Environmental ethics · Ideology · Materiality (auditing · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Religion, Society, and Development · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development

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