Houses
This website contains supplementary material relating to the book Built in Niugini: Constructions in the Highlands of New Guinea.
What can we know about being in the world? This perennial question recurs throughout this book on built structures in the New Guinea Highlands, which probably seems an unlikely context initially for any such philosophical quest, whereas the material subject matter is particularly apt. The focus is on the tacit aspects of knowing and behaviour that feature prominently in contemporary phenomenological approaches to social life, such as ‘practice theory’ and agency. A material perspective, such as features in an enquiry into construction activity, affords an opportunity firstly, to investigate tangible ‘know-how’ skill and secondly, to extend investigation into intangible social ‘know-that’ tacit intelligence.
The book has the following four interrelated aims. Firstly, to contribute further to a study of material aspects of life in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea (among the most thorough inquiries into a non-industrial material culture regime yet attempted). Secondly, to give a comprehensive account in particular of built structures and construction activity in the Was valley of the Southern Highlands Province. Thirdly, to further discussion and criticism of anthropological epistemology focussing on the contemporary phenomenological turn. And fourthly, to make an innovative contribution to interdisciplinary methods and analysis in the context of material culture studies.
The supplementary material is as follows:
- Wola Houses – Video
- ‘What can archaeology and anthropology do?’ Seminar PowerPoint.
- Wolaland residence patterns (click on Tables, Graphs and Maps)