Une maison n'est pas seulement un abri ; une maison est aussi un humain
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3138/anth.581.A08Keywords:
house, semiotics of space, social biography of objects, identity, social statusAbstract
The goal of this article is to connect two significant concepts in the studies on material culture and, more precisely, regarding the deconstruction of the idea that objects should be passive and static: these are the semiotics of space and the social biographies of objects. If many Africanist researchers have drawn on the former (e.g., Griaule, Blier, Malaquais, etc.), the latter has not been fully theorized except in the works of German anthropologist Hans Peter Hahn. In this article, the articulation between the semiotics of space and the biographical method has allowed me to examine the reciprocity between individuals and houses in the Mandara Mountains of Cameroon, a relationship through which individuals construct houses while they are also constructed by them.
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