Abstract:
Although the medical and material branches of anthropology both developed in the late 20th century, there has been little material anthropological analysis of medical objects. In order to investigate the material agency of surgical tools the social life of a set of Shawiya Berber trepanation instruments is analyzed. After a discussion of material culture theory with particular reference to Alfred Gell’s works on the agency of technological artefacts, these ideas are applied. The case study set of objects is introduced along with general background on the practice of cranial trepanation in order to reconstruct the social history and cultural biography of this collection. The agency exerted by at different points during the social lives of the Hilton-Simpson collection is discussed and Gell’s ideas about the mechanisms behind the “enchantment of technology” are tested. The resulting assessment of material agency is one which is dependent upon knowledge of the material's use and ideas about the skill of its user rather than that of its creator.
Although the medical and material branches of anthropology both developed in the late 20th century, there has been little material anthropological analysis of medical objects. In order to investigate the material agency of surgical tools the social life of a set of Shawiya Berber trepanation instruments is analyzed. After a discussion of material culture theory with particular reference to Alfred Gell’s works on the agency of technological artefacts, these ideas are applied. The case study set of objects is introduced along with general background on the practice of cranial trepanation in order to reconstruct the social history and cultural biography of this collection. The agency exerted by at different points during the social lives of the Hilton-Simpson collection is discussed and Gell’s ideas about the mechanisms behind the “enchantment of technology” are tested. The resulting assessment of material agency is one which is dependent upon knowledge of the material's use and ideas about the skill of its user rather than that of its creator.
Trepanation Implements
(Hilton-Simpson 1922)
(Hilton-Simpson 1922)
