Iridescence as Affordance: On Artefacts and Light Interference in the Renewal of Life Among the Owa (Eastern Solomon Islands).
This article focuses on identifying the technical and cognitive processes that imbue artefacts and practices with forms of efficacy central to the relations the Owa people have with surrounding invisible entities. In particular, it aims to describe the correspondences between the schemas at work, on...
| Published in: | Oceania Vol. 88; no. 1; pp. 31 - 41 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Mar2018
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=128421810&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 128421810 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00298077 OCA jtl: Oceania issn: 00298077 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Mar2018 vid: 88 iid: 1 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 128421810 10.1002/ocea.5179 ppf: 31 ppct: 10 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 104KB tig: atl: Iridescence as Affordance: On Artefacts and Light Interference in the Renewal of Life Among the Owa (Eastern Solomon Islands). aug: au: Revolon, Sandra affil: Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, EHESS su: Antiquities Cognition Rites & ceremonies Iridescence Optical interference sug: subj: Antiquities Cognition Rites & ceremonies Historical Sites Iridescence Optical interference keyword: aesthetics affordance light mana ritual Solomon Islands aesthetics affordance light mana ritual Solomon Islands ab: This article focuses on identifying the technical and cognitive processes that imbue artefacts and practices with forms of efficacy central to the relations the Owa people have with surrounding invisible entities. In particular, it aims to describe the correspondences between the schemas at work, on the one hand, in material logics, by analysing the making of magical artefacts and, on the other hand, in ritual logics, through an analysis of the practices and representations involved in Owa rituals. These two domains – technical action and ritual action – are both locally understood as ways of acting on and in the world. This efficacy rests on the relationships established between vital processes and technical processes, or more precisely on the co‐construction, by specialized humans and by invisible entities, of artificial devices that reproduce visible phenomena considered by the Owa to be visible manifestations of powerful entities’ effective capacity to intervene (<italic>mana</italic>‐ity/<italic>mana</italic>‐ization) in the world. These include a broad category of phenomena that can be seen in the atmosphere and on the bodies of living organisms and which all display, in different ways, chromatic distortions that are mobilized and imitated by Owa carvers, who apply them to the surface of magical artefacts. By illustrating one of the ways in which Owa craftsmen imitate vital processes through artefacts, this article examines what this imitation indicates about how the Owa conceive the renewal of life and act upon life in an attempt to control it. The idea of ‘vital processes’ should be understood here in a broad sense to include all the processes that benefit life and result from non‐human action. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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