Abstract

GONZALEZ VILLARRUEL, Alejandro. The social life of ethnographic objects and their soulless commercialization. Alteridades [online]. 2010, vol.20, n.40, pp.65-76. ISSN 2448-850X.

This article will examine the original material culture of the Mixtec in the coast of Oaxaca. The main axis will be the social life of things, the meaning of the ornament for the Mixtec and how they value their knowledge. I will try to answer transcendental questions like the way in which the objects relate to the persons and how the objects reveal the social relations of the ones who make them. This is a work on the material culture of a Mexican ethnic group that has organized a transnational commercial project within a global context.

Keywords : material culture; social life of things; Mixtec knowledge; ethnographic collections.

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