Joseph R.

Martin
@01381772 Fleuriet

Practicum Exercise #1
Your Material Culture
Refer to appropriate Briller chapter and exercise for detailed instructions. Follow the template
to organize your response.

TYPE responses.
UPLOAD one copy to BBLearn; bring a hard or e-copy to class to workshop.
SAVE an e-copy. You will be turning in a revised copy as part of your Final
Project.

I. Your Material Culture List. (List at least 3 objects; bring the most portable to class with you.
For the others, bring a picture on your phone or other device.)

-My phone.
-My brothers guitar.
-My fathers old research journals.

II. Answer the following questions in complete sentences:

a. How does each object represent you?
-My phone represents me less a person and the material connection to the phone itself, but
instead as being an easy access to music. With multiple working musicians in my family, I feel as
though as I always had a deep and almost therapeutic bond with music, as Im sure that many
others have had as well.

-My brothers guitar is important to me for the connection to music as stated above, but also
because it is one of the few items of his that is in my possession following his untimely passing
when I was in Highschool.

-My fathers old research journals help me relate to the more science orient members of my
family, and like my brothers guitar, are one of the few possessions of my fathers that I still own
in order to remember him by.

b. Which object is most valuable to you, and why?

-My brothers guitar out of all of the listed items would be the most important to me. This is not
meant to devalue my fathers journals to me, but really, there are multiple journals and only the
one single guitar.

c. How do each of these objects represent, reflect, or otherwise symbolize your professional
interests in anthropology? (You must answer this, even if it takes much thought!)
-Phone: This is more basic than the other two items, but occasionally, some things are just like
that even in the professional. The immediate connection to the outside world, and being able to
Joseph R. Martin
@01381772 Fleuriet
focus through blocking out things with music reflect me when Im actually sitting down to do
work related to any professional setting, school or otherwise.

-Brothers Guitar: This item works symbolically to show that in everything that I have done,
there has always been a deep rooted influence of creativity and sentimentalism. Even in the
Anthropological fields that border the most on S.T.E.M. work and pure objectivity, the constant
emphasis on working with human beings calls for a distinct level of empathy and sentimentality.

-Research Journals: Similar to the symbolism of my brothers guitar, the influences of my

fathers work as a Virologist and his research journals are what keep me in a head space to be
able to also handle the S.T.E.M. and objective areas of Anthropological fields and discourse.

d. Pretend you were a stranger looking at these objects as a group. What story do they tell
about the person who owns them?

Going over these items without knowing anything about the person who owns them, I
believe that anything I could think about would start with the assumptions that the person who
owned these items was pretty plain considering how regular they are for the most part at first
glance. Digging through them, and seeing the names attached to the items, I think the connection
that all of these items belong to members of the same family would then become readily
apparent. After that, I dont really know if the items without any explanation would speak too
heavily about the person besides the fact that they clearly are carrying some items with them that
have a certain level of sentimental value.