A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Theorizing the Hari Kuyō
In this article, I use actor—network theory (ANT) to throw light on the cultural logic of the hari kuyō—or ritual needle disposal. Hari kuyō dovetails with ANT principles because this ritual is a dynamic, historically constituted formation that is shaped by the distributive agency of a network of people, processes, and things. Held annually in temples and shrines across Japan since the Edo period (1603–1867), this ritual disposal of needles has been the subject of extensive scholarship, but insufficient attention has been given to the needle as a technological affordance, and more specifically, to the implications of its materials, manufacture, and consumption for the special status it enjoys in Japan's object world. Challenging assumptions about the universality of the separation of subject and object upon which I believe that thing theory is premised, my critical analysis of the hari kuyō draws attention to the importance of recognizing the ontological ambiguity between the human and nonhuman, animate and inanimate status of objects as a constituent of design history in Japan.
Theorizing the Hari Kuyō
In this article, I use actor—network theory (ANT) to throw light on the cultural logic of the hari kuyō—or ritual needle disposal. Hari kuyō dovetails with ANT principles because this ritual is a dynamic, historically constituted formation that is shaped by the distributive agency of a network of people, processes, and things. Held annually in temples and shrines across Japan since the Edo period (1603–1867), this ritual disposal of needles has been the subject of extensive scholarship, but insufficient attention has been given to the needle as a technological affordance, and more specifically, to the implications of its materials, manufacture, and consumption for the special status it enjoys in Japan's object world. Challenging assumptions about the universality of the separation of subject and object upon which I believe that thing theory is premised, my critical analysis of the hari kuyō draws attention to the importance of recognizing the ontological ambiguity between the human and nonhuman, animate and inanimate status of objects as a constituent of design history in Japan.
Theorizing the Hari Kuyō
Guth, Christine M. E. (author)
Design and Culture ; 6 ; 169-186
2014-07-01
18 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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