This volume invites us to take motion seriously, and to recognize and provide for research and scholarship inspired by ‘how bodily and material culture on the move belong together in a systemic manner’ (p. xix). This calls for bringing material culture studies into productive conversation with the sciences of bodily motion. Bodies and material objects in motion both respect and seek to transcend myriad borders and boundaries (social and physical, psychological and somatic). The book should inspire the study of bodies and things on the move in familiar and unfamiliar, predictable and unpredictable ways.
The volume contains chapters written by twelve different authors belonging to the informal research group Matière à Penser (MaP) – Food for Thought – which has grown in stature, interest, and theoretical and analytical sophistication since its early formative years in the 1980s, led by Jean-Pierre Warnier and some of his PhD students and colleagues. MaP drew inspiration from Warnier’s ethnographic research in Cameroon’s Grassfields, a region he has studied extensively since his days as a PhD student.
Section 1, ‘Matter of work and technology’, explores embodied subjectivity in the context of work and the use of technologies. Material ‘know-how’, constructive (and simultaneously transgressive) bricolage, and the creative recycling of discarded objects are recurring themes throughout this section. The second section, ‘Matter of heritage’, deals with the symbolism of culturally significant ‘heritage’ artefacts (museum objects in France and silk clothes in West Africa) and how this significance is not an inherent or static thing. Rather, it is made and remade through embodied actions in which people interact with the objects, actions that simultaneously contribute to the subjectivation (p. 102) of the people involved.
Section 3, ‘Matter of politics’, brings embodied action to the fore as a central theme. Power and politics are argued to be ‘one of the many analytical dimensions of the techniques of the body, the techniques of the self and their attendant material cultures’ (p. 117). The fourth section, ‘Matter of religion’, focuses on subjectivation through embodied acts of worship, with emphasis on the materials of religion and on ‘people’s procedural knowledge, or knowing how to do something’ (p. 152). The final section, ‘Matter of knowledge’, explores various ways of becoming a ‘skilled subject’ in a context where ideas of craftsmanship and knowledge are shaped by notions of tradition and modernity.
The central theme of this volume is the unification of body, mind and objects through various forms of embodied ‘know-how’. Through diverse ethnographic accounts, the authors ‘critique the notion of the self-managing individual with disembodied thought and rationalised choice as put forth by several Western scholars’ (p. 10). They illustrate, in different ways, the shortcomings of Cartesian mind/body dualism.
The MaP approach shows that subjects are, in fact, not total, but continuously in flux, moulded in a never-ending process of interactions and interconnections with human and non-human others. Seen from this perspective, this volume can be read as part of a conversation with ongoing scholarly debates – particularly prominent in African contexts – concerned with the nature of subjectivation. The contributions speak, albeit indirectly, to the concept of incompleteness as expressed through the writings of African authors such as Amos Tutuola and Chinua Achebe and developed into a theoretical framework by Francis Nyamnjoh. Incompleteness refers to the inherent open-endedness of life; the fact that we are all constantly entangled in a never-ending being and becoming with, for and through human and non-human others.
While we appreciate the diversity of field sites, methods and researcher perspectives presented in the volume, we also note that the authors’ theoretical focus is heavily centred on European thinkers. As scholars with a deep commitment to epistemological conviviality, we would have liked to see an even more diverse conceptual framework for the volume as a whole, and a more explicit engagement with relevant non-European – especially African – theoretical concepts, such as those inspired by fascinating depictions of universes of incompleteness, interconnections, entanglements and conviviality between bodies and objects as physical and metaphysical realities, and as tangible and intangible in their mobilities. In such universes (e.g. those depicted by Amos Tutuola in his novels), not only do bodies and objects move together, they do not always move with predictability, rationality or logic. Nor do they move in a singular and unified manner.
Warnier’s contribution on kingship in the Cameroon Grassfields provides an excellent example of a body in motion, the motion of bodily fluids and the body politic of the kingdom. The person of King Ngwa’fo illustrates how motion enables a compositeness of being, which buttresses the idea of incompleteness. Through mobility, we accrue debts and indebtedness with mobile others, and with this we can forge and enrich bonds of being and belonging through shared identities and identification.
The importance of motion is not confined to bodily motions. It extends to motions of people and things, cultures and civilizations. This highlights the importance of factoring in why people and things move, and how movement with ambitions of dominance affects the movements of others, when incompleteness is not taken seriously. In this regard, the movement of the West, inspired by ambitions of global dominance and the quest for completeness, has tended to downplay the movement of Africa and other regions and their epistemes. The West’s obsessive pursuit of completeness has made it insensitive to motions and mobilities by others, Africans in particular. However, through its diverse ethnographic examples from Africa and elsewhere, this volume shows that mobility is intricate, multivariate and universal, as everyone – regardless of perceived status – is equally entangled in the constant, open-ended shiftings that make up our incomplete lives.
We are very impressed with the book. It is a step by the MaP group – mainly francophone and self-admittedly francocentric in terms of its theoretical foundations – towards interdisciplinary dialogue with academic peers in the English-speaking world. We find that the book does this job admirably, and we are certain that the empirical material and theoretical ideas it presents will prove valuable.
