The, Social, And The World Of The Plaz Material Culture ...

In the vast field of anthropology, there are many ways to investigate a particular society. The three readings; Being-in-the-Market versus Being-in-the-Plaza: Material Culture and the Construction of Social Reality in Spanish America, Excluded Spaces: The Figure in the Australian Aboriginal Landscape, and Indexical Speech across Samoan Communities all approach this topic differently. The first uses physical anthropology to examine the landscape, the second uses anthropological taboo to examine how this impacts the culture, and finally the third uses linguistic anthropology to analyze the home life of a tribe. Although all different in nature, each form plays a key role in understanding the world from the view of an anthropologist. As such this paper will examine the similarities and differences of each work. So that they can be compared to one another, to form a concrete view of the material, which enables the reader to fully understand how each work relates to one another. While in Spanish America Miles Richardson examines the difference between the busy street markets and the indoor plaza. Noticing that the two seem to mirror opposites in nature, he concludes that the reason for this is due to material culture (Low Lawrence-zuniga, 1988). Upon this conclusion, Richardson continues into detail comparing the two places of business. However before this comparison can be made, the concept of material culture must be explained first. As put by Richardson Material culture†¦