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I am a little bit stuck with some thinking on my dissertation this week - I'm actually working on in, in the sense that I have been doing a lot of thinking, but I am re-conceiving some of the categories of maritimity that I had come up with. I have had a couple of useful conversations so far, but writing more informally will help me form my thoughts more, and maybe give me more people to talk to.
First of all, I need to keep a few things in mind while I am doing this:
1. The point of my dissertation is to look at the question: can you recognize a maritime culture from its material culture alone, and more specifically from artifactual remains. Also, can you distinguish maritime culture or maritimity within a subset of a broader culture/
2. Maritimity vs. Maritime Culture:
I am defining maritimity as: Identity influenced by a community’s relationship with the maritime environment. Basically - does a group conceive of itself as being strongly tied to the sea/lake/river/whatever.
In earlier writing, now that I am being more critical, I am jumping all over the place talking about maritimity and maritime culture almost interchangeably. This is basically like saying that culture and identity are the same. I need to think this through more, and if I decide I'm okay with it, I need to defend it somehow. If I'm not okay with it, I need to explain that too.
As far as my categories go, they are meant to be broad categories for "examining and identifying the maritimity of a particular culture or group." (quoting myself, so classy ;)
-Is this what I want to achieve with them?
-Are they filling that role?
My original categories were: Locale, Exploitation of Maritime Resources (natural and cultural), Cultural Integration of the Maritime Environment, and Relationship with Maritime Material Culture. I like parts of these categories, but they are, generally speaking, too difficult to disentangle. I want them to be related, and they can have some overlap/be polythetic, but they need to be *identifiable* categories, even if one source of evidence point count for more than one. My third category there is *way* too broad and nebulous, and Locale was also very problematic.
Right now I am thinking of three categories:
Landscape: geographical location, and also use of the environment, and the imbuing of the environment with social meaning as evident in place names and so forth. Maritime Cultural Landscape stuff goes here - however I personally think that 'cultural landscape' is bit redundant.
Material Culture: specialized technology, such as ships and related tools, tools for exploiting maritime resources, clothing signifying group identity. In my original category, I was considering the different kinds of relationships people can have with the material culture - ownership, use, production. I think there is still space for all of this. This overlaps with Landscape because settlements are part of both, as are other man made features such as harbours, docks, wharves slipways, ballast piles, reclaimed land, etc...
Resource Exploitation: this includes both natural and cultural resources, so let's break it down that way.
Natural: food resources (fish, shell fish, seaweed), raw material. This involves ecological knowledge, and control of that knowledge. I think that the element of knowledge can fit into this somehow, but I am still working on the details in my mind.
Cultural resources: there are cultural elements that can be reaped from the sea directly - salvage is the easiest example, and also piracy (^-^), but I think that the there are other kinds of cultural resources provided by the maritime environment - transportation is an element - it facilitates/enables trade, for one. There are other kinds of culture to be drawn from the sea as well - beliefs about the nature of the sea and its influences, ritual and magic, mythology.
Both kinds of resources are related to specialize Material Culture, and cultural knowledge will affect/be affected by Landscape as well.
I think my last category there is the shakiest, currently, but I generally like how all three are interrelated and yet separable. I can make a nice circular diagram!
First of all, I need to keep a few things in mind while I am doing this:
1. The point of my dissertation is to look at the question: can you recognize a maritime culture from its material culture alone, and more specifically from artifactual remains. Also, can you distinguish maritime culture or maritimity within a subset of a broader culture/
2. Maritimity vs. Maritime Culture:
I am defining maritimity as: Identity influenced by a community’s relationship with the maritime environment. Basically - does a group conceive of itself as being strongly tied to the sea/lake/river/whatever.
In earlier writing, now that I am being more critical, I am jumping all over the place talking about maritimity and maritime culture almost interchangeably. This is basically like saying that culture and identity are the same. I need to think this through more, and if I decide I'm okay with it, I need to defend it somehow. If I'm not okay with it, I need to explain that too.
As far as my categories go, they are meant to be broad categories for "examining and identifying the maritimity of a particular culture or group." (quoting myself, so classy ;)
-Is this what I want to achieve with them?
-Are they filling that role?
My original categories were: Locale, Exploitation of Maritime Resources (natural and cultural), Cultural Integration of the Maritime Environment, and Relationship with Maritime Material Culture. I like parts of these categories, but they are, generally speaking, too difficult to disentangle. I want them to be related, and they can have some overlap/be polythetic, but they need to be *identifiable* categories, even if one source of evidence point count for more than one. My third category there is *way* too broad and nebulous, and Locale was also very problematic.
Right now I am thinking of three categories:
Landscape: geographical location, and also use of the environment, and the imbuing of the environment with social meaning as evident in place names and so forth. Maritime Cultural Landscape stuff goes here - however I personally think that 'cultural landscape' is bit redundant.
Material Culture: specialized technology, such as ships and related tools, tools for exploiting maritime resources, clothing signifying group identity. In my original category, I was considering the different kinds of relationships people can have with the material culture - ownership, use, production. I think there is still space for all of this. This overlaps with Landscape because settlements are part of both, as are other man made features such as harbours, docks, wharves slipways, ballast piles, reclaimed land, etc...
Resource Exploitation: this includes both natural and cultural resources, so let's break it down that way.
Natural: food resources (fish, shell fish, seaweed), raw material. This involves ecological knowledge, and control of that knowledge. I think that the element of knowledge can fit into this somehow, but I am still working on the details in my mind.
Cultural resources: there are cultural elements that can be reaped from the sea directly - salvage is the easiest example, and also piracy (^-^), but I think that the there are other kinds of cultural resources provided by the maritime environment - transportation is an element - it facilitates/enables trade, for one. There are other kinds of culture to be drawn from the sea as well - beliefs about the nature of the sea and its influences, ritual and magic, mythology.
Both kinds of resources are related to specialize Material Culture, and cultural knowledge will affect/be affected by Landscape as well.
I think my last category there is the shakiest, currently, but I generally like how all three are interrelated and yet separable. I can make a nice circular diagram!