Download Contact: What it means and how it operates

Contact:
What it means and how it operates
Exhibiting Native American Cultures: Points of Contact
Museum Studies Special Topics, A460/560
Larry J. Zimmerman, Ph.D., RPA
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Contact
•A coming together so as to be touching
•A situation allowing exchange of ideas or messages:
communication, intercommunication
•An acquaintance who is in a position to help: connection, source.
•Be in communication with, establish communication with
•A junction where things touch or are in physical contact
•Close interaction
•A communicative interaction
How do you know contact has occurred?
•Sudden culture change
•Apparent anomalies in objects or practices
•Combinations of decorative motifs, objects, practices
that weren’t there before
•Sudden popularity of certain objects or practices
•Population movements
But be cautious! Lots of other factors may
account for the shifts observed.
What factors cause one group to
contact another?
Environmental changes that force population movements
Economic pressures (other than environment)
Population pressures
Displacement from territory
Curiosity & exploration
Desire for the exotic
Religious proselytizing
What happens when contact occurs?
•Ideas get exchanged
•Things get exchanged
•Understanding begins
•Misunderstanding begins
Other possibilities:
Disease
Conflict
Mistrust
Trust
‘Hybridization’
Diffusion and its processes
Stimulus diffusion—ideas, from
simple contact
Single trait diffusion—a few
things, from trade
Complex diffusion—whole cultural
complexes, from colonization
Independent Invention
Just because things seem to be alike doesn’t
mean they are so because of contact and
diffusion!
Similar environmental and social conditions
lead to similar adaptations.
Form, Function, and Meaning
Form—physical characteristics or
attributes of an object or concept
Function—the role of the object or
idea, what it does
Meaning—what the object or idea
means to the people who have or use it