Материалната култура като обект на изследване от етнографската наука
Material Culture as a Subject of Ethnographical Research

Summary/Abstract: This article attempts to elucidate the substance of material culture as a subject of ethnographical research, and its specific functioning in the socio-historical practice of people. The problem only concerns the traditional folk material culture, as the development of material culture in the present is subjected to rather different regularities. Material culture is of interest to an ethnographer as the subject of research owing to its social nature. Aside from production, material objects acquire a social content at an early stage, in consumption, and in their role of symbols or signs of definite cultural and social manifestations. That side of the social content of material culture, which outlines the ethnic specificity of a given people's material creative work, forms part of the subject of ethnography as a science. This specific feature can be traced in many spheres of social relationships, since material culture penetrates into extensive fields of social life.

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