Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T01:03:16.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF SERIOUS GAMES: PLAY AND PRAGMATISM IN VICTORIAN-ERA DINING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2018

Barbara L. Voss Open the ORCID record for Barbara L. Voss [Opens in a new window]
Barbara L. Voss*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Bldg. 50, Stanford, CA 94305-2034, USA
*
(bvoss@stanford.edu, corresponding author). http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3511-3641
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study expands on Ortner's practice-based theory of “serious games” by interpreting artifacts through a continuum of intention: pragmatism and play. Decisions and actions are defined as pragmatic according to their desired outcome, while play, in contrast, is an attitude or disposition toward the action itself. Both pragmatism and play are examined in this study of dining-related material culture (ceramic tablewares) from a nineteenth-century Chinatown. The research reveals that Chinatown residents varied considerably in their approach to dining, some using the full complement of British- and American-produced earthenwares associated with Victorian-era genteel dining, whereas others primarily used porcelain vessels congruent with dining conventions in southern China. Other households blended the two types of ceramics, typically using Chinese porcelain vessels for individual table settings and British- and American-produced earthenwares for serving vessels. Chinese porcelains were typically purchased in matched sets; in contrast, British and American earthenwares were acquired piece by piece, contributing aesthetic variety to Chinatown table settings. Together, these findings indicate that most Chinatown households were establishing their own “house rules” that redefined dining through new practices. The continuum of intention represented by pragmatism and play affords an integrated methodology for bridging functional/economic and cultural/symbolic interpretive frameworks in archaeology.

Esta investigación amplía la teoría basada en la práctica de los “juegos serios” de Ortner al interpretar artefactos a través de un contínuo de intención entre el pragmatismo y el juego. Las decisiones y acciones son definidas como pragmáticas de acuerdo al resultado deseado; el juego, en contraste, es una actitud o disposición hacia la acción en sí misma. Tanto el pragmatismo como el juego son examinados en este estudio sobre la cultura material asociada al consumo de comida (vajilla de cerámica) de un barrio chino del siglo diecinueve. El estudio revela que los residentes del barrio chino variaban considerablemente en sus aproximaciones al comer: mientras algunos usaban un conjunto compuesto por lozas británicas y estadounidenses asociadas con las comidas elegantes de la era victoriana, otros usaban recipientes de porcelana de acuerdo a la usanza del sur de China. Algunos hogares mezclaron los dos tipos de cerámica, generalmente utilizando vasijas de porcelana china para uso individual y vajilla de producción británica y estadounidense como recipientes para servir. La porcelana china era típicamente adquirida en conjuntos a juego; en contraste, las cerámica británica y estadounidense era adquirida en piezas individuales, aportando variedad estética a la configuración de las mesas del barrio chino. En conjunto, estos hallazgos indican que la mayoría de los hogares del barrio chino establecieron sus propias “reglas caseras”, redefiniendo el comer através de nuevas prácticas. El continuo de intención representado por el pragmatismo y el juego proporciona una metodología integrada para unir los marcos de la interpretación funcional-económica y cultural-simbólica en arqueología.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 84 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 26 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by the Society for American Archaeology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Anderson, E. N. 1988 The Food of China. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Bacon, Michael 2012 Pragmatism: An Introduction. Polity, New York.Google Scholar
Beaudry, Mary C. 1989 The Lowell Boott Mills Complex and Its Housing: Material Expressions of Corporate Ideology. Historical Archaeology 23(1):19–32.Google Scholar
Beaudry, Mary C., Cook, Lauren J., and Mrozowski, Stephen J. 1991 Artifacts and Active Voices: Material Culture as Social Discourse. In The Archaeology of Inequality, edited by McGuire, Randall H. and Paynter, Robert, pp. 150–191. Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Brighton, Stephen A. 2001 Prices that Suit the Times: Shopping for Ceramics at The Five Points. Historical Archaeology 35(3):16–30.Google Scholar
Brown, Ann R. 1982 Historic Ceramic Typopology with Principal Dates of Manufacture and Descriptive Characteristics for Identification. Archeology Series No. 15. US Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, and Delaware Department of Transportation.Google Scholar
Burley, David V. 1989 Function, Meaning and Context: Ambiguities in Ceramic Use by the Hivernant Metis of the Northwestern Plains. Historical Archaeology 23(1):97–106.Google Scholar
Chan, Stephanie 2013 Worth a Thousand Words: A Study of Transfer-Printed Wares from the Market Street Chinatown Collection. Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, Stanford, California.Google Scholar
Chang, K. C. 1977 Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Choy, Philip P. 2014 Interpreting “Overseas Chinese” Ceramics Found on Historical Archaeology Sites: Manufacture, Marks, Classification, and Social Use. Society for Historical Archaeology Research Resources. Electronic document, http://www.sha.org/index.php/view/page/chineseCeramics, accessed March 14, 2014.Google Scholar
Cipolla, Craig N. 2013 Becoming Brothertown: Native American Ethnogenesis and Endurance in the Modern World. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Claney, Jane Perkins 2004 Rockingham Ware in American Culture, 1830–1930: Reading Historical Artifacts. University Press of New England, Lebanon, New Hampshire.Google Scholar
Costello, Julia G., and Maniery, Mary L. 1988 Rice Bowls in the Delta: Artiacts Recovered from the 1915 Asian Community of Walnut Grove, California. Occasional Papers 16. Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Cough, Patricia T. (editor) 2007 The Affective Turn: Theorizing the Social. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina.Google Scholar
Cummings, Linda Scott, Voss, Barbara L., Yu, Connie Young, Kováčik, Peter, Puseman, Kathryn, Yost, Chad, Kennedy, Ryan, and Kane, Megan S. 2014 Fan and Tsai: Intracommunity Variation in Plant-Based Food Consumption at the Market Street Chinatown, San Jose, California. Historical Archaeology 48(2):143–172.Google Scholar
Deetz, James 1977 In Small Things Forgotten: The Archaeology of Early American Life. Doubleday, New York.Google Scholar
Evans, William S. Jr. 1980 Food and Fantasy: Material Culture of the Chinese in California and the West, Circa 1850–1900. In Archaeological Perspectives on Ethnicity in America: Afro-American and Asian American Culture History, edited by Schuyler, Robert L., pp. 89–96. Baywood, Farmingdale, New York.Google Scholar
Felton, David L., Lortie, Frank, and Schulz, Peter D. 1984 The Chinese Laundry on Second Street: Archaeological Investigations at the Woodland Opera House Site. California Archaeological Reports No. 24. Cultural Resource Management Unit, Resource Protection Division, State of California Department of Parks and Recreation, Sacramento.Google Scholar
Foster, Michael S., Lindly, John M., and Ryden, Ronald F. 2005 The Soiled Doves of South Granite Street: The History and Archaeology of a Prescott, Arizona Brothel. Kiva 70:349–374.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford 1977 The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, New York.Google Scholar
Godden, Geoffrey A. 1964 Encyclopaedia of British Pottery and Porcelain Marks. Barrie and Jenkins, London.Google Scholar
Greenwood, Roberta S. 1996 Down by the Station: Los Angeles Chinatown, 1880–1933. Monumenta Archaeologica 18. Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Harrod, Ryan P., and Crandall, John J. 2015 Rails Built of the Ancestors’ Bones: The Bioarchaeology of the Overseas Chinese Experience. Historical Archaeology 49(1):148–161.Google Scholar
Hsu, Madeline 2000 Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882–1943. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California.Google Scholar
Hume, Ivor Noël 2001 If These Pots Could Talk: Collecting 2,000 Years of British Household Pottery. Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Kane, Megan S. 2011 Reconstructing Historical and Archaeological Context of an Orphaned Collection: Report on Archival Research and Feature Summaries for the Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project. Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project Technical Report 1. Historical Archaeology Lab, Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford University, Stanford, California.Google Scholar
Karpatschof, Benny 2013 Play, But Not Simply Play: The Anthropology of Play. In Children's Play and Development: Cultural-Historical Perspectives, edited by Schousboe, Ivy and Winther-Lindqvist, Ditte, pp. 251–265. Springer, New York.Google Scholar
Karskens, Grace 2001 Small Things, Big Pictures: New Perspectives from the Archaeology of Sydney's Rocks Neighbourhood. In The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland, edited by Mayne, Alan and Murray, Tim, pp. 69–85. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Kennedy, J. Ryan 2016 Fan and Tsai: Food, Identity, and Connections in the Market Street Chinatown. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington.Google Scholar
Laffey, Glory Anne 1993 The Early Chinatowns of San Jose. Report prepared by Archives and Architecture, San Jose, California, for Basin Research Associates, San Leandro, California, and the Redevelopment Agency of the City of San Jose, San Jose, California.Google Scholar
Leibowitz, Joan 2002 Yellow Ware: The Transitional Ceramic. Rev., 3rd ed. Schiffer, Atglen, Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Leone, Mark P. 2005 The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital: Excavations in Annapolis. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Lydon, Jane 1999 Many Inventions: The Chinese in the Rocks, Sydney, 1890–1930. Monash University, Clayton, Australia.Google Scholar
Majewski, Teresita, and O'Brien, Michael J. 1987 The Use and Misuse of Nineteenth-Century English and American Ceramics in Archaeological Analysis. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 11:97–209.Google Scholar
Malaby, Thomas M. 2009 Anthropology and Play: The Contours of Playful Experience. New Literary History 40:205–218.Google Scholar
Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project 2016 Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project Laboratory Handbook (updated March 31, 2016). On file at Historical Archaeology Laboratory, Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford, California.Google Scholar
Mazrim, Robert 2013 Consumer Practices and the Visibility of Identity in Antebellum St. Louis: A 1,200-Vessel Archaeological Sample from an Irish and German Neighborhood, 1845–65. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 17:684–712.Google Scholar
McCarthy, John P. 2001 Values and Identity in the “Working-Class” Worlds of Late Nineteenth-Century Minneapolis. In The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland, edited by Mayne, Alan and Murray, Tim, pp. 145–153. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Meyer, Michael D., Gibson, Erica S., and Costello, Julia G. 2005 City of Angels, City of Sin: Archaeology in the Los Angeles Red-Light District ca. 1900. Historical Archaeology 39(1):107–125.Google Scholar
Michaels, Gina 2005 Peck-Marked Vessels from the San José Market Street Chinatown: A Study of Distribution and Significance. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 9:123–134.Google Scholar
Miller, George L. 1991 A Revised Set of CC Index Values for Classification and Economic Scaling of English Ceramics from 1787–1880. Historical Archaeology 25(2):3–14.Google Scholar
Miller, George L., Samford, Patricia M., Shlasko, Ellen, and Madsen, Andrew D. 2000 Telling Time for Archaeologists. Northeast Historical Archaeology 29(1, Article 2):1–20. https://orb.binghamton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1130&context=neha, accessed October 24, 2018.Google Scholar
Mrozowski, Stephen A., Ziesing, Grace H., and Beaudry, Mary C. 1996 Living on the Boott: Historical Archaeology at the Boott Mills Boardinghouses, Lowell, Massachusetts. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst.Google Scholar
Mullins, Paul R. 2011 The Archaeology of Consumer Culture. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Ortner, Sherry B. 1996 Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture. Beacon Press, Boston.Google Scholar
Ortner, Sherry B. 1999 Life and Death on Mt. Everest: Sherpas and Himalayan Mountaineering. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Ortner, Sherry B. 2006 Anthropology and Social Theory: Culture, Power, and the Acting Subject. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina.Google Scholar
Parsons, Jeff 1993 Summary of Observations on Soils and Cultural Features Recovered in Downtown San Jose. Geo-Archaeology Inc. Submitted to the City of San Jose, California. On file at Historical Archaeology Laboratory, Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford, California.Google Scholar
Pezzarossi, Guido 2014 Camouflaging Consumption and Colonial Mimicry: The Materiality of an Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Nipmuc Household. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 18:146–174.Google Scholar
Popper, Virginia S. 2014 The Overseas Chinese Experience as Seen through Plants: Macrobotanical Analysis from the Market Street Chinatown, San Jose, California. Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project Technical Report 9. Historical Archaeology Lab, Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford University, Stanford, California.Google Scholar
Praetzellis, Adrian, and Praetzellis, Mary 1992 Faces and Facades: Victorian Ideology in Early Sacramento. In The Art and Mystery of Historical Archaeology: Essays in Honor of James Deetz, edited by Yentsch, Anne Elizabeth and Beaudry, Mary C., pp. 75–99. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida.Google Scholar
Praetzellis, Adrian, and Praetzellis, Mary 1998 A Connecticut Merchant in Chinadom: A Play in One Act. Historical Archaeology 32(1):86–93.Google Scholar
Praetzellis, Adrian, and Praetzellis, Mary 2001 Mangling Symbols of Gentility in the Wild West: Case Studies in Interpretive Archaeology. American Anthropologist 103:645–654.Google Scholar
Praetzellis, Adrian, Praetzellis, Mary, and Brown, Marley III 1987 Artifacts as Symbols of Identity: An Example from Sacramento's Gold Rush Era Chinese Community. In Living in Cities: Current Research in Urban Archaeology, edited by Staski, Edward, Special Publication 5, pp. 38–47. Society for Historical Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Rains, Kevin 2003 Rice Bowls and Beer Bottles: Interpreting Evidence of the Overseas Chinese at a Cooktown Dumpsite. Australasian Historical Archaeology 21:30–41.Google Scholar
Ross, Douglas E. 2011 Factors Influencing the Dining Habits of Japanese and Chinese Migrants at a British Columbia Salmon Cannery. Historical Archaeology 45(2):68–96.Google Scholar
Ross, Douglas E. 2013 Overseas Chinese Archaeology. In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, edited by Smith, Claire, pp. 5675–5686. Springer, New York.Google Scholar
Sando, Ruth Ann, and Felton, David L. 1993 Inventory Records of Ceramics and Opium from a Nineteenth-Century Chinese Store in California. In Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese, edited by Wegars, Priscilla, pp. 151–176. Baywood, Amityville, New York.Google Scholar
Seifert, Donna J., O'Brien, Elizabeth Barthold, and Balicki, Josepth 2000 Mary Ann Hall's First-Class House: The Archaeology of a Capital Brothel. In Archaeologies of Sexuality, edited by Schmidt, Robert A. and Voss, Barbara L., pp. 117–128. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Shackel, Paul A. 1993 Personal Discipline and Material Culture: An Archaeology of Annapolis, Maryland, 1695–1870. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Silliman, Stephen W., and Witt, Thomas A. 2010 The Complexities of Consumption: Eastern Pequot Cultural Economics in Eighteenth-Century New England. Historical Archaeology 44(4):46–68.Google Scholar
Simoons, Frederick J. 1991 Food in China: A Cultural and Historical Inquiry. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida.Google Scholar
Spier, Robert F. G. 1958 Food Habits of Nineteenth-Century California Chinese. California Historical Society Quarterly 37:79–84.Google Scholar
Staski, Edward 1993 The Overseas Chinese in El Paso: Changing Goals, Changing Realities. In Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese, edited by Wegars, Priscilla, pp. 125–149. Baywood, Amityville, New York.Google Scholar
Van Bueren, Thad M. 2008 Late Nineteenth-Century Chinese Farm Workers in the California Mother Lode. Historical Archaeology 42(3):80–96.Google Scholar
Voss, Barbara L. 2005 The Archaeology of Overseas Chinese Communities. World Archaeology 37:424–439.Google Scholar
Voss, Barbara L. 2008 Between the Household and the World-System: Social Collectivity and Community Agency in Overseas Chinese Archaeology. Historical Archaeology 42(3):37–52.Google Scholar
Voss, Barbara L. 2012 Curation as Research: A Case Study in Orphaned and Underreported Archaeological Collections. Archaeological Dialogues 19:145–169.Google Scholar
Voss, Barbara L. 2019 Interethnic Relationships in 19th-Century Chinatowns: New Perspectives from Archaeological Research and Missionary Women's Writings. In Being Chinese: Archaeological Approaches to the Chinese Immigrant Experience in North America, edited by Ryan Kennedy, J. and Rose, Chelsea. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, in press.Google Scholar
Voss, Barbara L., and Allen, Rebecca 2010 Guide to Ceramic MNV Calculation Quanlitative and Quantitative Analysis. Technical Briefs in Historical Archaeology 5:1–9.Google Scholar
Voss, Barbara L., Ryan Kennedy, J., Tan, Jinhua (Selia), and Ng, Laura W. 2018 The Archaeology of Home: Qiaoxiang and Non-State Actors in the Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora. American Antiquity 83:407–426.Google Scholar
Voss, Barbara L., Kwock, Anita Wong, Yu, Connie Young, Gong-Guy, Lillian, Bray, Alida, and Kane, Megan S. 2013 Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project: Ten Years of Community-Based, Collaborative Research on San Jose's Historic Chinese Community. Chinese America: History and Perspectives 2013:63–75.Google Scholar
Wall, Diana di Zerga 1994 The Archaelogy of Gender: Separating the Spheres in Urban America. Plenum Press, New York.Google Scholar
Wall, Diana di Zerga 1999 Examining Gender, Class, and Ethnicity in Nineteenth-Century New York City. Historical Archaeology 33(1):102–117.Google Scholar
Weiss, Lindsay 2012 The Currency of Intimacy: Tranformations of the Domestic Sphere on the Late Nineteenth Century Diamond Fields. In The Archaeology of Colonialism: Intimate Encounters and Sexual Effects, edited by Voss, Barbara L. and Casella, Eleanor C., pp. 49–66. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Wilkie, Laurie A., and Farnsworth, Paul 1999 Trade and the Construction of Bahamian Identity: A Multiscalar Exploration. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 3:283–320.Google Scholar
Yu, Connie 2001 Chinatown, San Jose, USA. History San José, San Jose, California; Chinese Historical and Cultural Project, San Jose, California.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Voss Supplementary material

Voss Supplementary material 1

Download Voss Supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 137.5 KB
Supplementary material: PDF

Voss Supplementary material

Voss Supplementary material 2

Download Voss Supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 158.3 KB
Supplementary material: PDF

Voss Supplementary material

Voss Supplementary material 3

Download Voss Supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 131.5 KB