New publication & first in Spanish

Una perspectiva desde la cotidianidad sobre la cultura material mursi (SW Ethiopía) Complutum 28(2): 431-443. (Co-authored with Dr J. Salazar Bonet, Valencia and Dr M. Brittain, Cambridge).

The Mursi are a Surmic-speaking, agro-pastoralist group from south-west Ethiopia. Reliant on their environment and cattle, Mursi build temporary settlements called ?rri a bio. In these settlements, everyday objects of local, abundant materials are crafted and used with techniques shared by most of the population. In error, anthropological studies of collective identities have tended to pay less attention to everyday objects whilst prioritizing others of a more extraordinary type. However, everyday material culture, and its forms, functions, meanings and associated practices, play vital roles in mediating how people come to belong to a community. In the present study, we use the ?rri a bio as an ethnographic unit of observation to explore the relationship between diverse materialities and the construction of a particular us.

For more information on Mursiland's past and present google 'Mursiland Heritage Project'.