The Use of a 'Tool': Week 9

THE USE OF A TOOL IN REFERENCE TO INGOLD'S EIGHT THEMES IN THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF TECHNOLOGY

 https://youtu.be/Tc_bKQiOOdY

https://youtu.be/Tc_bKQiOOdY

In these videos I use am using a frying pan to flip a pancake and also fry some halloumi. These actions link to Ingold’s Eight Themes in the Anthropology of Technology. I think the frying pan especially links to the themes of ‘Measuring Technological Complexity’ and also ‘The Evolution of Technology and its History’. 

The frying pan, a very simply manufactured tool, was made to aid the process of cooking which has always been essential in survival. 

The modern frying pan is not too dissimilar from one of the past as it has had the same function since its creation. As Ingold says the inventors would have had some conception over the task before them and would have understood the outcome. In this case the task was making a frying pan and the outcome was to ensure the meat was cooked and would not kill them. (The same reason we still use them today).  

The fact it is such a simple creation and has barely been altered nearly 3000 years later shows the practicality of the object and that humans are still very similar to how we were in the past as there has been room for adaptation however these adaptations have never strayed too far from the original design, therefore proving to be fairly primitive.  

Wendell Oswalt (1976) made a point in discovering the complexity of a tool. The way he defined this was using ‘techounits’. One technounit would be a physically distinct part which makes a specific contribution to the overall tool. 

Bibliography:

Ingold, T., 1997. Eight themes in the anthropology of technology. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice, p.120-127