Things that Talk: Sophie Spickenbom
In the previous newsletter, we published an article on Things That Talk. In this article, you’ll read about two entries in Things That Talk by International Studies student Sophie Spickenbom. She tells you more about these two wonderful stories, and how she found out about them.
Also, the International Studies Programme Board plans to make the Things That Talk platform an integrated part of the curriculum. More about that at the bottom of this article. But first, a message from Sophie:
'Hi everyone! Wherever you are right now, I hope that you are all safe and on your way to finishing the semester well. I am Sophie Spickenbom, second year IS student, focusing on Africa with Swahili.
In the past few months I have, as I guess most of us did, had quite a lot of time for myself while trying to social distance. I have spent some of my time working on two stories for Things That Talk. This is a platform which aims to give a voice to objects and to bring the humanities closer to us in this way, since they are material expressions of people’s lives. Objects can tell stories about people’s lives and they can give us insights into people’s lives that we might not see at first.
One of the stories I wrote is about the red body make-up, called ‘otjize,’ which women from the Himba tribe in Namibia apply to their skin and hair. There is a protective factor to it, such as protection from insects and the sun, but for the women it primarily has an important aesthetic role. I am presenting this make-up and the meaning it has to the Himba people through the little containers in which they store it.
I was originally doing research on a cultural artefact used by the Herero people, another tribe living in Namibia, for my Culture and Language course last semester. A very striking element of their appearance is their dress, which they adopted from the German colonizers in the early 20th century. The Herero have a close connection to cattle, their life-sustaining animals and they show this visually through their headdress which aims to represent horns of a cow (Things That Talk also published a story about this topic, if you are interested). Further research then led me to the Himba people, who are closely related to the Herero and share one main characteristic – the importance of the cow. This importance is embodied by the Himba through their way of living, their traditions and also the women’s body make up.
I think this is really the aspect that struck me most while doing my research – that both tribes seem to be living in two completely different worlds, but still today, they are closely connected. This connection is very important to them and it is rooted in different traditions, social ties and their common history. The Herero might quickly be labelled as not as traditional because of the way they dress, but there is a much deeper and more powerful meaning to it than meets the eye. Similarly, the Himba people might look very traditional, but they are not as isolated from the globalizing world as it might seem.
For me, it was quite a challenge writing this story. Many objects presented on Things That Talk so far are historical objects without a direct connection to people living today. But the story I told about the Himba object is still very much contemporary. Such a story can therefore have a very different impact than presenting historical objects can have. I put a lot of effort into my phrasing and wording, because I wanted to prevent putting the living Himba people on the same level as the objects that are presented on Things That Talk. I did not want to enforce stereotypes or pit the notions of traditional and modern against each other. As we all have learned in this study: We need to be aware who has the power to create knowledge. And in this case, I was the one who had the opportunity to share my knowledge and hopefully have a positive impact on those, who want to learn more about the Himba and the Herero. I have probably not done everything right here, but I have tried my best to tell their stories in an informative way without appropriating the meaning of their stories.
My stories have been taken up by the platform State of Fashion, which connects people in order to indicate social issues and challenges regarding the modern fashion industry. My stories will introduce this month’s intervention with the topic ‘origins,’ to exemplify the roots and complex stories fashion can have. If I caught your interest, you are very welcome to check out one of both of my stories and rummage on the Things That Talk website so see what other stories are waiting for you!
If I motivated you with this story and in case you have an interesting object to present, Things That Talk would be happy about further contributions from students!'
The International Studies Programme Board plans to make the Things That Talk platform an integrated part of the curriculum. We have already started setting up a connection between the platform and the course Global History, where the platform will provide the digital space that connects to the handbook of the course. Another link that we are currently exploring is with the Culture & Language by Area courses, where students analyse an object, where the platform can provide the space where students can present their research and link to other objects with similar characteristics. Subsequently, it makes sense to expand into the second year, with courses such as Communicating across Cultures and Cultural Interaction and maybe even the third year. All in all, this is an exciting project, which we have only just started, but that is very promising with regards to ‘Digital Humanities’ and making Humanities future-proof. You will certainly hear more about this project in the months and years to come.