TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > Anthropology > The symbolic and social meanings of space
Arrangements of space make important symbolic statements about social groupings and social relationships. Among the Nookta of the Pacific coast of Canada, each of the large plank houses in the winter village in which the Nookta lived in the nineteenth century represented a social group. The floor plan of the house was divided into spaces that were ranked with respect to one another. The place of honour in the house was occupied by the owner, who was the highest-ranking person in the house and held the highest title, and his family. This was the left corner of the rear of the house. The next most important man and his family occupied the right rear corner of the house; the third most important man and his family occupied the left front corner of the house; the fourth most important man and his family were in the right-hand corner; the least important titled man lived with his family on the left-hand side of the house. Untitled commoners and their families lived in the remaining spaces along the sides of the house. Each location had its own hearth. Each nuclear family in the Nookta house was ranked with respect to the others, and this rank was symbolised by the location of each family"s hearth and its living space in relation to the others. It is like a seating plan according to seniority.
In a peasant village in North-eastern Thailand, space in a house is divided to symbolise not rank, but rules about marriage and sex. The sleeping room is the most sacred part of the house. First cousins, with whom sexual relations and marriage are not permitted, may enter the room but may not sleep there. More distant relatives, whom one may marry, are not allowed to enter the sleeping room and must remain in the guestroom. S J Tambiah (1969), who analysed the Thai material, also relates categories of animals and their edibility to relatives whom you may and may not marry. First cousins, whom you cannot marry, are equivalent to your own buffalo, oxen and pigs, who live under the house. You may not eat them and must give them to other people. More distant relatives, whom you can marry, are equivalent to other people"s domestic animals, which you can eat. The same logic that connects edible and inedible animals with marriageable and unmarriageable relatives is also found in Thai society. Since social space symbolises degree of social relationship, and edibility also signifies social relationships, then the meaning of social space is also related to edibility.
The way in which people use social space reflects their social relationships and their ethnic identity. Early immigrants to America from Europe brought with them a communal style of living which they retained until late in the eighteenth-century. Historical records and archaeological findings document a group-orientated existence, in which one room was used for eating, entertaining guests, and sleeping. People ate stews from a communal pot, shared drinking cups, and used a common pit toilet. With the development of ideas about individualism, people soon began to shift to use the individual cups and plates; the eating of meals which included meat, starch and vegetables; served on separate plates; and the use of individual chamber pots. They began to build their houses with separate rooms to entertain guests- living rooms, separate bedrooms for sleeping, separate work areas- kitchen laundry room, and separate bathrooms.
In Mexico, the meaning and organisation of domestic space is strikingly different. Houses are organised around a patio, or courtyard. Rooms for sleeping, dressing talking when the weather is harsh, cooking, and storage open onto the patio, where all kinds of domestic activities, such as socialising, child play, bathing, and doing laundry, take place. Individuals do not have separate bedrooms. Children often sleep with parents and same-sex siblings share a bed, emphasising familial interdependence. Rooms in Mexican houses are locations for multiple activities which, in contrast, are rigidly separated in the United States.
The households of Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles represent a transition between Mexican and American usages. According to Pader, they "blur the lines between the U.S. coding system, with its emphasis on greater bodily privacy and the individual, and the Mexican system, with its emphasis on sharing and close daily interconnection." As Mexican-American children mature, they change their ideas about family, become more individuated, and desire their own beds and bedrooms.
Gypsies, who are found in every major American city, have retained important elements of their own culture, including their beliefs about pollution, extended families which form households, and ideas about space utilisation. When the Gypsies of Richmond, California, move into a house previously occupied by non-Gypsies, it must first be ritually cleansed of the polluting effects of these non-Gypsies by a thorough cleaning with disinfectants and the burning of incense. Then the inner walls are torn down and the doors removed to create communal living space which is divided by hanging drapes. One space is devoted to palm reading, the major source of income, the other space being used for a living area for the extended family that will live there. The head of one Gypsy family moved into what had formerly been a bar and dance club in order to house the 28 members of his family and the many guests they entertained (Sutherland, 1968).
Case Studies
Pg 314- Sacredness and Pollution among the Kwaio (Keesing 1980)
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