A Palimpsest Theory of Objects

For many years, scholars have sought to track and explain how objects come to have layered, contested, and evolving meanings over time. This article examines the potential contributions and limitations of a palimpsest theory of objects to help explain such meaning-making practices. A palimpsest is a tablet or parchment from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make space for another text. This proposed theory investigates in what ways objects are palimpsests (literally and metaphorically), able to concurrently contain multiple meanings as each new one is inscribed over past ones. Drawing from Peircean semiotics and current palimpsest theory, this article considers the meaning-making practices of Guanyin (the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion) statues as a case study. With Guanyin figurines, the processes of inscription and erasure can be systematically recorded in contexts of production and consumption by tracking the observed behaviors and expressed beliefs of different social actors and documenting the materiality of these objects as they move through physical and social spaces. The ethnography of things presented here both explores the processes that interweave meanings through Guanyin statues and tests the viability of an overarching palimpsest theory of objects.