32 behind any written documents. If we do not want to look at dependency only from a top-down perspective, but also include the everyday lives and experiences of the dependent (fig. 2), it is imperative that we move away from privileging written sources. This requires that we learn to read material culture. Object-based disciplines such as archaeology, art history and cultural anthropology can help us to recognize the significance of materiality and material records as sources for the study of dependency. Material evidence has the potential to restore the voices of the often invisible and ‘silent’ actors of history, and to provide insights into experiences of oppression and the hidden pockets of agency in human societies.2 In recent decades, those disciplines of the humanities that study material culture have therefore increasingly sought to establish links with the sciences and their broad spectrum of research methods, so as to be better able to explore the materiality and production of objects and the extraction and control of resources and their trade routes. Finally, the ‘reading’ of an object also presupposes that we engage with its own history. Arjun Appadurai developed the concept of a ‘social life of objects’,3 based on the idea that objects have histories that go beyond their material existence. Each 1 Aerial view of Ossendorf prison in Cologne (locally known as Klingelpütz) from 2021. Prisons and penal institutions are physical manifestations of control and discipline. Their architecture and organization are designed to supervise, isolate and control inmates, which highlights the power relationship between inmates and supervisors.
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