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The aim of this paper is to reflect critically on the kind of anthropological understanding a specific material culture approach grants to ethnography. First, I will discuss the ways in which a particular theory of material culture attempts to understand the social. I will then discuss substantive examples from my own ethnographic work in rural southeast Romania in order to present some of the potential pitfalls and challenges this method could entail. Exploring local attitudes and perspectives regarding value, work, and modernity, I will show what kind of particular knowledge an anthropological theory of material culture can facilitate.

Keywords: material culture, ethnography, modernity, Romania