Download Free Cherished Possessions Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Cherished Possessions and write the review.

Catalogue of a traveling exhibition from the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA). This exhibition, drawn from their collections, features over 175 objects - furniture, costumes, paintings, and household furnishings, chosen not only for their visual appeal, but also for the stories they tell about three hundred years of life in the region.
The meaning of things is a study of the significance of material possessions in contemporary urban life, and of the ways people carve meaning out of their domestic environment. Drawing on a survey of eighty families in Chicago who were interviewed on the subject of their feelings about common household objects, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton provide a unique perspective on materialism, American culture, and the self. They begin by reviewing what social scientists and philosophers have said about the transactions between people and things. In the model of 'personhood' that the authors develop, goal-directed action and the cultivation of meaning through signs assume central importance. They then relate theoretical issues to the results of their survey. An important finding is the distinction between objects valued for action and those valued for contemplation. The authors compare families who have warm emotional attachments to their homes with those in which a common set of positive meanings is lacking, and interpret the different patterns of involvement. They then trace the cultivation of meaning in case studies of four families. Finally, the authors address what they describe as the current crisis of environmental and material exploitation, and suggest that human capacities for the creation and redirection of meaning offer the only hope for survival. A wide range of scholars - urban and family sociologists, clinical, developmental and environmental psychologists, cultural anthropologists and philosophers, and many general readers - will find this book stimulating and compelling.
Although so much of the life we care about takes place at home, this private space often remains behind closed doors and is notoriously difficult for researchers to infiltrate. We may think it is just up to us to decorate, transform and construct our homes, but in this book we discover a new form of ‘estate agency', the active participation of the home and its material culture in the construction of our lives. What do the possessions people choose to take with them when moving say about who they are, and should we emphasize the mobility of a move or the stability of what movers take with them? How is the home an active partner in developing relationships? Why are our homes sometimes haunted by 'ghosts'?. This intriguing book is a rare behind-the-scenes exposé of the domestic sphere across a range of cultures. Examples come from working class housewives in Norway, a tribal society in Taiwan, a museum in London, tenants in Canada and students from Greece, to produce a genuinely comparative perspective based in every case on sustained fieldwork. So Japan, long thought to be a nation that idealizes uncluttered simplicity, is shown behind closed doors to harbour illicit pockets of disorganization, while the warmth inside Romanian apartments is used to expel the presence of the state. Representing a vital development in the study of material culture, this book clearly shows that we may think we possess our homes, but our homes are more likely to possess us.
Digital media present opportunities for new types of consumption including desiring, buying, collecting, making, and even selling digital virtual goods. To these activities we can add those taking place in virtual communities of consumption, online shops, brand websites, and online auction houses that together amount to a vast new landscape of consumption. Digital virtual consumption motivates concatenated practices which produce meaningful experience for their users as well as market opportunities to profit from them. Consumers create and maintain elaborate wish lists, engaging with simulations of brands on websites and in videogames, coveting items for use in online games and even spending ‘real’ money on these, undertaking entrepreneurial activity in virtual worlds, conjuring nostalgia via online auctions, engaging in playful consumption in other new retail formats, writing reviews of products as part of the consumption experience, engaging in online activist activities, and many other emerging behaviors. Analyses of consumption in the digital virtual realm are however limited. This collection brings together experienced researchers from the fields of consumer research, digital games, and virtual worlds to provide conceptual and empirical work that helps us understand these new and significant consumer activities. Online communities negotiate the ‘correct’ use of goods and offer technical advice, consumers develop new products, individuals create and distribute their own promotional material for their favorite brands, and entrepreneurial consumers marketing and selling their own products online. Here we may see a blurring of consumption and production, or work and leisure activity that requires further thought about what makes it meaningful for individuals. The chapters in this volume take stock of the emergence and likely importance of digital virtual consumption for consumer culture, including a review of both new and existing conceptual and methodological tools as well as a resource of key examples and analyses of practices.
At present, about 45 million Americans are over the age of 65, and by 2020, one out of every six Americans will be 65 or older. These statistics are reflective of a worldwide phenomenon in developing and developed countries alike unrivalled since the Industrial Revolution. This edited volume, written by experts in many fields, examines the economic and psychological research on how aging consumers behave, make decisions, and choose in the marketplace. The book takes stock of what is known, identifies gaps and open questions, and outlines an agenda for future research. It covers topics from the individual to the societal level of analysis.
Death is something readers usually don't like to think about. That is understandable, but, as Margie Jenkins points out, that kind of denial misses out of life's last adventure. As practical as it is profound, this book teaches that good preparation for death is the foundation for a bold and rewarding life.
Leading scholars, offering international and multidisciplinary viewpoints, examine the meaning of home to elders and the ways in which this meaning may be sustained, threatened, or modified according to changes associated with growing old. Organized into four sections--The Essence of Home, Disruptions of Home, Creating and Recreating Home, and Community Perspectives on the Meaning of Home, this volume explores topics including: What makes a house a home? What role does the meaning of home play in the process of relocation to another place of residence? What is the relationship between a person's home life and cherished possessions such as symbolic jewelry or religious items in late life? How does the community/neighborhood environment influence the way that older people feel about the places in which they live? Contributors include Hans-Werner Wahl, Robert L. Rubinstein, Edmund Sherman, Carolyn Norris-Baker, and Rick Scheidt, among others. As a special feature, this volume concludes with critical commentaries from three eminent scholars, Amos Rapoport, Kim Dovey, and Marie Versperi. This volume will be of interest to practitioners, researchers, upper-level graduates/graduate-level students in gerontology, environmental psychology, social work, and nursing. It will be valuable to everyone in the helping professions who seek a deeper understanding of the ways in which "being at home" and attachment to place plays a key role in the life experience and well-being of their clients as they grow older.
This contemporary book offers current perspectives on routines and rituals to extend an understanding of the scope of these concepts, with a view to challenging conventional wisdom and to offer insight for practitioners. Routines and rituals are part of everyday being. Routines can be useful for individuals in structuring ‘messiness’ in their lives, while rituals are often more spectacular in nature and typically involve a collective event. Routines and rituals can be traditional, established, new or reinvented, as well as personal, social, and/or emotional. Traditionally, rituals have been characterised by formality, customs, regularity and procedure; conversely, routines (public or private) have been considered less important in their significance and meaning. Employing several research methods (literature review, ethnography, netnography, autoethnography and in-depth interviews) and examining a variety of contexts (ranging from hen parties, clothing to collegiate tailgating and the Covid pandemic), this edited volume reveals typologies and tactics for strategic practitioner use and policy makers, as well as identifying avenues for further research. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Marketing Management.
This text discusses design issues of social agent technology with the perspective of human cognition. It combines the disciplines of computer science, social science and psychology but seeks to avoid being overly technical, and is written for an interdisclipinary audience.
This volume is an outgrowth ofcontemporary research on development over the adult lifespan, which by now has burgeoned and developed both nationally and internationally. However, for us, the impetus to be involved in this area was spawned and nurtured by our initial association with the Society for Research in Adult Development (SRAD) with its origins some 15 years ago by Michael Commonsand his associates inCambridge, Massachusetts. Throughthegood will and support of this society, we also became, and are still, heavily involved with the Journal of Adult Development and the Kluwer-Plenum Monograph Series on Adult Development and Aging, ofwhich this volume is a companion. Many ofthe contributions in the volume are from SRAD members, who con sistently adhere to a focus on positive adult development. Their chapters have been complemented by pieces from other researchers, who have adopted more mainstream approaches to adult development and/oraging. Regardless ofthe par ticular approach and/or focus of the chapter, all the work reported herein sup ports the relatively recent idea that development is not restricted to children and adolescents but continues throughout the adult lifespan in ways that we never envisionedsome 20 years ago. Thus, the volume represents state-of-the-arttheory, research, and practice on adult development, which has the potential to occupy us all for some time to come.