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The field of material culture, while historically well established, has recently enjoyed something of a renaissance. Methods once dominated by Marxist- and commodity-oriented analyses and by the study of objects as symbols are giving way to a more ethnographic approach to artifacts. This orientation is the cornerstone of the essays presented in Material Cultures. A collection of case studies which move from the domestic sphere to the global arena, the volume includes examinations of the soundscape produced by home radios, catalog shopping, the role of paper in the workplace, and the relationship between the production and consumption of Coca-Cola in Trinidad. The diversity of the essays is mediated by their common commitment to ethnography with a material focus. Rather than examine objects as mirages of media or language, Material Cultures emphasizes how the study of objects not only contributes to an understanding of artifacts but is also an effective means for studying social values and contradictions.
"In his interdisciplinary review of material culture, Ian Woodward goes beyond synthesis to offer a theoretically innovative reconstruction of the field. It is filled with gems of conceptual insight and empirical discovery. A wonderful book." - Jeffrey C. Alexander, Yale University "A well-grounded and accessible survey of the burgeoning field of material culture studies for students in sociology and consumption studies. While situating the field within the history of intellectual thought in the broader social sciences, it offers detailed and accessible case studies. These are supplemented by very useful directions for further in-depth reading, making it an excellent undergraduate course companion." - Victor Buchli, University College London Why are i-pods and mobile phones fashion accessories? Why do people spend thousands remodelling their perfectly functional kitchen? Why do people crave shoes or handbags? Is our desire for objects unhealthy, or irrational? Objects have an inescapable hold over us, not just in consumer culture but increasingly in the disciplines that study social relations too. This book offers a systematic overview of the diverse ways of studying the material as culture. Surveying the field of material culture studies through an examination and synthesis of classical and contemporary scholarship on objects, commodities, consumption, and symbolization, this book: introduces the key concepts and approaches in the study of objects and their meanings presents the full sweep of core theory - from Marxist and critical approaches to structuralism and semiotics shows how and why people use objects to perform identity, achieve social status, and narrativize life experiences analyzes everyday domains in which objects are important shows why studying material culture is necessary for understanding the social. This book will be essential reading for students and researchers in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, consumer behaviour studies, design and fashion studies.
Things travel around the globe: they are shipped as mass consumer goods, or transported as souvenirs or gifts. There are infinite ways for things to be mobile, not only in the era of globalisation but since the beginning of time, as the earliest traces of long distance trading show. This book investigates the mobility of things from archaeological and anthropological perspectives. Material Objects are characterised by temporal continuity, embodying a prior existence with lingering effects. Yet the material continuity disguises the transformations they may undergo, which only become evident upon closer examination. Objects are in perpetual flux, leaving visible traces of their age, usage, and previous life. While travelling through time, objects also circulate through space, and their spatial mobility alters their meaning and use with respect to new cultural horizons. As objects transform through time and space, so does the value attributed to them. Mapping out itineraries of value in the realm of the material, allows us to grasp the nature of a given social formation through the shape and meaning taken on by its valued 'stuff'. It also provides insights into the nature of materiality, through the value ascribed to objects at a given point in time and space. This edited volume brings together studies of material culture, materiality and value, with regard to the mobility of objects, with the aim of tracing the ways in which societies constitute their valued objects and how the realm of the material reflects upon society.
What do things mean? What does the life of everyday objects reveal about people and their material worlds? Has the quest for 'the real thing' become so important because the high-tech world of total virtuality threatens to engulf us? This pioneering book bridges design theory and anthropology to offer a new and challenging way of understanding the changing meanings of contemporary human-object relations. The act of consumption is only the starting point of object's “lives”. Thereafter they are transformed and invested with new meanings and associations that reflect and assert who we are. Defining designed things as “things with attitude” differentiates the highly visible fashionable object from ordinary aretefacts that are too easily taken for granted. Through case studies ranging from reproduction furniture to fashion and textiles to 'clutter', the author traces the connection between objects and authenticity, ephemerality and self-identity. Beyond this, she shows the materiality of the everyday in terms of space, time and the body and suggests a transition with the passing of time from embodiment to disembodiment.
The study of the human-made world, whether it is called artifacts, material culture, or technology, has burgeoned across the academy. Archaeologists have for cen- ries led the way, and today offer investigators myriad programs and conceptual frameworks for engaging the things, ordinary and extraordinary, of everyday life. This book is an attempt by practitioners of one program – Behavioral Archaeology – to furnish between two covers some of our basic principles, heuristic tools, and illustrative case studies. Our greater purpose, however, is to engage the ideas of two competing programs – agency/practice and evolution – in hopes of initiating a dialog. We are convinced that there is enough overlap in goals, interests, and conceptions among these programs to warrant guarded optimism that a more encompassing, more coherent framework for studying the material world can result from a concerted effort to forge a higher-level synthesis. However, in engaging agency/ practice and evolution in Chap. 2, we are not reticent to point out conflicts between Behavioral Archaeology and these programs. This book will appeal to archaeologists and anthropologists as well as historians, sociologists, and philosophers of technology. Those who study science–technology– society interactions may also encounter useful ideas. Finally, this book is suitable for upper-division and graduate courses on anthropological theory, archaeological theory, and the study of technology.
Now in paperback This outstanding and original book, presented here with a new preface, examines the history of material culture in early modern China. Craig Clunas analyzes “superfluous things”—the paintings, calligraphy, bronzes, ceramics, carved jade, and other objects owned by the elites of Ming China—and describes contemporary attitudes to them. He informs his discussions with reference to both socio-cultural theory and current debates on eighteenth-century England concerning luxury, conspicuous consumption, and the growth of the consumer society.
The study of material culture is concerned with the relationship between persons and things in the past and in the present, in urban and industrialized and in small-scale societies across the globe. The Handbook of Material Culture provides a critical survey of the theories, concepts, intellectual debates, substantive domains and traditions of study characterizing the analysis of things. It is cutting-edge: rather than simply reviewing the field as it currently exists. It also attempts to chart the future: the manner in which material culture studies may be extended and developed. The Handbook of Material Culture is divided into five sections. • Section I maps material culture studies as a theoretical and conceptual field. • Section II examines the relationship between material forms, the human body and the senses. • Section III focuses on subject-object relations. • Section IV considers things in terms of processes and transformations in terms of production, exchange and consumption, performance and the significance of things over the long-term. • Section V considers the contemporary politics and poetics of displaying, representing and conserving material and the manner in which this impacts on notions of heritage, tradition and identity. The Handbook charts an interdisciplinary field of studies that makes an unique and fundamental contribution to an understanding of what it means to be human. It will be of interest to all who work in the social and historical sciences, from anthropologists and archaeologists to human geographers to scholars working in heritage, design and cultural studies.
Material culture studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the relationships between people and their things: the production, history, preservation, and interpretation of objects. It draws on theory and practice from disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, such as anthropology, archaeology, history, and museum studies. Written by leading international scholars, this Handbook provides a comprehensive view of developments, methodologies and theories. It is divided into five broad themes, embracing both classic and emerging areas of research in the field. Chapters outline transformative moments in material culture scholarship, and present research from around the world, focusing on multiple material and digital media that show the scope and breadth of this exciting field. Written in an easy-to-read style, it is essential reading for students, researchers and professionals with an interest in material culture.
Arthur Asa Berger is back with the second edition of his popular, user-friendly guide for students who want to understand the social meanings of objects.
"Judaism and Christianity as condensed illustrations of how people across time struggle with the materiality of life and death. Speaking across many fields, including classics, history, anthropology, literary, gender, and queer studies, the book journeys through the ancient Mediterranean world by way of the myriad physical artifacts that punctuate the transnational history of early Christianity. By bringing a psychoanalytically inflected approach to bear upon her materialist studies of religious history, Kotrosits makes a contribution not only to our understanding of Judaism and early Christianity, but also our sense of how different disciplines construe historical knowledge, and how we as people and thinkers understand our own relation to our material and affective past"--