Material Cultures: Why Some Things MatterDaniel Miller 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. |
Contents
1 Why some things matter | 3 |
The domestic sphere | 23 |
between self and others | 25 |
From woolen carpet to grass carpet bridging house and graden in an English suburb | 47 |
classifieds catalogues and new consumer skills | 73 |
The Public sphere | 101 |
5 The message in paper | 103 |
6 Material of culture fabric of identity | 121 |
7 Calypsos consequences | 147 |
The global sphere or the World Wide West | 167 |
a black sweet drink from Trinidad | 169 |
gift exchange consumption and aid on a former collective farm in northwest Estonia | 189 |
inalienable wealth personal consumption and the formulations of femininity in the southern Philippines | 215 |
| 239 | |
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abroad acquisition adat advertising Anthropology Argos Argos catalogue artefacts Åtvidaberg banner Bessbrook calypso calypsonian Cambridge carnival ceremony chapter clothing Coca-Cola Coke collective farm colour commodities consumers consumption context create decoration discourse display domestic donkey Estonian Estonian Swedes ethnic ethnographic everyday example exchange formal furniture garden gender gift global gold jewellery household identity images important informants Jennifer Jersey Farm Kinson Kwiksave listening London Loot lounge Martin Smyth material culture material culture studies means Miller Muslim objects Orange Orange Order paper parades particular Philippines political Port of Spain Protestant purchase Qur'anic reading radio sound relation relationship ritual Routledge Scrunter sense silence social soundscape Soviet space specific station status style Sweden Swedish sweet drink symbolic Tausug television things traditional transformation Trinidad Trinidad Guardian Trinidadian Trisha Ulster unfurling University Press wedding Western women