Title & Author:

Material cultures : why some things matter / edited by Daniel Miller.

Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Description:

xi, 243 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Why some things matter / Daniel Miller -- Radio texture: between self and others / Jo Tacchi -- From woollen carpet to grass carpet: bridging house and garden in an English suburb / Sophie Chevalier -- Window shopping at home: classifieds, catalogues and new consumer skills / Alison J. Clarke -- The message in paper / Andrea Pellegram -- Material of culture, fabric of identity / Neil Jarman -- Calypso's consequences / Justin Finden-Crofts -- Coca-Cola: a black sweet drink from Trinidad / Daniel Miller -- Signs of the new nation: gift exchange, consumption and aid on a former collective farm in north-west Estonia / Sigrid Rausing -- At home and abroad: inalienable wealth, personal consumption and the formulations of femininity in the southern Philippines / Mark Johnson.

Summary:

The field of material culture has been historically well established but has recently enjoyed something of a renaissance. Methods once dominated by Marxist-oriented analyses, in which objects are understood as commodities, and by the study of objects as symbols are starting to give way to a more ethnographic approach to artifacts. This orientation to practice is the cornerstone of the essays presented in Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter.
The diversity of these essays is mediated by their common commitment to ethnography with a material focus. Against the established practice of examining 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 instrument for the study of social values and contradictions.

Resources:
Table of contents
Publisher description

ISBN:

0226526003 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780226526003 (cloth ; alk. paper)
0226526011 (paper ; alk. paper)
9780226526010 (paper ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Material culture.
Ethnology.
Culture matérielle.
Ethnologie.
material culture (discipline)
social anthropology.
ethnology.
Sachkultur
Materiële cultuur.
Consumentisme.
Sociologische aspecten.
Cultura material.

Form/genre:

Aufsatzsammlung.

Added entries:

Miller, Daniel, 1954-

Holdings:

Location: Library main 178669
Call No.: ID GN406.M37; ID:98-B1177
Status: Available