February 6, 2006
The gift
A few interesting things to read on the gift:
On the classic essay by Mauss
Social Solidarity and the Gift
This syllabus demonstrates how anthropology comes to the commodity from the perspective of the gift.
Posted by BKG at 9:34 AM
February 1, 2006
What isn't a commodity?
I kept coming across a problem with the idea that there is a strict difference between a gift and a commodity. Perhaps this is because I have been inculcated into capitalism so thoroughly that I can hardly imagine an object (or a person or an idea) that cannot be a commodity. Appadurai writes primarily to be clear about what a commodity is - “any thing intended for exchange” (9)- and seems to disagree to some extent with anthropologists who have historically drawn clear distinctions between gifts and commodities. Appadurai argues that things may pass through phases in their lifetime, likely in the modern capitalist case to have a “commodity phase” no matter what they may be. I wonder then, if most thing, even people and parts of people, can be commodities at some point, at what point is a gift not a commodity? Along with anthropological tradition, Appadurai indicates that a major distinction between gifts and commodities is that gift giving is motivated not by profit but by some sort of “sociality” (11) and Geary notes that gift giving is likely to take place within kin groups to strengthen ties or to create kin ties where none exist (183). I think Gayle Rubin might have something to say about the exchange of women as gifts here, but that is a story for a different day.
I cannot see how the giving of a gift can be unrelated to the exchange value of the item being given, and Appadurai is clear that a commodity’s identity as a commodity is related directly to it’s exchange status. If I get a gift, I know what kind of gift it is because of it’s status as a commodity. I know that a particular gift is a “better” gift because it took more time (and time is money) to make or procure or it simply cost more. The giving of a gift is not just about the “thought that counts”. If it were, a gift card from Store A will be worth the same as any other gift card from Store A, no matter the value. The same kind of thought goes into buying a gift card for one value as any other value. But maybe gift cards are a bad example because they are only one step from just giving cash or a check. Flowers are a common gift item, but I still think that the larger or more “expensively” presented arrangement is received as a somewhat different kind of gift, a better gift. I just cannot think of a gift that is not simultaneously a commodity, a gift that has no relationship to the commodity value of the item or service in question. How do we know what the “thought” was that we are “counting” otherwise?
It is easier for me to think of there being a spectrum between gift and commodity rather than a clear distinction. A flower that was picked from a field and hand delivered may be farther towards gift than a bouquet bought and delivered by messenger. A box of staples may be farther towards the commodity end of the spectrum, but even that could be seen to have some elements of “giftness” if we see the choice of outlet as an act of “sociality”. To be more clear, my choice to shop at a particular store may tie me to the store’s owner or employees, forging just the kinds of social bonds that I believe anthropologists are referring to when they talk about gift giving. If everyone knows that most items can be purchased anywhere, choosing a particular store (or choosing the locally owned over Walmart) is recognized as a sign of favor and could forge social ties. Granted, I doubt the people at Target really think of me as not-choosing Walmart. Perhaps the argument for all commodity exchange as potentially having elements of “giftness” is harder to make, but I cannot accept that there would be meaningful “gift” exchange without knowledge of the exchange items as potential commodities. In fact, I think the items/services are not gifts, but commodities that happen to have a largely fleeting social meaning. Thus gifts are not a separate category, but a sub-category of commodities.
Posted by Laura Noren at 2:35 PM
January 30, 2006
Objects
Both the discussion in class and the readings have me thinking about the differences between when an object is displayed in its newness (in a store or advertisements, as discussed by McCracken), after it has been used (in a history or anthropology museum) or in either state (in a design museum, depending on the focus of the exhibition.) When are objects valued because of their newness and when because they have already been used (consumed?)? What different cultural information is embedded in an object when it is new vs. when it is used? How do the perceived differences between new and used objects shape how viewers look at these objects, for what purposes and with what desires? One difference that I am curious about is that between an object that seems as yet “untouched” or unused (and, hence, more desirable a commodity) and that which has been evidently used by humans and hence, though less desirable, may be more strongly infused with what we might refer to as “history” or “heritage;” this feature makes such objects desirable objects for museums or similar collections or displays. An object used retains evidence of its interaction with human beings [I think that this observation is consonant with Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s definition of heritage and descriptions of the heritage “industry.” On p. 2 Molotch states “Objects too have a life in them… in the way they sustain social practices just as those practices sustain them.”] There is something else to tease out here about the curiosity regarding old objects that were used by individuals because they were used by individuals – they are a type of proxy or tool for imagining what life was like for individuals in other times and places. I am not sure how to fit that in exactly.
As well, I am not sure how to construct the inter-relationships between design, utility, need, culturally designated values and consumer predilections. All play into the way objects are designed and desired. Related to all of these issues is the question of whether a given object is most noteworthy for being typical (i.e. this tool was typically found in kitchens or on farms of a given era and place) or unique (i.e. specially designed, made of precious material, a treasured possession of a rich person or a historically significant document.)
Related to these questions, I wonder as well about the sensory experience of objects and the extent to which human sensory experience of objects is shaped by socially constructed meanings. Perhaps this helps to open up a way to think about perfume as an “object” in the context of this course (a topic I have been musing over): it is a material that yields a sensory experience related to the sense (smell) that humans often find the most difficult to describe in detail. The material packaging for a specific perfume (bottles and boxes) as well as advertisements for it helps to concretize through images and visual perceptions (visual sensory experiences) what moods or emotions the perfume is meant to evoke. The naming of ingredients and the language used to describe its fragrance do so as well, but such descriptive language is fairly imprecise compared to the language available to describe objects that we see. The packaging and advertising that dominates the perfume market today, similarly to other advertising campaigns, focuses on themes related to luxury, leisure and lifestyle – the aspects of contemporary life that fuel so much of consumption in our society. These advertising campaigns seem more reflective of contemporary society than of the commodity of perfume; a study of how perfume ads have evolved over time might be instructive in determining how these connections came to be. When and how did perfume develop as a luxury item? Or, if it has always been a luxury item, how has the idea of “luxury” attached to it changed over time? Some of McCracken’s statements in his fifth chapter are useful for thinking about this. On pp. 72 -3 he notes “The original location of the meaning that resides in good is the “culturally constituted world.” This is the world of everyday experience in which the phenomenal world presents itself to the senses of the individual, fully shaped and constituted by the beliefs and assumptions of his or her culture.” On p. 74 he notes that cultural categories in America “are subject to constant and rapid change. The dynamic quality of cultural categories plainly adds to their indeterminacy.” With ads that depict desired lifestyles, marketers suggest that a perfume along can evoke, and therefore perhaps fulfill, the desire for a complete lifestyle. Changing scents can allow one to change imagined entire lifestyles as styles and meanings change. If this were really so, it would mean that perfume is a comparatively cheap luxury item: one can buy an entire lifestyle with a single consumer good.
I wanted to include a note on American Jewish naming trends, discussed by Molotch on p. 18 of his book. There are at least two other factors that helped to shape the trend that he describes: 1) a desire to avoid explicit Christian names such as Christopher, Mary, etc. 2) a desire to choose names that could echo traditional Jewish names, because of the Ashkenazic Jewish custom of naming children after deceased relatives. In America this evolved into the choosing of names which begin with the same letter-sound e.g., Bernard for Barukh. It also seems to me that in the middle of last century Biblical names (such as, say, Leah) were less common than they are today in the broader American community. Part of what I find significant about these other factors is that they point to a more complex mediation of American society and illuminate Jews’ attempt to both assimilate into the culture and at the same time maintain, in adapted forms, certain Jewish cultural practices. I wonder what other parallel practices adopted by other cultural groups in America might be useful examples for comparison.
Posted by Leah Strigler at 10:28 AM
January 29, 2006
on Flowers for Harvey
Objects seem to have their work cut out for them: they embody social relations, mark and classify identities, anchor social reality, and make culture visible. In what follows I map out some potenial empirical approachs to the how-to of relational work that objects perform.
Relational work is one site where we can really see how the social is transformed by, and transforms, the material stuff. The "new” economic sociology suggests that social relations are carefully constructed, maintained and negotiated through the uses and consumption of goods. Take the woman in charge of dinner for her family. By planning a menu, say, with peas over lima beans for a picky child or spouse, she is constructing an identity as mother or spouse, doing gender, and putting social meanings into a grocery list. Indeed, Daniel Miller would say she’s making love in the supermarket—that is, women construct and strengthen their social relations through the act of shopping. On that gender note, is it any wonder that the economist’s imagined lone consumer in Douglas and Isherwood (44) is a man (in an overcoat, no less)? For the loner, the authors argue, is inescapably caught up in the production and classification of social categories, and a solitary male consumer already makes more cultural sense to us.
Another potential site to see the relational work of stuff is gift-giving. We give gifts in part as an exercise in marking, maintaining, and producing relationships. To see how this works, we can look at botched gifts that come under suspicion. For instance, when does a Starbucks card go from a nice “Secret Santa” present to a bribe or an insult? Similarly, it’s nice of me to bring flowers for Harvey when he hosts a Sociology Department party. But it might raise some eyebrows if I simply hand him the $10 that would otherwise go to the florist, or if I simply bring him flowers on any old Tuesday. Such mismatches between appropriate gifts and appropriate relations underscore the social meanings of stuff. The work people do, or fail to do, when marking social boundaries through the giving of objects furthers our understanding of the object’s meaning as situational, variable, and even productive.
Posted by Ashley Mears at 6:34 PM
Douglas and Isherwood do it the way I like it
Half-way through reading Douglas and Isherwood (D&I) I thought I will get a definite answer on what is consumption but somehow it watered down into sense-making. Still, I consider their analysis and synthesis comprehensive and deepening the available knowledge. Perhaps after a more careful examination sense-making would turn out to be the most plausible view of consumption but for now I raise the question of its partiality and argue for rehabilitation of needs and competitive display as relevant functions of goods. Another issue I deal with is role of structuralism in their writing and how it could be used to explain change.
D&I after a sweeping analysis of work done so far on consumption develop their own theory of it where it is seen as sense-making. It seems to me that this might be only a partial answer as are others that they cover. D&I discard the ideas that consumption is based on physical needs or envy of individuals. The first is problematic because it divides goods into those that are necessary, they represent real needs, and those that are luxurious, a reflection of artificial wants. The problem lies in coming to an agreement on what is necessary. D&I exemplify this by showing that it is difficult to define poverty in absolute terms and that it makes more sense to opt for the relative definition, which depends on time and space. (p 5) The attempt of looking at consumption as a function of envy lacks consideration of social and cultural elements that constrain such feelings. (p 6) However, in case we redefine these two assumptions of needs and envy as underlying consumption by stating that they emanate from social and cultural arrangements rather than individual psychologies would that not make them more tractable? Envy itself actually can be nothing but social since it entails social comparison. D&I’s assumption that goods are needed for “making visible and stable the categories of culture” (p38) seems to be no more than on an equal footing as those of goods needed for subsistence and competitive display.
D&I do a great job incorporating structuralism as one of their theoretical pillars especially showing influence of social mobility on consumption patterns. However, in some cases they were somewhat superficial. One perspective on consumption that D&I deal with is why people do not consume, that is to say why do they save. Keynes position was that there is a psychological rule according to which people do not spend all the increase in their income but save some. It turns out that this cannot be supported by historical data. D&I say the reason for this is that saving is socially determined and is unlikely to be influenced by real income. (p11) I would add that this propensity to save some of the real income increase would depend on whether the individual’s position in social structure would be redefined or not as a result of the increase and also whether he/she would be upwardly (or downwardly) mobile. A new relative position in social structure would entail different consumption requirements, which may mean higher or lower propensity to consume/save. Problem of change in D&I could be also posed as a structural problem. I haven’t noticed any adequate consideration of change in consumption patterns by the two authors. For example, they consider that judgments are source of cultural norms and, if delivered strongly, pressure to conform (p 12-13). How does change come about if there is pressure to conform? Part of the answer could be that it is a result of a position in a structure where those with high status can deviate from norms since they are protected from sanctions by their high position and those with low status since might not care so much about certain sanctions.
Posted by Miodrag Stojnic at 3:45 PM
From Commodity to Stuff
The multi-directional readings of this week offer us different approaches to the analysis of our relations to objects. Only the juxtaposition of economical / sociological, anthropological / archeological analyses will highlight the essentially ambiguous nature of objects, or more precisely our ambiguous relations to them.
In this paper, I am trying to reconstruct the chronological order of theories the readings offer us for this week, exploring how the texts and methods reflect on / dialogize with each other.
I assume that all these texts respond to (or a least aware of) an “Urtext” to a certain extent, which is Marx’ Capital, the foundational theory of modern economy. The section to which these texts all relate in one way or another is the first 100 pages of Volume one, the chapters on Commodities and Commodity Fetishism, as well as the Circulation of Commodities (and Money).
This fundamental work not only schematizes the interpretation of objects as commodities, but it also suggests that the process of commodification, which in Marx’ theory means the establishment of our relationship to objects, inevitably contains alienation, our alienation from commodities / objects, which then, in a nutshell, results in fetishism.
This economical analysis (or its trace) is present in all the essays we read for today, and what I have found interesting is what the authors offer in the place of alienation: how they conceptualize our (as individuals and a societies) relations to objects, what factors determine these relations and how they are envisioned in social phenomena as well as objects.
I assume that the earliest response of these works is Mary Douglas’ and Baron Isherwood’s sociological analysis of goods. It explores how different societies have different relations to consumption and savings and to what extent society determines the individual’s consumptive habits. In their analysis, consumption is always socially constructed: although they differentiate between societies where consumption is strictly defined by social structure (Weber’s traditional society) and societies where individuals have a larger freedom to make their choices (Weber’s individualist capitalism), in later chapters they describe how these individual choices always feed into the pattern of social order.
Molotoch, on the other hand, whose work I assume is the latest of all, attributes most to the power of individual choices. Although quoting Lieberson analysis on names, Molotoch emphasizes how individual choices are always challenged / supported by a social context, his celebratory paragraphs on the joy and pleasure we find in objects allow the most for individual factors which shape our relations to “stuffs.”
In a simplifying, even reductionist analysis of the texts, I would suggest that the axis of these theoretical writings stretches between the strictly economical / sociological interpretation of objects as ‘commodities’ and an anthropological / sociological conceptualization of objects as ‘stuff.’ While ‘commodity’ is socially determined, ‘stuff’ allows more for the individuals.
What we find in-between is Hodder’s analysis on ‘style’ and McCracken’s idea of the ‘patina,’ which both deconstruct the identification of object and commodity by emphasizing the individual’s relation to the socially constructed. Hodder defines style as “the referral of an individual event to a general way of doing,” and describes it as a form of power, which societies and individuals wield to create sameness or differences. An example of Hodder’s style could be McCracken’s ‘patina,’ a sign, which makes status (therefore sameness and difference) visible in society.
Arjun Appadurai’s comprehensive introduction to “The Social Life of Things” synthesizes many of these above-mentioned points. His analysis suggests a chronology of the intertwined perspectives, starting with Marx, which I have tried to unravel in this paper. It is only Molotoch’s idea of ‘fun’ as a constitutive of our relation to objects which is missing from his extensive overview. I suppose that this is a most recent approach to the “social life of objects” and the approach I am most interested in. I do see how we appreciate or reject objects because of their value or style, nevertheless, the inexplicable enthusiasm I sometime feel towards certain objects with no use-value and a peculiar style is still waiting to be explored.
Posted by Aniko Szucs at 2:23 PM
The new thing...
Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood state that “the new thing… has somehow become a necessity (4),” and point out that typically there have been two assumed types of human needs – spiritual and physical. Importance and priority are given to the physical and has thus been termed the hygiene approach to understanding the “need” for objects. Also noted is the envy theory, which determines materiality as feeling one needs objects relative to the objects acquired by another, linking it directly to a relationship of economics.
Previously assumed theories of consumption and demand are, from Douglas’ and Isherwood’s point of view, weak at best, in that they do not provide a sufficient analysis of the “formation of tastes,” nor do they address whether consumption is “an end in itself or a means to an end (8).” They go on to note the criticisms of Deusenberry in regards to individualism and savings as a “residual category,” and Friedman’s theory that savings are instead “provision for the future.” This leads to a more contemporary understanding of consumption as a sort of life project, as opposed to a decision autonomously made each time with no regard to past or future exchanges of objects. All of this leads to the argument that the consumption of objects can be understood as a way for persons to classify themselves in society, for culture to be defined and redefined continuously, and for social codes to become fixed signifiers – that objects are both socialized by and socializing of their users.
Harvey Molotch describes that not only does the acquisition of objects define individuals and cultures economically and socially, but that the way humans interact and engage with objects develops the characteristic of the object itself, and that through the manipulation of an object, it takes on a certain symbolic meaning relative to the individual using it (10). He also discusses the idea of work as understood by Daniel Bell, and that “work is drudgery,” which is why money is necessary as a means to maintain the workers working, “promising eventual leisure,” but also continuing the necessary cycle of economy and the consumption of objects (15). Appadurai notes that commodities do in fact have social lives, but also asks “in what does its sociality consist,” and places objects in a constantly shifting state in either barter or an exchange of gifts. His idea of a “regime of value” implies that the value of an object varies between situations and objects, rather than maintaining a consistent meaning over objects within one culture (15). He also discusses two different relationships between consumption and production, the first being that “demand is determined by social and economic forces,” and two that demand “can manipulate these social and economic forces (31).” Hodder discusses the idea of style in a similar way – that it is something that occurs in a singular event, but that it is the repetition of events, and their relationship to each other, that instills a sense of style among and within communities. However, style is never a fixed state, and it only can function in terms of its interpretation by another (46).
An interesting shift is when the object as commodity becomes the individual themselves, either as a living entity or as the remains of the dead. Geary writes about the remains of certain persons in medieval Europe as valuable commodities if they were believed to be the remains of a saint. He goes on to describe four ways in which these relics were circulated – either by gift, theft, commerce or the reconstruction of value. What is fascinating is that the body in death (which has taken on new social and spiritual meaning only post-mortem, not as a living entity) becomes a tool used by the living as a symbol of status and brings the living person or community to a heightened proximity to the divine. The exchange of human remains by any of the four methods mentioned above instill ever-changing social meanings for both the people who acquire the human remains as well as for the remains themselves and the identity and stature of the dead saint. Much like the patina described in McCracken’s essay, in which the decay of an object (like the decay of a person) “serves as a kind of visual proof of status (32).” It is the changeability of an object in relation to the changeability of its owner and the duration of time that exists between their relationship that allows for its function as a cultural and social symbol of status, which has become a necessary component to working within a social environment.
Posted by Kimberly Brandt at 1:07 PM
A Matter of taste
Among the numerous concepts that were introduced in this week’s readings, the notion of “taste” in consumption attracts my attention, and I hope to be able to read more about it throughout the semester.
As Douglas & Isherwood state in the opening of their study “taste” is “treated as a given, as the ultimate unexplainable factor of demand that is used to explain everything else.” (3) And like Molotch further says we cannot assume that demand varies through the “self-evident” criteria of usefulness and personal tastes. However, if we turn the problem around, “taste” is the ultimate criterion that a consumer can invoke to choose an object among others, when all the “rational” perspectives would say otherwise. Loving the flavor of a certain food while hating another, having a favorite color, seeing something as ugly or pretty: those are tastes that most people refuse to discuss, it is part of “who I am” and no one can change it.
Douglas & Isherwood suggest that there is no useful, well-developed theory of tastes and their formation (7); an avenue to understand tastes could be theories of subject formation, from disciplines like psychoanalysis to social psychology, not the avenue that anthropologists will take. However, if consumers would try to explain taste, most would probably deny the social factor and prefer psychology, not to exclude the esoteric. For most people, it is easier to identify their specific tastes to what they “are” as individual, rather than to admit that they follow a larger social pattern (including the manipulation of corporations.) And of course, this view of tastes as inherent to the individual helps choosing to buy a product that we “envy” when there is no objective reason to do so.
I suppose the social approach of this class will not try to explain the personal differences in taste (though for me, as I am also taking the “Psychoanalysis and Queer Theory” class this semester, it will be fascinating to work between those two approaches.) But one thing that I believe is also interesting to study from an anthropological approach, is how the psychological view on taste is used by consumers (and marketers) differently in various times, spaces, and contexts.
P.S.
It is wonderful how this site allows you to post in the past and avoid being late. (It's 2:30!)
Posted by Etienne Meunier at 12:59 PM
patina, legibility, and antiques roadshow
McCracken’s essay on patina seems like a good entry point as to the importance of object within a larger social and historical framework, even though a couple of weaknesses make it problematic. Most basically, there is no discussion of the transferability of objects in the selection, save a quick note that transference of objects as ‘subterfuge’ could not have taken place in Elizabethan times(McCracken p. 42).
Patina is a general and in some sense, anonymous, evolutionary trend in the history of an object. It is not as if, once transferred, an object loses its patina. While it is possible that patina as such was a ‘secret code’ for the initiated, and objects acquired by those without that knowledge would be cleaned to such an extent to lose that feature, some examples of this would have been helpful. Of course, this argument likely comes from a post ‘Antiques Roadshow’ world view, in which discussions of patina and age and value are so central - that is the legibility of something like patina may have increased to the point that its original social sorting role has been made obselete.
However, another issue with the text is the relative importance ascribed to patina. As McCracken states in the chapter introduction that patina “was one of the most important ways that high standing individuals distinguished themselves” (p. 31), but the story of its eclipse seems to more or less rest on the rapid development of “a brilliant range of new consumer choices” in the 18th century (p. 39). The seeming ease of displacement of patina’s importance in distinguishing status seems to belie the importance described earlier in the essay.
In a way, this issue ties in closely to Appadurai’s essay and its discussion of the culturally mediated aspect of value and exchange, specifically his description of ‘tournaments of value’ (Appadurai, p. 21). McCracken’s essay gains a bit of coherence when objects with patina are placed within a decommodified state, due to their realized value stems from more from that patina and its invocation of age and constancy and less from any monetary value of the object as an object (p. 23). Additionally, the importance of luxury goods as signifiers with rhetorical and social aspects (p. 38), relates closely to McCracken’s essay.
Finally, the intersection of the development of industrial capitalism and the development of a materialist culture (again, as discussed in Appadurai – p. 37) seems to be an interesting area for looking at these issues. The citation of Mukerji’s work apparently calls into question the idea that technological revolution preceded materialist culture, but I would be interested in a closer reading of that aspect of the literature as a way of teasing out the development of this argument.
Posted by Mark Treskon at 12:51 PM
Objects In Space
Owen brings up a provocative point in his posting: objects exist in time. I would like to start my comments in a similar vein. Objects exist in space, and space is yet another category sociologists do not involve themselves in. Sure, we study neighborhoods, and as researchers we have sites. Yet, in our enthusiasm for studying people, we often neglect to study that space that people inhabit, or how that space informs social interactions. We leave this to urban planners, geographers, and architects. The short story is that we sociologists don’t like to get our hands dirty.
As Professor Molotch reminds us, however, geographic spaces are not just containers – they yield specific products (2). The question is do we attempt to gain meaning from the product, the space, or the interplay of both? Can we even gain meaning from one without the other? McCracken reminds us that goods are material culture (75), but what are places? Practically, they are material – they have a physical existence. Spaces have other meanings – ideological, cultural, etc. The pertinent theoretical and methodological question for this course is how do we treat spaces? As objects?
A second important theme in the readings is style. Hodder’s point that style is about relations raises the stakes for sociologists to study objects. Hodder states that style is a “way of doing” in reference to other ways of doing, or larger social contexts. Economic sociologists such as Viviana Zelizer have pointed out that consumption is relational. We consume in order to please our lovers, show off to our neighbors, and entertain our friends. So if style is a “way of doing”, objects are a way of showing what we do. For instance, is my strut believable if I am wearing hiking boots? Do I appear smarter when I am wearing my glasses? The article on patina illustrates this point nicely: while status misrepresentation could occur, you couldn’t fake it to just anybody. Perhaps, as a partial response to Douglas and Isherwood’s question of why do we want goods; we want goods to show off our style.
A Post Script: I am the real Jane. Mark was having trouble posting so I let him use my login. I wouldnt want to take credit for his smart essay.
Posted by Jane Jones at 12:31 PM
Categories and repetition
Throughout the readings, two themes took my attention: first, the state of categories in our everyday lives; and second, the state of change and repetition. I suggest that these two themes together play an important role in creating a kind of unity in western societies.
It is not that easy to realize how our everyday life is actually made of categories. We not only use categories, but also, we live in them. Working time, leisure time, public space, private space etc. are all categories that shape our lives, most of the time without us being aware of them. We take them so granted that we feel “safe” within a set of categories we are used to. Outside of those categories there seems to be no order, no system, no safety (McCracken: 73) Years ago, when it was still “politically correct” to use the words “primitive” or “progress” or “east” or “west” without quotation marks, and when there was only one cold war with only two basic sides and thus when people did have specific identities and expectations from one another through those identities, in sum, when we had basic shelves and borders that formed a sense of safety, however “imagined” they were, these categories did create unity and belonging: Belonging to ‘a’ gender, ‘a’ nation, ‘a’ language, ‘a’ political stance and so on. McCracken gives North America as an example where we can find categories subject to rapid and constant change (Ibid.: 74) but it would not be an exaggeration to say that the boundaries between different categories do not seem as resolute as they were beyond America as well. This brings us to a “postmodern” way of creating new categories: post modern, since, just like the word, it is based on different times and categories existing through each other (Molotch: 19), new is accepted through the existence of the past and vice versa. Boy George and Johnny Rotten become successful in creating a style as they play with pre-existing themes like violence of swastikas. “The original events are both particular and general. They are both similar and different to previous acts.” (Hodder: 45) The contradiction is that when we finally have an “original” style, it inevitably follows the rule of dialectic and becomes a part of the “past”. How does this happen? Probably the best answer can be found in the mechanism of the everyday life: recurrence, or, repetition and the pseudo-change.
As Hodder points out, most archeologists use the word style to refer to particular historical ways of doing. But when they do this, they underline an important characteristic composing the style: repetition. (Hodder: 45) Lefebvre, in The Everyday and Everydayness, says that the everyday life is made of recurrences. For him, recurrence is a great problem, “one of the most difficult problems facing us”. The change is produced in order “to superimpose the impression of speed onto that of monotony”. Doesn’t style really become monotonous through repetition, in the sense that different styles and interpretations “behave” in ways that repeat each other? Would that be too dramatic to say that the change in fact carries a doubt of itself- how different is the change? Punks for example, make an effort to look different than the “others” but only to identify with another group ideology. Everyday life is still made of ceremonies and styles repeated and “replicated” by millions of others and this repetition is what keeps the cycle and the “imagined communities” go on.
Posted by Ilgin Yorukoglu at 11:44 AM
January 28, 2006
Patina has style, it just doesn't bling
McCracken argues that patina is or was a means to authenticate status. Owning objects that have patina is not enough. They must be seen by others to fulfill their social duty for the owner. Based on the degree to which an object has patina, verifies its value within the phenomenological world of patina. But this only occurs because, to a modern view, they were not cared for properly. It would seem rational that if you have an object that is shiny you would want to keep it shiny. A wealthy person would have the means to keep their objects shiny while other would not. This logic is not followed.
Objects were allowed to patina, indicating that this was the style of the times. Here, against Hodder, style is a way of not doing. People are not keeping their objects shiny. Instead they are allowing objects to become dull. This not doing still led to a style of objects and a style of showing status. But as McCracken points out, the patina style changed due to modern consumer practices that started to appear in England. Old no longer denoted wealth leading to a change in style of showing status.
Museologically this presents a problem when categorizing objects. First we must understand the trends of the past. To accurately categorize objects with patina we have to understand patina’s importance within society at the time. We cannot categorize them with a modern sense of patina but with a sense of historical style. Actually it would depend on the time period you wish to represent with the display. Because objects have different lives, the museum professional must choose which style to represent.
To better understand where objects belong within typologies it is helpful to use Appadurai’s terms of cultural biography and social history. To understand patina the museum professional should use the cultural biography of the object. This would give the object an accurate ‘life story’. With this life story, the object can then be categorized within a social history. Leading to a better understanding of patina as style.
Posted by Jean-Luc Howell at 5:56 PM
Academic Repetition
In trying to synthesize and make sense of the various readings for our class on Monday, it struck me how much repetition there was in these academic writings. I started out with the first couple of chapters of Douglas’ and Isherwood’s book, and when I continued down the syllabus, I actually found that there was little new to be found in the other texts (which, to the best of my knowledge, have all been written after the publishing of “The World of Goods”). For example, when reading Grant McCracken’s “Meaning Manufacture and Movement in the World of Goods”, I could not help wonder why he felt that “prevailing theories” make no allowance for understanding “the mobile quality” of meaning. Even though he makes attempts to identify the processes by which meaning is transferred from world to good to individual, I feel that he essentially just repeats Douglas’ and Isherwood’s emphasis on “the ritual”.
On page 84 he says: “Ritual is an opportunity to affirm evoke, assign or revise the conventional symbols and the meaning of the fashion order”. It is definitely my understanding that Douglas and Isherwood do pay attention to the fact that the meaning of goods are not fixed but constantly in flux, exactly because meaning exists between the goods in some interrelated system, and thus is not consolidated in the goods themselves.
Furthermore I find it peculiar how he is able to determine that it is advertising and fashion that are the essential instruments for transferring meaning between the world, goods and the individual. I know that he also acknowledges the consumer ritual as a mechanism for transferring meaning, but still, I feel that I am lacking some sort of explanation for why it is exactly these processes that are so crucial for understanding the mobile quality of meaning. I admit that I cannot readily come up with alternative instruments for transferring meaning, but perhaps Professor Molotoch’s thoughts on how things come to be as they are provide some sort of philosophical opening to that: For example the question of “timing” and “detail”…And then again those concepts are quite related to fashion….I currently feel a little unable to finish that thought!
Just to shortly return to the question of repetition in the readings for class, I feel that there is much the same to be theorized unconditional of the authors’ writing on goods, commodities, consumption, style, value or what have you. And at the end of the day, I feel that in their repetition and their efforts to make new sense of these repetitions, they are making these concepts too sophisticated for their own good (namely Hodder and McCracken). Respecting this, I personally really appreciated Professor Molotch’s dealing with the somewhat down to earth “stuff system”. On the other hand, I am sure I would appreciate Appadurai’s sophisticated writings too, if only my own knowledge in this field was a little more sophisticated!
Posted by Sarah Carlson at 2:42 PM
Objects as Time Machines
It seems to me that the “bet” we are making – that the analysis of objects offers a window into social reality – rests on the fundamental relationship between objects and time. Objects do not only exist in time. They exist through time and of time as well. Indeed, objects overcome time (at least temporarily) by freezing it in a tangible instantiation. It makes time into something that can be held, observed, marked, smelled.
The relationship between objects and time can be taken metaphysically – that objects, through their endurance, help bring order and understanding to a world in a state of constant flux. Or it can be taken in a more mundane methodological way – objects from the past endure and therefore can be studied. Regardless of orientation, objects, in capturing time, offer a potential reservoir of insight. The history of the object, the relations and networks that enabled it, the cultural frameworks that it represents – all of these overcome the ephemeral present when solidified in the object.
Perhaps the centrality of the relationship of objects and time in our bet explains why sociology has been late in picking it up. After all, sociology has been criticized in the past as being a-historical, as black-boxing the present into a taken-for-granted assumption of how the world is, attempting to extrapolate from the historical present a universal, timeless explanation. Although I think these critiques are a bit overstated and certainly less true today than they were four decades ago, there may be something here. After all, the disciplines that have a history with objects – like archaeology and anthropology – have histories rooted more deeply in the awareness of time. For archaeology, the object is what is left from a disappeared past. Its orientation toward “unearthing” and “recovering” this past time brings it to the left object. Anthropology, for better or worse, has been critiqued as using time to “other” different cultures. Time, in this sense, props up Western bias, distinguishing the “modern” West from the “primitive” other (Fabian, 1983). Whether this critique is still relevant is debatable, but one cannot deny that in observing the different cultural definitions of time, anthropology problematizes it in such a way that sociology does not. In addition, the “ethnographic present” (Douglas and Isherwood, 1979) that forms the backbone of anthropological methodology attempts to bring together the past, present and future in a way that the often present-oriented sociology fails to.
The readings for this week touch on objects as time machines in a number of ways. Douglas and Isherwood (1979) speak of how objects fix public meanings that flow and drift, allowing people to construct meaning in their lives by capturing some of this meaning in concrete form. Objects “pin down” the present. Hodder (1990: 50) argues that style embodied in the object “is really process masquerading as a thing.” It is history frozen. And of course, McCracken (1988), in distinguishing the patina system from the fashion system, reveals how different cultures value different manifestations (either wear and tear or newness) of time in the object. The object can be valued as an indicator of a past lineage of status or as positioned on the cusp of an arriving future.
Objects as time machines allow social scientists to transcend many of the obstacles and impositions time foists upon us. Perhaps it is on this ability to overcome time that we have placed our bet.
Posted by Owen Whooley at 1:05 PM
Objects and Sanity
I was thinking of Prof. Molotch's comment about objects: "They help us be sane." (Where Stuff Comes From, p. 12)And I was reminded of Lord Byron's line in--I think--Childe Harold, "Tis to create, and in creating live a being more intense, that we endow with form our fancy, gaining as we give, the form we utter." (And I wonder to what extent these blog entries need to have footnotes and etc.) Byron and Molotch are talking about a reciprocal relationship between self and object. In Byron's case, his "object" is poetry: he's talking about getting something back from the act of making poetry. Both see circulation, I don't want to say a circulation "of affect" because then I'm talking jargon-ese.
For some reason, I then started thinking about the Romantic Poets as a group. Not a long-lived group, those guys. However, they emerged in reaction (in part) to the industrial revolution. I think of Blake going on about those "dark satanic mills." And I wonder if the Romantic poets would be what Sociologist Robert S. Merton might refer to as an Unintended Consequence of industrialization.
I wonder to what extent romantic love can be seen as an unintended consequence of the industrial revolution. Sure, romantic love existed before then: Romeo and Juliet, Launcelot and Guinevere, Heloise and Abelard, but they all ended up dead. And I do need to find out what happened to Dante's Beatrice: Did that work out? The Greek goddes, Aphrodite's role was often to wreak havoc, and less often to create relationships where people lived happily ever after. Or if they got to live happily ever after, they had to be turned into trees, or they risked the jealousy of the gods.
This linkage of romantic love and "happily ever after," is it a by-product of the specialization of tasks that came about in modern society? Or as factory labor became more and more a hell hole, did the romantic idea of love develop as some compensatory hope? Love as some sort of fantasy commodity, the hope of which keeps people going, but the outrageous promises, which have developed as the spin-meisters and novelist and movie makers have worked on it, make it unattainable. Certainly the "Hollywood Ending" the billion-dollar commodity (ingenious of film makers to send you home with nothing tangible yet leave you so engaged you'll keep coming back to pay for more movies) is called that because of its improbability of occuring in everyday life. Somehow with the mass production of goods came the mass production of an ideal of emotional satisfaction, a sort of one-size-fits-all life that actually fits who knows how few people?
Sociologist Stanley Aronowitz writes about the "false promises" of modern-day America--the idea that if you work hard and you keep your nose clean, you'll rise to the top, you will succeed. He amply demonstrates that for many people that promise does not hold water. And as Aronowitz demonstrates, instead of wondering about whether the system is messed up, people blame themselves. I wonder, somewhat bleakly, if romantic love isn't also some sort of false promise. If emotional satisfaction is better as it's individually tailored, hand made to each individual case.
Is your tendency, when reading this, to wonder whether I'm just projecting from my personal life? It's mine. I also wonder to what extent the circulation of notions (are they "commodities"?) of emotional possibility help keep us sane? What happens to people who step "off the grid" and minimize their possessions. Or step out of the romantic playing field? How does the culture define them? How do they define themselves? Now that batchelor is not any longer a euphemism for guy-who-isn't-out, do we have batchelors anymore, except as people on the threshhold of relationship? Likewise, single women are no longer "old maids" and "maiden aunts" and "spinsters" but they sure are (as are all single people) discriminated against in the tax code.
Posted by Ashley Mears at 7:36 AM | Comments (1813)