PART I
LOCATING MATERIAL CULTURE
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The Material as Culture.
Definitions, Perspectives, Approaches
SUMMARY OF CHAPTER CONTENTS
This chapter introduces material culture studies and demonstrates
the usefulness of the material culture approach. It has two main
sections which:
• introduce key principles, terms and associated terminologies in
the study of material culture
• demonstrate the application of the material culture approach
through case studies.
Living in a material world
Objects are the material things people encounter, interact with and use.
Objects are commonly spoken of as material culture. The term ‘material culture’
emphasises how apparently inanimate things within the environment
act on people, and are acted upon by people, for the purposes of carrying
out social functions, regulating social relations and giving symbolic meaning
to human activity. Objects range in scale and size from discrete items
such as a pencil, key, coin or spoon, through to complex, network objects
such as an airliner, motor vehicle, shopping mall or computer. Traditionally,
however, the term material culture has referred to smaller objects that
are portable. Although scholars from a variety of disciplines have studied
objects, their uses and meanings since the beginnings of modern social
science scholarship, it is only in relatively recent times that the field of
‘material culture studies’ has been articulated as an area of inquiry.
The field of material culture studies (hereafter abbreviated to MCS) is
a recent nomenclature that incorporates a range of scholarly inquiry into
the uses and meanings of objects. It affords a multidisciplinary vantage
point into human–object relations, where the contributions of anthropology,
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sociology, psychology, design and cultural studies are valued. Material
culture is no longer the sole concern of museum scholars and archaeologists –
researchers from a wide range of fields have now colonised the study of
objects. As well as fostering productive multidisciplinary approaches to
objects, MCS can provide a useful vehicle for synthesis of macro and micro,
or structural and interpretive approaches in the social sciences. By studying
culture as something created and lived through objects, we can better
understand both social structures and larger systemic dimensions such as
inequality and social difference, and also human action, emotion and meaning.
Objects might be seen then, as a crucial link between the social and
economic structure, and the individual actor. If we think of the material culture
of consumer societies, they are in fact the point where mass-produced
consumer objects are encountered and used by individuals, who must
establish and negotiate their own meanings and incorporate such objects
into their personal cultural and behavioural repertoires, sometimes challenging
and sometimes reproducing social structure.
A primary assertion of MCS is that objects have the ability to signify
things – or establish social meanings – on behalf of people, or do ‘social
work’, though this culturally communicative capacity should not be automatically
assumed. Objects might signify sub-cultural affinity, occupation,
participation in a leisure activity, or social status. Furthermore, objects
become incorporated into, and represent, wider social discourses related
to extensively held norms and values enshrined in norms and social institutions.
In a complimentary fashion, objects also carry personal and emotional
meanings, they can facilitate interpersonal interactions and assist a
person to act upon him or herself. For example, wearing certain clothing
may make a person feel empowered by altering their self-perception. Objects,
then, can assist in forming or negating interpersonal and group attachments,
mediating the formation of self-identity and esteem, and integrating
and differentiating social groups, classes or tribes.
When studying and accounting for material culture, one needs to keep
in mind the relative viewpoints of the analyst and actor. For the analyst to
perform a virtuoso analytic deconstruction of any given object is by no
means easy, but it is uncomplicated by the idiosyncracies, incoherencies
and sheer mundanity of the user’s perspective. Take Barthes’ (1993[1957])
classic essays on aspects of French culture in his book Mythologies as
an example. As elegant and instructive as these essays are, one wonders
about the equivalence between the manner in which everyday users of
such objects perceive them, and Barthes’ sophisticated textual ‘reading’ of
them. Furthermore, it is not just a matter of individuals pondering what
objects might mean, but individuals reading objects in relation to other
individuals within complex intergroup networks patterned by social status
and role, and space–time contexts. For the analyst then, the object can
be rendered all-powerful, perfectly understandable and historically crucial
in the course of any literary reflection. However, once the voice of the user
is introduced, clarity and certainty give way to multiple interpretations,
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practices and manipulations. What was once fixed by analytic measure
and conceptual clarity alone melts away.
The current interest in material culture is associated with two key
developments in the social sciences: the profusion of research into consumption
across a range of disciplines, and the rise of poststructural and
interpretive theory. Attention to objects as rudimentary elements of consumer
culture has acquired renewed status in socio-cultural accounts
of consumption processes in late-modern societies. This interest in consumption
objects is also tied up with broader developments in social theory,
particularly the so-called ‘cultural turn’. Although social scientists
have historically had an enduring concern for the material constituents of
culture (Goffman, 1951; Mauss, 1967[1954]; Simmel, 1904[1957]; Veblen,
1899[1934]), the recent interest in objects has developed in the context of
prominent socio-cultural accounts of modern consumerism, and in turn,
the emphasis these have given to the material basis of consumption processes,
and the cultural meanings that colonise such objects as they move through
social landscapes (Appadurai, 1986; Douglas and Isherwood, [1996]1979;
Miller, 1987; Riggins, 1994). The second development is connected to the
general turn toward language, culture, sites and spaces in poststructural
social theory, and the associated interest beyond traditional social scientific
analytic categories associated with ‘big’ social forces like class, gender
and race. Linked with the rise of poststructural theory is an interest in
the importance of different variables and sites in social formation and
transformation such as the body, space and objects. These approaches
don’t ignore social-structural dimensions; however they do consider them
in a contextualised, grounded way. As well as interpretive and textual
work in the humanities and cultural anthropology (such as Clifford
Geertz), the work of Foucault has been of major importance in this development,
for it takes social scientists away from studying traditional
macro, structural patterns and directs their interest to discourses, technologies
and strategies that are applied at the level of ideas, the body, time
and space, as techniques for social governance. While Foucault generally
ignores questions of meaning and interpretation that are the central focus
of the current work, he has made us aware that it is through the microphysics
of temporal and spatial organisation that social power and control
is both established and challenged. Objects such as the guillotine, the
uniform, the timetable, the school writing desk, or the panopticon – which
is the central motif in his work Discipline and Punish – are important material
tools in the establishment of such capillaries of power, rather than
mere ‘props’ or environmental filler.
How can objects be ‘cultural’? A selection of case studies
Having made some preliminary progress, the best way to proceed is
to think about objects and culture through practical applications and
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exemplar cases. This section emphasises the varied capacities of objects
to do cultural and social work. In particular, the following case studies
demonstrate the diverse capacities of objects to afford meaning, perform
relations of power, and construct selfhood. The three sections show how
objects can be (i) used as markers of value, (ii) used as markers of identity
and (iii) encapsulations of networks of cultural and political power.
Objects as social markers
It is in Bourdieu’s (1984) writing on taste that the idea of objects as markers
of aesthetic and cultural value is most thoroughly developed. Bourdieu
emphasises the role of aesthetic choice – one’s tastes – in reproducing social
inequality. Bourdieu usurped the (Kantian) idea that judgements of taste
are based upon objective and absolute criteria by showing that particular
social and class fractions tended to have distinctive taste preferences, which
amounts to professing a liking for certain objects over others. Moreover,
dominant social groups have the authority to define the parameters of
cultural value (e.g. notions of what is ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ culture),
thus devaluing working class modes of judgement as ‘unaesthetic’. In consumer
societies where taste becomes a highly visible marker of difference,
such judgements are implicated in structures of social position and status.
Importantly, aesthetic choice is so thoroughly learnt and ingrained that
class markers are expressed in the body, self-presentation and performance.
Simple learning of cultural and aesthetic rules may not be enough, as one’s
demeanour and comportment (‘bodily hexis’, in Bourdieu’s words) can seldom
succeed in betraying one’s class origins.
With this brief overview of Bourdieu’s theory of aesthetic judgement
in mind, one can progress to consider the following case studies where
objects act as markers of aesthetic value and of self-identity. These cases
were gathered as part of a larger project into the narrativisation of
aesthetic judgement, which is more fully discussed elsewhere (see
Woodward, 2001, 2003; Woodward and Emmison, 2001). Note that it is not
just the actual objects these respondents choose to discuss which is important,
but also the content of their talk about the object. The object is given
meaning through the narrativisation of broader discourses of self, identity
and biography, which link aesthetics to ethics of self, and social identity.
So, when you read the following case studies, look not just at the what (i.e.
the actual object), but the why and how (i.e. the narrative and performative
accompaniment) of aesthetic judgement.
Helen
For Helen, a chair that sits in a corner of her main bedroom is an object
which exemplifies her aesthetic taste. In the research interview, Helen
interprets the chair through an aesthetic frame, reflecting on its style
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and design and how she feels this fits with her self-presentation.
Throughout the interview, Helen portrays a high level of aesthetic
competence – in Bourdieu’s terms, she has mastered the ‘symmetries
and correspondences’ (1984: 174) associated with her choices. As a
result, she is able to contextualise her own choices within wider social
and aesthetic trends with a degree of high cultural authority, bringing
a range of cultural knowledges and expertise to bear on her discussion
of the chair.
Helen is someone who places a high value on appropriate home
styles and choices, to the extent that she works with an interior
designer through important phases of home renovation. Helen and
her partner are both professionals in high-salary positions. Helen
lives in the inner north east of the city on top of a prominent hill with
outstanding views to the city’s east toward the ocean. In terms of
questions of taste and style, Helen could be classified as ‘modern
classicist’: one who is committed to traditional, classic notions of
‘good taste’ which are based on subtle colour combinations founded
in whites and creams, with soft blues and greens as highlight
colours. Helen’s aesthetic choices are not directed towards the bright
or ostentatious. Rather, decorative schemes are themed consistently
through the house, employ neutral-based colours, and present an
image of understatement and timelessness that are typically
ascribed characteristics of classic ‘good taste’. Asked during the
interview to describe her own style, Helen responds:
Pretty minimalist, without being minimalist in terms of futuristic
minimalist. I certainly tend to be a … it’s the same with the way I dress,
fairly uncluttered, fairly simple, clean lines, certainly very neutral in
colours, simple patterns, very classic I guess.
Helen has such a well developed conception of what constitutes her
style that she is able to adroitly sum up her aesthetic values through
the use of an exemplar object – a chair that stands in a prominent
corner of the main bedroom. Helen uses the chair as a prop for her
account. The chair – apart from its functional or use value which is
not addressed by Helen – is an object that signifies, and summarises,
the style of its owner and the desired ambience of the whole house.
The chair’s simplicity, neutrality and classical enduring style are
instructive:
I can’t see myself ever really taking the plunge and going really bright
with the upholstery. As I said, in the main bedroom, come in and I’ll
show you, it’s probably the most recent.To me that chair, that sums up
my idea. That’s me, I love that. That sort of cream, neutral, New
England look.
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Christina (C): I live my social life in other suburbs, I certainly started off
doing the old ‘creek’ ‘hammo’ [Landmark local pubs frequented
by upwardly mobile, socially conservative young people] sort of
deal … because I went to St Margaret’s, and most of the
people were private school around here – we had Churchie boys, we
had Grammar next door, we had Churchie [these names refer to elite,
‘private’ secondary schools] down the road, Ascot state school was
about as state school as it got … everyone went to Ascot ‘til grade seven
and then went off to their private schools at enormous expense … um,
that was when I first started but then it didn’t really suit me very much
Helen’s chair then sits as an example, reminding her of the bounds of
her own aesthetic variance which she describes as: ‘really simple patterns
and simple colours and again very neutral’. There are no serious
or problematic issues to be faced in the chair. For example, some may
wonder whether investing such importance in this chair is trivial, or
overly materialistic. The most challenging issue for Helen is the progressive
‘modernisation’ of her taste and the chance that the chair will
no longer fit variations in her style. However, Helen feels that such
variations are unlikely to challenge the basic, well-honed values of her
modern, classic aesthetic: ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be ultra-modern, but
I think I’ll go a little less cottagey’. One of the impressive, important
aspects of Helen’s aesthetic value system is the degree to which it is a
finely tuned, almost ‘technical’ (Bennett et al., 1999: 56), scheme of
knowledge. Its basis is so thoroughly realised in Helen that the
nuanced distinctions she makes of shade and style in this piece of
material culture are rendered entirely natural.
Christina
The following section turns to a different case altogether, using interview
data from the same research project. Christina lives in the same
suburb as Helen, though with a less prestigious view, and is approximately
the same age (early to mid-30s). However, her aesthetic choices
and the reasoning and narrativisation that accompany them, are
widely different. Christina has lived in this house, originally the family
home, for over 25 years. Now without both parents, the house
belongs to Christina and her sister. The house is an architect-designed
bungalow built in the late 1940s. Christina’s family was originally from
a farming region, and Christina retains a strong affinity for the country
despite her privileged private school education, which she now rails
against. Christina sets apart her own identity from what she sees as the
snob-based culture of most in her suburb to the extent that she has now
centred important aspects of her life in different parts of the city:
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so I sort of moved on to different sorts of people so I hang out at
Mansfield [a middle-class, rather unmarkable suburb in the mid to
outer zone of the city] suburb these days to tell you the truth …
Interviewer (I ): So you have friends out there?
C: yeah, yeah …
I: So what sort of activities do you get into, what sort of lifestyle and
leisure things do you like?
C: well … I suppose pretty much the pub sort of scene really, just a
few pubs, go to the football a bit, go to the races a bit, I don’t go
to the races as much as I used to, that’s more for this sort of crowd.
And I do a lot of things on my own really, I just go over there, I’ve
got a boyfriend over there and spend a few nights and that’s about
it really …
I: Were your parents more into this scene?
C: Well, it was a single parent family and mother actually came from
out west, but that’s probably why we didn’t jump straight into this,
she knew a few people who had country links but she didn’t really
know this sort of snob value group here …
This is important contextual material for the aesthetic stance maintained by
Christina, which is relatively hostile to conventional concerns about colour, design
and style:
C: I’ve always been totally disinterested in décor, I don’t care as long
as there’s a seat, a kitchen and a bed, that’s all I really care about
I: so you don’t have an interest in it?
C: no, don’t care, really don’t care … I like clean, I like neat, but I
don’t care if it sort of clashes or whatever.
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Christina moves to distance herself from mainstream ideas about taste
and style, on the basis of its elitist nature, its lack of person-centred
authenticity, and its perceived lack of relevance to her key leisure
interests: cable television, pub culture, football and clothes shopping.
This anti-style position is reflected in one of the objects
Christina chooses to discuss in the interview – what she calls the
‘wartishog’:
I’m a bit of a wood girl, and I can show you another piece that I like I’ll
bring it to you … I got this over in Africa for $50, and one of my friends
did it up for me … I like the warthog, my cousin’s been living in Africa
for about seven years, we just went over there I think it was two years
ago and did a driving holiday around South Africa and it was just in
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one of those reserves, it’s really a game park, a lot of them carve
them, but he was just a really good piece … but not finished, totally
unfinished, that sheen, the finish has been done since I’ve been back,
which has made it come up a whole lot better … he’s just unique,
everyone goes ‘ughhh … what’s that!!!’ … wartishog … I sort of like
oddities I suppose, something that no one else has got that’s a bit
weird you know … not because it’s really expensive but because it’s a
bit weird … it’s unique, you’re not going to find things like that in many
houses in Hamilton, are you?
As an object the ‘wartishog’ seems to have been chosen partly for its
perceived lack of conventional beauty or fashionability – for its
aggressively anti-style position. Seen in this context, Christina
adopts a strongly political attitude toward conventional prescriptions
of taste, which has its origins in an anti-fashion outlook. At the
same time, Christina’s stance is display-oriented, because of its
emphasis on the shock-value of the object, manifested through its
perceived strangeness or quirkiness. The sign-value of the object for
Christina is thus not based in conventional standards of beauty or
taste. Its value lies in the same domain as other status objects, but
obtains its currency through different signifiers: physically shocking
rather than refined and understated, provocative rather than calming,
aggressive rather than peaceful. In addition, it is apparent that
the wartishog is strongly associated with Christina’s experiences of
travel, family and friends. It is an exotic object (Riggins, 1994),
linked to a specific touring experience and the contacts with friends
and family involved in such travel. These two cases show how people
attach various meanings to commonplace objects, using them to
think through and account for aspects of self and society more
broadly.
Objects as markers of identity
As the previous examples show, separating aesthetic claims from narratives
or claims about self-identity in the study of objects is somewhat futile, for
in everyday talk – and especially within the artificial setting of a research
interview – a personal aesthetic choice is generally required to be accompanied
by a justification. Such justifications – which sociologists might classify
as being a matter of ‘aesthetics’ – are rarely couched in purely aesthetic
terms, but associated with matters of self-identity and a range of external
factors (such as, for example, monetary cost or needs associated with one’s
life stage). So, while it is rare for respondents to ignore matters of identity
in relation to possessions (even when they are ‘aesthetic’ possessions), the
following case looks at a very private object with a high degree of personal
meaning and a very strong association with personal identity – a bible. The
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bible – like any sacred religious text – is perhaps the ultimate case of a massproduced
object retaining a powerful aura. Even though it is an important
spiritual text, it is also an object of mass production with a vast circulation.
At odds with the status of a sacred text, a bible originates from nowhere
special, essentially having the same qualities as any other mass-produced
textbook or magazine. Yet, it manages to retain an aura of authority. The following
case is not just about any bible, for example, the sort you may find
in a bedside table draw when staying at a hotel, but a highly personalised,
customised object.
A bible is an object that is not generally displayed or carried in public,
but reserved for particular occasions and rituals. It may symbolise deeply
held, cherished values for Christians, and may be respected by people as
a possible legitimate moral code whether or not they are Christian. Yet,
depending on your attitude to religion, the bible can also be an object with
particular stigmas attached – for example, its association with Christianity
as a form of moral imperialism and entrepreneurship, morally and socially
conservative values generally, and adherence to strict or anachronistic
moral codes. This said, the bible may seem an entirely appropriate
accoutrement for a conservative Christian to carry or exhibit, but what
about a university student majoring in philosophy and sociology? The
following case study considers university student Sarah, through her own
words, who nominates her bible as a focal object for understanding her
identity.
Sarah
For Sarah, her Christian faith is a crucial aspect of her identity which
defines her life’s direction and meaning. She wishes to live her life
consistent with Christian beliefs and perceives a significant difference
between her life choices and the life choices those of those who
do not have such beliefs. Her bible is symbolic of her beliefs and, she
says, offers her a way of ‘fighting’ the social pressures that could
pull her away from such beliefs:
My bible comes to represent my identity, and to shape it. When I say
that it represents me I do not mean that it is simply any bible that can
express my identity. It is with the book that I saved to pay for, that I
hand covered, and that I have spent hours poring over, and sometimes
crying over, that I identify.
Sarah’s bible represents her decision to identify with the Christian
beliefs as defining parts of her personal search for direction and
meaning. Yet, she cannot control the way the bible is perceived by
others, and recognises that some people may perceive it with suspicion.
Hence, she reports some anxiety about how the object is perceived by
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others, especially amongst young people and particularly her peers at
university – ‘my nervousness about carrying the bible in public … can
in some ways be seen to indicate the pressure I feel to conform to a
more secular lifestyle’. While the bible carries special, significant
meanings for her, she also recognises that it may signify conservative,
restrictive values to others. Her response is to customise the bible,
transforming it from a mass-produced object into a personalised
object that serves to deconstruct typical notions of how a bible (and a
Christian) should appear. One might say the pressures she feels relate
to (apparently) contradictory roles or membership category locations –
sociology and philosophy student, Christian, alternative university
student, member of a youth sub-culture. Sarah has customised a
young person’s bible:
My fear of being misunderstood can be seen in the way I adorn my
bible. I am aware of the hypocrisy of many people who share my belief
in God and choose not to live a life that exemplifies this, and so I wrap
my bible in corduroy and fill it with poetry so that an observer can see
that it is something I treasure. I want people to see that it is interpolated
into my life, and that it interacts with other parts of my identity … It is
because I am afraid of being seen as a traditional rule-focused
Christian that I need to cover my bible and fill its pockets with other
identity markers.
Sarah’s bible is then a marker of who ‘Sarah’ is, both in terms of her
social identity and for Sarah herself. Furthermore, its meaning is
mediated through popular and contradictory discourses related to
Christianity, youth and being a university student that Sarah has to
negotiate as she reflexively monitors her identity. Her bible thus
retains its core meaning to her as a spiritual guide, but, in its customised
form, helps Sarah to socially mediate aspects of her identity,
given the multiple social locations her identity intersects (youth,
alternative lifestyles, Christian, university student).
Objects as sites of cultural and political power
In this oeuvre, which emerged from new theorisations of the relations
between people and technology, objects are constructed by particular
power relations, and in turn also actively construct such relations. In this
tradition, known as actant-network theory, objects are produced by particular
networks of cultural and political discourses and, in conjunction
with humans, act to reproduce such relations. So, the discourses and networks
which connect people to objects are not only inextricable as if they
are one actor, but may in fact be ‘made of the same stuff’ (MacKenzie and
Wajcman, 1999: 25). Arising from work in the sociology of science and
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technology, actant-network theory tends to focus on new technology
objects such as mobile telephones, machinery which ‘acts for’ people such
as remote controls, speed-bumps or door-grooms, and ‘technological network’
objects like aeroplanes, buildings and motor vehicles. The next section
discusses Foucault’s famous example of the panopticon to explain
how objects are at the centre of discourses and networks of power, and
how they ‘act’ to influence human action. Since Foucault died before
the current research on ‘actant-networks’ arose he is not identified with
that field. However, his work can be seen as developing some important
themes taken up by the current group of actant-network scholars.
Foucault’s genealogical studies of the prison, the hospital and the asylum
plot the emergence of historical discourses which condition the
formation of social institutions and practical knowledges. They might be
said to be historical studies, but first and foremost chart a genealogical
history of the present. Therefore, Discipline and Punish is not a history of
punishment and incarceration. Rather, it is a history of oscillating historical
discourses surrounding punishment. The conclusion it reaches has
implications more far-reaching than understanding the history of incarceration.
The corpus of work is to be found in the case studies presented
by Foucault in the book’s opening chapter which deals with how the body
of the condemned prisoner is treated. In these, he juxtaposes the story of
Damiens, guilty of regicide and committed to make the amende honorable,
with the rules drawn up by Faucher for a house of young prisoners in
Paris. Drawn from newspaper sources, the story of Damiens’ execution is
entirely gory and sanguineous, with the body’s destruction the focus of
the state’s brutal revenge. This account contrasts starkly with Faucher’s
rules for prisoners which emphasise routines, classifications and timetables
which serve to discipline the prisoner’s body, or make it docile. Only
80 years separates these divergent penal styles. Both strategies focus on
the body. However, one makes a spectacle of bodily humiliation, the other
takes place out of public view and touches the body lightly, and only to
direct its routines on a spatial and temporal plane.
This novel penology forms the basis of new economies of power which
play on the body and soul in various subtle but highly efficient ways. It is
this new mode of power, generalised throughout society, which Foucault
heralds as paradigmatic of disciplinary society. While the emblem of the
classical age of punishment was public torture and spectacle, Foucault
argues that modernity has abandoned this for the architectonic configuration
of the panopticon (first proposed by the utilitarian philosopher
Jeremy Bentham). The panopticon is thus a product of emergent discourses
about the nature of punishment, and its relation to the body and
soul. Without the existence of ideas about discipline and surveillance, it
cannot exist. But more than this, the panopticon as an object of technology
acts for people. The insidious elegance of the panopticon’s design
(through the use of lighting and architectural form) is that it allows for the
efficient surveillance of a prison population, for prisoners cannot tell with
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certainty if they are being surveilled or not. Faced with this ambiguity,
and their relative powerlessness as prisoners, they are encouraged to
self-monitor their behaviour under the assumption that they are under
surveillance at all times.
The panopticon is thus an object which is the product of historical
changes in discourses about punishment, and which – although
‘inanimate’ – as a product of its design ‘acts’ to achieve political and
organisational ends. In this way, the distinctions between the discourses
about punishment, the panopticon as material object and the human
actors involved (in the first instance prisoners and guards) can be seen to
result from a network of understandings and relations – as ‘enactments of
strategic logics’ (Law, 2002: 92) – about punishment and control of the
body. Furthermore, the distinction between the panopticon as merely an
‘object’ and the humans who designed and inhabit it is of minor importance,
as the object and human actors perform in concert to achieve
certain ends.
Defining ‘material culture’
Having presented introductory material and considered a range of cases
that fuse with selected theoretical ideas which give a flavour for how
objects can carry cultural meanings, the final section of the chapter
defines the key terminology of material culture studies. Studies of material
culture have as their primary concern the mutual relations between
people and objects. In particular, studies of material culture are concerned
with what uses people put objects to and what objects do for, and to,
people. Furthermore, scholars working in the field of material culture
studies aim to analyse how these relations are one of the important ways
in which culture – and the meanings upon which culture is based – are
transmitted, received and produced. Readers will observe from the previous
case studies that objects have various symbolic meanings for people,
as much as their physical presence is important in structuring the pragmatic
aspects of social life. In its popular scholarly usage, the term ‘material
culture’ is generally taken to refer to any material object (e.g. shoes,
cup, pen) or network of material objects (e.g. house, car, shopping mall)
that people perceive, touch, use and handle, carry out social activities
within, use or contemplate.
Material culture is, chiefly, something portable and perceptible by
touch and therefore has a physical, material existence that is one component
of human cultural practice. Moreover, consistent with contemporary
work in consumption studies that emphasises the mental or ideational
aspects of consumption desires which are mobilised through media and
advertising, material culture also includes things perceptible by sight.
This ability to visualise material culture allows it to enter the imaginary
realm of fantasy and desire, so that objects are also acted upon in the
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mind as ‘dreams and pleasurable dramas’ which are the basis of ongoing
desires for objects of consumption (Campbell, 1987: 90). Having made this
point, it is important to note that in everyday practice this distinction
between discrete physical, embodied and ideational elements of material
culture is indistinguishable and artificial – objects are culturally powerful
because in practice they connect physical and mental manipulation.
What term is best to describe the ‘material’ component of material culture
studies? The term ‘material culture’ is often used in conjunction with
‘things’, ‘objects’, ‘artefacts’, ‘goods’, ‘commodities’ and, more recently,
‘actants’. These terms (with the exception of the last) are, for most purposes,
used interchangeably. There are, however, some important nuances
in the meaning of each term, which help to demarcate the context in
which it should be used. We can begin with the most general term and
move to the most specific. ‘Things’ have a concrete and real material existence
but the word ‘thing’ suggests an inanimate or inert quality, requiring
that actors bring things to life through imagination or physical
activity. ‘Objects’ are discrete components of material culture that are perceptible
by touch or sight. ‘Artefacts’ are the physical products or traces
of human activity. Like objects, they have importance because of their
materiality or concreteness, and become the subject of retrospective interpretation
and ordering. Artefacts are generally regarded as symbolic of
some prior aspect of cultural or social activity. ‘Goods’ are objects that are
produced under specific market relations, typically assumed to be capitalism,
where they are assigned value within a system of exchange. The
word ‘commodity’ is a technical expression related to the concept of a
‘good’. Similarly, a commodity is something that can be exchanged.
Objects enter into and out of spheres of commoditisation, so that an object
that is now a commodity might not always remain a commodity due to its
incorporation into private or ritual worlds of individuals, families and cultures.
‘Actant’ is a term developed from recent approaches in the sociology
of science and technology which refers to entities – both human and
non-human – which have the ability to ‘act’ socially. By dissolving the
boundary between people who ‘act’ and objects which are seen as inanimate
or ‘outside’, the term ‘actant’ is designed to overcome any a priori
distinction between the social, technological and natural worlds, and
emphasises the inextricable links between humans and material things.
When using any of these terms there is a danger of reification – that is,
of imagining that objects are simply there for human actors to engage
with or use up, as though they exist apart from cultural and social history,
narrative and codes. Kopytoff (1986) points out that in western thought a
mythic dichotomy exists between the notion of ‘individualised’ persons
and ‘commoditised’ things which has constructed an inflexible and limiting
binary for understanding the relations between persons and things.
What’s more, there is a danger in pursuing a hard distinction between
objects as part of an artefactual world and the other natural world (Miller,
1994: 407). As Miller argues, we should take care to recognise that ‘the
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continual process by which meaning is giving to things is the same
process by which meaning is given to lives’ (1994: 417).What’s more, some
theorists are of the opinion it may be of greater use to collapse such distinctions
and see a radical dissolution of the human/non-human distinction,
as suggested by actor, or ‘actant’, network theory. According to this
theory, objects are not only defined by their material quality, but by their
location within systems of narrative and logic laid out by social discourses
related to technology, culture, economy and politics. Objects exist
within networks of relations that serve to define, mediate and order them,
and which in turn are ‘acted upon’ by such objects and human subjects,
affording them purpose and meaning within a system of social relations
(Law, 2002: 91–2). In other words, objects exist because social, cultural and
political forces define them as objects within systems of relations with
other objects.
Whatever term one chooses to apply in a given context – whether it is
objects, actants, material culture, things or goods – one needs only look to
their immediate surroundings to find examples. It is this endless diversity
and ordinariness of subjects for study that makes material culture studies
fascinating and fundamental to understanding culture.
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING
Lury’s Consumer Culture (1996) is a concise and interesting critical review of a
range of literatures within the related field of consumption studies. Particularly
useful is Chapter 2 of this work, which investigates the link between consumer
culture and material culture. Douglas and Isherwood’s The World of Goods
([1996]1979) is a foundational work, uniquely combining insights from the
disciplines of economics and anthropology. Much of what Douglas and Isherwood
say about the uses of material culture has since become elemental to contemporary
studies of material culture. The principle ideas of the work are expressed in
Chapters 3 and 4. Kopytoff’s (1986) essay is also important to defining the current
field and requires some close reading. This essay on the cultural biography of
things explains how objects have biographies and discusses the way objects
are commoditised and ‘singularised’ – personalised or given special or sacred
meaning within a culture – in capitalist societies. Chapter 1 of Dittmar’s The Social
Psychology of Material Possessions (1992) is a lucid introduction to consumption
and material culture studies from a social psychological perspective. In addition,
consider reading small-scale empirical studies which engage with material culture
perspectives in relation to identity-based consumption in a way accessible to the
beginning reader – see Miles (1996) on youth and the use of sneakers in construction
of a symbolic universe, Lupton and Noble (2002) on the customisation of
personal computers within the workplace, and Woodward (2001, 2003) on narratives
of identity construction using domestic material culture.
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