Understanding material culture

"Understanding Material Culture" offers a systematic overview of the diverse ways of studying the material as culture.

Surveying the field of material culture studies through an examination and synthesis of classical and contemporary scholarship on objects, commodities, consumption, and symbolization, this book: introduces the key concepts and approaches in the study of objects and their meanings; presents the full sweep of core theory - from Marxist and critical approaches to structuralism and semiotics - to evaluate the frameworks for approaching the material world; shows how and why people use objects to perform identity, achieve social status, and narrativize life experiences; analyzes everyday domains in which objects are important: social status, identity, social performance and narrativization; and shows why studying material culture is necessary for understanding the social.