"Yesterday I pawned a coat dating back to my Liverpool days in order to buy writing paper."
-- Marx 1983a [1852-55]: 221.
In an article entitled "Marx's Coat,"
Peter Stallybrass discusses how a separation between people and objects became
increasingly taken for granted through the development of capitalism in
the mid-nineteenth century. With this normalization of a clear and solid
boundary between people and objects, the notion of something called a fetish
was developed to describe when this boundary appeared to be less solid.
The act of fetishizing an object, or understanding it to have important value based
upon personal, social or sentimental reasons, was understood to be something
done by Others. People living and
participating in the bourgeoning capitalist economy knew an object's most
important worth was determined by its exchange value (how much it cost, how
much it could be sold for). As Stallybrass states, for those in the
West, the association between fetishism and the Other “implied a new definition
of what it meant to be European: that is, a subject unhampered by fixation upon
objects, a subject who, having recognized the true (i.e. market) value of the
object-as-commodity, fixated instead upon the transcendental values that
transformed gold into ships, ships into guns, guns into tobacco, tobacco into
sugar, sugar into gold, and all into an accountable profit.” He
continues, noting that this emphasis on exchange value “demonized in the
concept of the fetish . . . the possibility that history, memory, and desire might
be materialized in objects that are touched and loved and worn."
The demonization of the potential for material culture to hold memories,
evoke emotions and desire, results from what Stallybrass describes as “the radically dematerialized opposition
between the ‘individual’ and his or her ‘possessions’ (between subject and
object).” This, he argues, “is one of the central ideological oppositions of
capitalist societies.”
But this way of relating to objects, this fetishization, as it were, wasn't the problem, for Marx. As Stallybrass tells us: "The problem for Marx was . . . not with fetishism as such but rather with a specific form of fetishism that took as its object not the animized object of human labour and love but the evacuated nonobject that was the site of exchange." This idea, Stallybrass explains, was at the root of Marx's Capital. "In the place of a coat," Stallybrass writes, "there was a transcendental value that erased both the making and wearing of the coat. Capital was Marx's attempt to give back the coat to its owner" (184-7).
Now, anyone who has ever found themselves upset over breaking a mug that belonged to a dear family member, or fallen in love with a pair of shoes, or destroyed gifts in a cathartic act when scorned by a lover, has experienced the discordant value of objects inside and outside of their exchange value. For the working-class Marx, as Stallybrass shows, his overcoat carried numerous valuations throughout its life: "[t]o have one's coat, to wear it on one's back, was to hold onto a memory system that at a moment of crisis could be transformed back into money" (202).
Along with other items belonging to his family, it went in and out of pawnshops, its worth determined by its exchange value.
When he had possession of it, wearing the coat not only kept Marx warm, but it indicated his belonging to a certain group, and with that, it opened doors. Literally. It allowed him access to the British Museum where he did research.
Stallybrass' article on Marx's Coat concludes with a thought-provoking statement about people, things and value:
"It has become cliche to say that we should not treat people like things. But it is a cliche that misses the point. What have we done to things to have such contempt for them? And who can afford to have such contempt? Why are prisoners stripped of their clothes, if not to strip them of themselves? Marx, having a precarious hold upon the materials of self-construction, knew the value of his own coat" (203).
Peter Stallybrass, “Marx’s Coat,”
in Border Fetishisms: Material Objects in Unstable Spaces, ed.
Patricia Spyer (New York: Routledge, 1998): 183–207.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Compromising Things
In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the novel's protagonist, Winston Smith, has a penchant for objects connected to a past quickly fading from memory.
Midway through the novel, he returns to the junk shop where he had purchased a diary, described as a "compromising possession" to have in a society under the ever-watchful rule of the Ministry.
The junk shop was full of miscellaneous things carrying little to no value in the world he now lived. When he approached a table with "a litter of odds and ends -- lacquered snuff-boxes, agate brooches, and the like," a curious item caught his eye: "a round, smooth thing that gleamed softly in the lamplight."
He picked it up to admire it. It was "a heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on the other, making almost a hemisphere. There was a peculiar softness, as of rainwater, in both the colour and the texture of the glass. At the heart of it, magnified by the curved surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object that recalled a rose or a sea anemone."
The shopkeeper explained that it was a piece of coral, explaining, "They used to kind of embed it in the glass. That wasn't made less than a hundred years ago. More, by the look of it.
'It's a beautiful thing,' said Winston.
'It is a beautiful thing,' said the other appreciatively. 'But there's not many that'd say so nowadays.' He coughed."
Winston purchased it, and "slid the coveted thing into his pocket."
"What appealed to him about it was not so much its beauty as the air it seemed to possess of belonging to an age quite different from the present one. The soft, rainwatery glass was not like any glass that he had ever seen. The thing was doubly attractive because of its apparent uselessness, though he could guess that it must once have been intended as a paperweight... it was a queer thing, even a compromising thing, for a Party member to have in his possession. Anything old, and for that matter anything beautiful, was always vaguely suspect."
Midway through the novel, he returns to the junk shop where he had purchased a diary, described as a "compromising possession" to have in a society under the ever-watchful rule of the Ministry.
The junk shop was full of miscellaneous things carrying little to no value in the world he now lived. When he approached a table with "a litter of odds and ends -- lacquered snuff-boxes, agate brooches, and the like," a curious item caught his eye: "a round, smooth thing that gleamed softly in the lamplight."
He picked it up to admire it. It was "a heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on the other, making almost a hemisphere. There was a peculiar softness, as of rainwater, in both the colour and the texture of the glass. At the heart of it, magnified by the curved surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object that recalled a rose or a sea anemone."
The shopkeeper explained that it was a piece of coral, explaining, "They used to kind of embed it in the glass. That wasn't made less than a hundred years ago. More, by the look of it.
'It's a beautiful thing,' said Winston.
'It is a beautiful thing,' said the other appreciatively. 'But there's not many that'd say so nowadays.' He coughed."
Winston purchased it, and "slid the coveted thing into his pocket."
"What appealed to him about it was not so much its beauty as the air it seemed to possess of belonging to an age quite different from the present one. The soft, rainwatery glass was not like any glass that he had ever seen. The thing was doubly attractive because of its apparent uselessness, though he could guess that it must once have been intended as a paperweight... it was a queer thing, even a compromising thing, for a Party member to have in his possession. Anything old, and for that matter anything beautiful, was always vaguely suspect."
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Material Culture and Consumer Research
I was recently introduced to a body of literature in the field of Consumer Research, which deals with material culture. I was, at first, surprised by the number of articles in this field that theorize individual, family, and social relations to objects. However, on second thought, it made sense to me that people involved in marketing would want to understand how we attach ourselves, or relate to, to dis-attach ourselves from, possessions and commodities. I was intrigued by how many of the authors engage with theoretical work I became familiar with through courses in museum studies and museum anthropology: Kopytoff (singluarlizaton/commoditzation), Susan Stewart (souvenirs, miniatures, etc.), Bruno Latour (Actor Network Theory), and Daniel Miller, for example.
Although I have only read a few of the many articles out there, I have found them useful for getting a sense of how social scientists are applying concepts I've been working with in a historical/museum anthropology way.
I first came across some of these articles through a professor friend, with whom I'm doing a mini-reading group. It's part of a larger bibliography created by the Canadian Genealogical Survey, a SSHRC-funded project which, as they explain, seeks "to understand the nature of family history research and its importance for those who undertake to travel to and visit sites of genealogical resources as well as for those who do much of their work via the Internet." The complete bibliography can be found here. I've cut and pasted the section related to material culture below.
Although I have only read a few of the many articles out there, I have found them useful for getting a sense of how social scientists are applying concepts I've been working with in a historical/museum anthropology way.
I first came across some of these articles through a professor friend, with whom I'm doing a mini-reading group. It's part of a larger bibliography created by the Canadian Genealogical Survey, a SSHRC-funded project which, as they explain, seeks "to understand the nature of family history research and its importance for those who undertake to travel to and visit sites of genealogical resources as well as for those who do much of their work via the Internet." The complete bibliography can be found here. I've cut and pasted the section related to material culture below.
Ahuvia, Aaron (2005), “Beyond the Extended Self: Loved Objects and Consumers’ Identity Narratives,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 32, Iss. June, pp. 171-184.
Belk, Russell W. (1988), “Possessions and the Extended Self,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 15, Iss. Sept, pp. 139-168.
Belk, Russell W. (1990), “The Role of Possessions in Constructing and Maintaining a Sense of Past,” in Marvin E. Goldberg, Gerald Gorn and Richard W. Pollay (Eds.), Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 17, Association for Consumer Research, Provo, UT, pp. 669-676.
Belk, Russell W. (1991), “Possessions and the Sense of the Past,” in Russell W. Belk (Ed.), Highways and Buyways: Naturalistic Research from the Consumer Odyssey, Association for Consumer Research, Provo, UT, pp. 114-130.
Belk, Russell W. (1992), “Moving Possessions: An Analysis Based on Personal Documents from the 1847-1869 Mormon Migration,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 19, Iss. Dec, pp. 339-361.
Bradford, Tonya Williams (2009), “Intergenerationally Gifted Asset Dispositions,”Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 36, Iss. June, pp. 93-111.
Curasi, Carolyn Folkman, Price, Linda L. and Arnould, Eric J. (2004), “How Individuals’ Cherished Possessions Become Families’ Inalienable Wealth,”Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 31, Iss. Dec, pp. 609-622.
Epp, Amber M. and Price, Linda L. (2010), “The Storied Life of Singularized Objects: Forces of Agency and Network Transformation,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 36, Iss. Feb, pp. 820-837.
Epp, Amber M. and Price, Linda L. (2008), “Family Identity: A Framework of Identity Interplay in Consumption Practices,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 35 Iss. Jun, pp. 50-70.
Gentry, James, Baker, Stacey Menzel and Kraft, Frederick B. (1995), “The Role of Possessions in Creating, Maintaining, and Preserving One’s Identity: Variation over Life Course,” in Frank R. Kardes and Mita Sujan (Eds.),Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 22, Association for Consumer Research, Provo, UT, pp. 413-418.
Joy, Annamma and Dholakia, Ruby (1991), “Remembrances of Things Past: The Meaning of Home and Possessions of Indian Professionals in Canada,” in Floyd Rudmin (Ed.), To Have Possessions: A Handbook on Ownership and Property, Select Press, Corte Madera, CA, pp. 385-402.
Mayer, Karl Ulrich (2009), “New Directions in Life Course Research,” Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 35, pp. 413-433.
Mehta, Raj and Belk, Russell W. (1991), “Artifacts, Identity and Transition: Favorite Possessions of Indians and Indian Immigrants to the United States,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 17, Iss. Mar, pp. 398-411.
Molinari, Victor and Reichlan, Robert E. (1985), “Life Review Reminiscence in the Elderly: A Review of the Literature,” International Journal of Aging and Human Development, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 81-92.
Price, Linda L., Arnould, Eric J. and Curasi, Carolyn Folkman (2000), “Older Consumers’ Disposition of Special Possessions,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 27, Iss. Sep, pp. 179-201.
Schau, Hope Jensen, Gilly, Mary C. and Wolfinbarger, Mary (2009), “Consumer Identity Renaissance: The Resurgence of Identity-Inspired Consumption in Retirement,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 36, Iss. Aug, pp. 255-276.
Watson, Murray (2003), Being English in Scotland, University of Edinburgh Press, Edinburgh.
Young, Melissa Martin (1991), “Disposition of Possessions during Role Transitions,” in Rebecca Holman and Michael Solomon (Eds.) Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 18, Association for Consumer Research, Provo, UT, 33-39.
Young, Melissa Martin and Wallendorf, Melanie (1989), “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust: Conceptualizing Consumer Disposition of Possessions,” in American Marketing Association Winter Educators’ Conference Proceedings, American Marketing Association, Chicago, pp. 33-39.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Thinking Through Things: Analytic or Heuristic?
In my thesis, I am struggling to develop a clear articulation of what I am trying to do with the objects that I'm studying. I have been resistant to identifying my approach with a single theory, though I can cite several texts, concepts and scholars who have inspired my approach, or who inform what I am doing.
As I unpack the contexts surrounding certain items now in museum collections, I do wonder -- am I implicitly using the objects as portals into a time and place, or are they somehow more central? Is there something about using objects as sources that gives my analysis something extra, that could not be gleaned through documentary evidence?
In the introduction to Thinking Through Things: Theorizing Artefacts Ethnographically (2007), the editors Amiria Henare, Martin Holbraad and Sari Wastell describe an emerging way of approaching material culture they have found in their discipline, anthropology. Now, there's a lot going on in this intro. And I'm only on page 9.
One part that has stuck with me is how they differentiate between two ways of approaching things:
1) Thing-as-Analytic
2) Thing-as-Heuristic
Skipping over their discussion on why the word "thing" is more useful than "object" or "material culture" (basically, as they say, it carries "less theoretical baggage" than other terms), I will jump to how these two approaches differ.
Thing-as-Analytic - This is when a thing is treated as a point of entry into understanding the internal logic of its users, or the culture from which it came. So you try to understand why, say, wampum became so valued in Onkwehonwe communities back in the day. Could it have had something to do with its shiny surface, which lent it an aura of power or value? We might look into how shiny things, the colours white and purple, or shells, carry value in Onkwehonwe oral tradition, and then re-construct how it might be that people came to believe that wampum was valuable.
Thing-as-Heuristic - This is when we try to understand the thing on its own terms, and then build a theory from that. It is almost backwards from the other way. We accept the valuation that wampum is powerful and valuable, and then go from there. From this starting point, we then try to build categories that make sense, rather than parsing the thing and its significance in ways that fit with categories or theories that we might already believe, or like to use.
Or, in their own words, on page 7: "So the distinction between 'things-as-analytics' versus 'things-as-heuristics' points toward the absolute productivity of non-definition -- towards a new impulse within anthropology to move beyond the development of ever more nuanced filters through which to pass phenomena, through to engagements with things as conduits for concept production."
In the introduction to Thinking Through Things: Theorizing Artefacts Ethnographically (2007), the editors Amiria Henare, Martin Holbraad and Sari Wastell describe an emerging way of approaching material culture they have found in their discipline, anthropology. Now, there's a lot going on in this intro. And I'm only on page 9.
One part that has stuck with me is how they differentiate between two ways of approaching things:
1) Thing-as-Analytic
2) Thing-as-Heuristic
Skipping over their discussion on why the word "thing" is more useful than "object" or "material culture" (basically, as they say, it carries "less theoretical baggage" than other terms), I will jump to how these two approaches differ.
Thing-as-Analytic - This is when a thing is treated as a point of entry into understanding the internal logic of its users, or the culture from which it came. So you try to understand why, say, wampum became so valued in Onkwehonwe communities back in the day. Could it have had something to do with its shiny surface, which lent it an aura of power or value? We might look into how shiny things, the colours white and purple, or shells, carry value in Onkwehonwe oral tradition, and then re-construct how it might be that people came to believe that wampum was valuable.
Thing-as-Heuristic - This is when we try to understand the thing on its own terms, and then build a theory from that. It is almost backwards from the other way. We accept the valuation that wampum is powerful and valuable, and then go from there. From this starting point, we then try to build categories that make sense, rather than parsing the thing and its significance in ways that fit with categories or theories that we might already believe, or like to use.
Or, in their own words, on page 7: "So the distinction between 'things-as-analytics' versus 'things-as-heuristics' points toward the absolute productivity of non-definition -- towards a new impulse within anthropology to move beyond the development of ever more nuanced filters through which to pass phenomena, through to engagements with things as conduits for concept production."
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