Table Of ContentMaterial cultures
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Consumption and space
Series editors
Peter Jackson, University of Sheffield
Michelle Lowe, University of Southampton
Frank Mort, University of Portsmouth
Adopting an inter-disciplinary perspective and combining contemporary and historical
analysis, Consumption and space aims to develop a dialogue between cultural studies and
human geography, opening up areas for serious intellectual debate.
Published
Sean Nixon
Hard looks: masculinities, spectatorship and contemporary consumption
Daniel Miller (editor)
Material cultures: why some things matter
Material cultures
Why some things matter
Edited by
Daniel Miller
University College London
© Daniel Miller and contributors, 1998
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
First published in 1998 by UCL Press
UCL Press Limited
Taylor & Francis Group
1 Gunpowder Square
London EC4A 3DE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
The name of University College London (UCL) is a registered trade mark used by UCL
Press with the consent of the owner.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data are available
ISBNs: 1-85728-685-5 HB
1-85728-686-3 PB
ISBN 0-203-03314-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-18558-7 (Glassbook Format)
To the memory of Beatrice Hart
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Notes on contributors xi
Part I
Introduction
1 Why some things matter 3
Daniel Miller
Part II
The domestic sphere
2 Radio texture: between self and others 25
Jo Tacchi
3 From woollen carpet to grass carpet: bridging house and
garden in an English suburb 47
Sophie Chevalier
4 Window shopping at home: classifieds, catalogues and new
consumer skills 73
Alison J. Clarke
Part III
The public sphere
5 The message in paper 103
Andrea Pellegram
vii
CONTENTS
6 Material of culture, fabric of identity 121
Neil Jarman
7 Calypso’s consequences 147
Justin Finden-Crofts
Part IV
The global sphere (or the World Wide West)
8 Coca-Cola: a black sweet drink from Trinidad 169
Daniel Miller
9 Signs of the new nation: gift exchange, consumption and
aid on a former collective farm in north-west Estonia 189
Sigrid Rausing
10 At home and abroad: inalienable wealth, personal
consumption and the formulations of femininity in the
southern Philippines 215
Mark Johnson
Index 239
viii
Acknowledgements
The introduction makes note of the fact that all the contributors worked together for
several years as a team in order to produce this volume. But it does not acknowledge the
social context through which this was done. Indeed the most important
acknowledgement in this case should perhaps go to the role of alcohol, without which it
is doubtful that this volume would have been produced, or at least with the degree of
enthusiasm and excitement that I hope comes through in the various chapters. As you
might guess, such an acknowledgement begs a story.
The story begins in January 1992. All the contributors to this volume except Sophie
Chevalier were registered as students in the Department of Anthropology, University
College London, working for their PhDs under my supervision. Since many of them
had families and found it difficult to come in for most of the more regular
departmental functions, we decided to initiate a monthly evening meeting at which one
of us would present a pre-circulated chapter that would be discussed by the others. The
first evening set up a routine that has since remained unaltered. We would meet at
around 5.00pm at a pub near the department. Here we would sit and drink, gossip and
talk about things and persons in a manner that shall certainly not be repeated in print.
At some time around 7.05pm (when I tend to get restless since my mental “clock” is
telling me I am missing The Archers – a radio soap opera) we would move on to a nearby
Italian restaurant that had the advantages of being relatively inexpensive, self-service
and having large tables with, on a weekday, relatively few people. At this point beer
could give way to wine and gossip to discussion of the chapter in question. By this point
also, enough alcohol had usually been consumed that the comments that paper-givers
received were often of a fairly robust and uninhibited kind, so that we all bear the scars
of our particular encounters with the group. This was the public sphere within which
the various ideas and papers rewritten as chapters of this book were created.
Sophie Chevalier is the exception here, in that she came as a post-doctoral student
after studying with Martine Segalen in Paris. Although based at Cambridge, she became
a regular attender at these evenings for a period of two years and contributed papers to
the group along with the others. The drinking group has also included visitors who have
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