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The World of Goods
Mary Douglas,Baron Isherwood +1 more
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TLDR
The World of Goods as mentioned in this paper is a classic of economic anthropology whose insights remain compelling and urgent, arguing that poverty is caused as much by the erosion of local communities and networks as it is by lack of possessions and contrast small-scale with large-scale consumption in the household.Abstract:
It is well-understood that the consumption of goods plays an important, symbolic role in the way human beings communicate, create identity, and establish relationships. What is less well-known is that the pattern of their flow shapes society in fundamental ways. In this book the renowned anthropologist Mary Douglas and economist Baron Isherwood overturn arguments about consumption that rely on received economic and psychological explanations. They ask new questions about why people save, why they spend, what they buy, and why they sometimes-but not always-make fine distinctions about quality.
Instead of regarding consumption as a private means of satisfying one’s preferences, they show how goods are a vital information system, used by human beings to fulfill their intentions towards one another. They also consider the implications of the social role of goods for a new vision for social policy, arguing that poverty is caused as much by the erosion of local communities and networks as it is by lack of possessions, and contrast small-scale with large-scale consumption in the household.
A radical rethinking of consumerism, inequality and social capital, The World of Goods is a classic of economic anthropology whose insights remain compelling and urgent.
This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Richard Wilk.
"Forget that commodities are good for eating, clothing, and shelter; forget their usefulness and try instead the idea that commodities are good for thinking." – Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwoodread more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Notes toward an Application of McCracken's “Cultural Categories” for Cross-Cultural Consumer Research
Kalman Applbaum,Ingrid Jordt +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, a procedure for operationalizing the descriptive term "cultural categories" for cross-cultural consumer research is described, based on analyzing the acceptance, use, and meaning-attachment patterns of selected goods or services in a given environment.
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Displacing Disney: Some notes on the flow of culture
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative reading of the theme parks Disneyland, DisneyWorld, Tokyo Disneyland, and EuroDisney is presented to explore how an explicitly American product flows across distinct cultural boundaries.
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Antecedents and consequences of consumer value assessments: implications for marketing strategy and future research
TL;DR: In this article, a new understanding of the consumer's value assessments is suggested which is based on consumer value production within dynamic patterns of consumption, and the implications of this understanding are then outlined for marketing strategy and future research.
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Fashioning an Industry: Socio-cognitive Processes in the Construction of Worth of a New Industry
TL;DR: In this paper, a study of the high-end fashion industry in India examines the process of construction of the worth of a new industry and finds that framing by early entrepreneurs and the socio-cognitive processes that resulted from the transactions of field-constituents with the new industry constructed the value of the industry.
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Consumers Exiting Socialism: Ethnographic Perspectives on Daily Life in Post-Communist Europe
TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce a dossier on la consommation dans l'Europe postsocialiste (ex-URSS and pays de l'Est), and situent d'abord brievement ces nouvelles ethnographies par rapport aux contributions recentes sur l'anthropologie de la culture materielle and de la consumption.