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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
Individual and neo-tribal consumption: Tales from the Simpsons of Springfield
TL;DR: This article put forward a model for the analysis of consumption as an expression of the self (individualistic consumption) and as a system of meaning enabling linkage to social tribes (tribalistic consumption), and applied this framework in a semiotic analysis of The Simpsons.
Journal ArticleDOI
Spectacles of ethnicity: festivals and the commodification of ethnic culture among louisiana cajuns
Carl L. Bankston,Jacques Henry +1 more
TL;DR: The authors identified the festival as a key aspect of the Cajun revival since the 1960s and suggested that changes in the perception of an ethnic identity are related to socioeconomic transformation, and that the consumption of ethnic commodities is linked by the consumers with a sense of tradition and descent from a mythic past.
Journal ArticleDOI
Symbolic Products: Prestige, Pride and Identity Goods
TL;DR: In this article, the authors distinguish between two kinds of products, symbolic and substantive, and propose that symbolic products have a distorted form, while substantive products are self-regarding utility.
Journal ArticleDOI
Household Disbandment in Later Life
TL;DR: Activities that older people undertake to reduce the volume of their possessions in the course of a residential move to smaller quarters are described, a process with practical, cognitive, emotional, and social dimensions.
Proceedings ArticleDOI
Second-hand interactions: investigating reacquisition and dispossession practices around domestic objects
James Pierce,Eric Paulos +1 more
TL;DR: A qualitative study of reacquisition-the acquisition of previously possessed goods-is presented,volving in-depth interviews with 18 reacquirers within or nearby Pittsburgh, PA, USA, based on critiques of sustainable consumption and findings.