soci/anth 441 material culture week 4: gender and domesticity

Week 4 — Gender and DomesticitySOCI/ANTH 441 Material CultureAlexandre EnkerliSeptember 24, 2008

Today

•Logistics•Themes and approaches in material

culture•Readings

Logistics

•Pre-write tonight at latest▫Will give feedback ASAP

•Project Part I next week•Forum discussions•Fabian on materiality of text

Rights

•Property rights•Intellectual property•Cultural heritage•Appropriation

Sociology of Technology

•Technology adoption•Shaping•Science•Engineering•Industrialization•Postmodernism

Subjectivity

•Embodiment•Agency•Aesthetics•Personalization/customization•Value•Fetishism

SI

•Self as social construction•Self is both subject and object•Learn self by interaction with material

objects•Making sense of the world and creating it

SI and Material Culture

•Communicating self•Embodiment•Extend personality•Reminder of sense of self•Stability•Familiarity•Emotion

Contact with Object

•Tactile•Communication•Bodies and things•Reveals inside

Self and Physical World

•Social relation•Mother as object•Later division humans/non-humans•Objects maintain social attributes

Goffman

•Presentation of self•Face-to-face interactions•Negotiations and drama•Categories of Objects (status,

exotic/indigenous, collective, stigma)•Official/alien uses (intended/unintended)•Social facilitators (conversation piece,

fidget…)

Material Context (Room)

•Co-location•Highlighting/understating•Clustering/dispersing•Status inconsistency (eclectism)•Conformism (cultural norms)•Comment elicitation (conversation piece)

Technological Politics

•Do things have politics? (Langdon Winner)▫Bridge against busses▫Racism of bridge

•Social determinism (“Guns don’t kill people”)

•Technological determinism (“Guns make people kill people”)

Politics and Objects

•Embodiment (engineer social relationships)

•Inherent politics (required relationships)•Imbued (after the fact)

Themes from Texts?

Gordon References

•Bauman•Huizinga•Bakhtin•Geertz•Dundes•Merleau-Ponty•Lakoff and Johnson•Csikszentmihalyi•Goffman

Research methods

•Folkloristics•Ethnographic semiotics•Longitudinal content analysis (neat

method)•Particularism•Microlevel analysis•Description

Folkloristics

•Tradition•Material to verbal•Festivals•Humour•Domestic cultural property

People

•Roles (curator, inspiration, interlocutors, etc.)

•Hommage/altar•Sense of community•Constructing groups•Playfulness

Gender and Solidarity

•Proxemics•Nurturing•Class and social identity•Students, professors, secretaries•Contrast with office•Privacy•Community of experience/practise•Group property•Inside jokes

Privacy

•Intimacy•Chat to formal•Inclusion/exclusion

Objects

•Seed object•Identification with person•Silence•Kitsch

Subverting Consumerism

•Freebies•Recycling•Inexpensive•Unintended uses

Embodiment

•Communal body•Somatic sense of self•Sensory experience•Gendered body

Sense of place (Basso)

•Territory•Choice of facilities•Story of the space•Symbolism

Pascali References

•Derrida•Douglas•Pocius

Distinctions

•Informal/formal•Inclusion/exclusion•Familiarity/distance•Private/public•Practical/Waste

Gender

•Freedom•Control of space•Cleanliness•Kinship

Immigrant culture

•Home ownership as success•“Internalized vision of what others might

think”•Architecture•Self-identity and social class•Kitsch•Seasons

Places and Objects

•Extra Room•Status symbols•Precious items•Cost-cutting•Enjoying one's things

Next Week

•Project•Barbie archaeology•Museum and interpretation