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