Thing Politics and Life-Worlds: On the Dynamics of Materiality (2019) (original) (raw)

The history of the study of material culture is essentially guided by the notion that things function as representatives of society, of the persons involved, and of status differences. “Tell me what you have, and I’ll tell you who you are” is the motto of this way of thinking. In this context, stability and traditions are closely associated with material culture, culminating in readings that consider material culture an expression of individual as well as collective identities. In many cases, material objects are also taken as evidence for the continuity of social relations and the expression of stable orientation and values. Informed by the widely acclaimed essays by Thorstein Veblen, Georg Simmel and Pierre Bourdieu, material culture studies propose a strong nexus of social structure, material equipment and the characteristics of certain social groups. Most probably this is the guiding theme in the long tradition of investigating the significance of materiality in societies.