1930s Semi-detached House
Car Boot Sales
Category=JBCC
Category=JBCC6
Category=JHB
Category=JHMC
Conjugal Relationship
Contemporary Japanese
Couple Constructed
cross-cultural comparison
cross-cultural domestic material culture
domestic ethnography
domestic space analysis
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eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
everyday materiality
Follow
Greek Students
Greek Taste
Holy Mountain
Home Decoration
Home Sweet Home
Japanese Aesthetics
Japanese House
Japanese Style Room
Living Room
Material Culture
Mrs Olar
North East Romania
qualitative fieldwork
Sitting Room
social identity formation
Social Reproduction
Suceava County
Tatami Mats
Tatami Room
Teddy Bear
Vice Versa
Product details
- ISBN 9781859735800
- Weight: 453g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 01 Oct 2001
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Although so much of the life we care about takes place at home, this private space often remains behind closed doors and is notoriously difficult for researchers to infiltrate. We may think it is just up to us to decorate, transform and construct our homes, but in this book we discover a new form of ‘estate agency', the active participation of the home and its material culture in the construction of our lives. What do the possessions people choose to take with them when moving say about who they are, and should we emphasize the mobility of a move or the stability of what movers take with them? How is the home an active partner in developing relationships? Why are our homes sometimes haunted by 'ghosts'?. This intriguing book is a rare behind-the-scenes exposé of the domestic sphere across a range of cultures. Examples come from working class housewives in Norway, a tribal society in Taiwan, a museum in London, tenants in Canada and students from Greece, to produce a genuinely comparative perspective based in every case on sustained fieldwork. So Japan, long thought to be a nation that idealizes uncluttered simplicity, is shown behind closed doors to harbour illicit pockets of disorganization, while the warmth inside Romanian apartments is used to expel the presence of the state. Representing a vital development in the study of material culture, this book clearly shows that we may think we possess our homes, but our homes are more likely to possess us.
Daniel Miller is Professor of Anthropology, University College London. Recent books include 'A Theory of Shopping', 'The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach' (with Don Slater) and Ed. 'Car Cultures'.
