Leseprobe
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The Comfort of Things
Daniel Miller
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Sozialwissenschaften, Recht, Wirtschaft / Sonstiges
Beschreibung
What do we know about ordinary people in our towns and cities, about what really matters to them and how they organize their lives today? This book visits an ordinary street and looks into thirty households. It reveals the aspirations and frustrations, the tragedies and accomplishments that are played out behind the doors. It focuses on the things that matter to these people, which quite often turn out to be material things - their house, the dog, their music, the Christmas decorations. These are the means by which they express who they have become, and relationships to objects turn out to be central to their relationships with other people - children, lovers, brothers and friends. If this is a typical street in a modern city like London, then what kind of society is this? It's not a community, nor a neighbourhood, nor is it a collection of isolated individuals. It isn't dominated by the family. We assume that social life is corrupted by materialism, made superficial and individualistic by a surfeit of consumer goods, but this is misleading. If the street isn't any of these things, then what is it? This brilliant and revealing portrayal of a street in modern London, written by one the most prominent anthropologists, shows how much is to be gained when we stop lamenting what we think we used to be and focus instead on what we are now becoming. It reveals the forms by which ordinary people make sense of their lives, and the ways in which objects become our companions in the daily struggle to make life meaningful.
Rezensionen
"Miller's moving account...is a stout defence of that pejorativenotion: 'only sentimental value.'He builds up a tapestry of thevariety of ways in which people use things to express themselvesand make meaning in their lives. The nondescript, the ordinary canbe invested with great value."
"An outstanding piece of work: a fine example of modernanthropological fieldwork, a powerful corrective to the banalnotion that materialism is synonymous with excessive individualismand, perhaps above all, an informed, sensitive, and whollysympathetic guide to the human diversity to be found through thekeyholes of our capital city."
"A wonderful and unusual antidote to the fear that humanity andindividuality is losing its battle with modern consumerism. In hisbook, even the most trivial product of consumerism can be renderedalmost magical by its owners."
"This book sums up how far social anthropology has progressedsince Henry Mayhew wrote about the skull shapes of costermongers inthe 19th century."
"A set of delicately drawn pen portraits of lives in a single,unnamed South London street ... this is a book quite out of theordinary. While you read these pages, this is the street where youlive."
"[I]t would be an injustice to Daniel Miller and to theexquisite text he has crafted to describe The Comfort ofThings as anything less than beautifully written ... Thisparticular book opens up a variety of avenues for exploration, andserves as a reminder of what sociologists can learn from such richanthropological research."
"This is social anthropology at its finest."
"This is the very best kind of micro-ethnography. Miller writesbetter - and with more insight and compassion - than mostnovelists. This book will profoundly change the way you look atyour friends' and neighbours' homes and possessions - and indeedyour own."
"I am so impressed by Danny Miller's book. It is so keenly feltand beautifully written, it provides as deep a view of modernLondoners as early anthropologists tried to provide of residents ofmore distant and exotic zones. Miller has produced a marvelouslypersonal and creative work, provoking us to wonder at theextraordinary attachments of ordinary people. This is a great andlasting achievement."
"Through shoe leather fieldwork, human empathy, and unflinchingreadiness to discern, Daniel Miller shows the central role ofmaterial culture in contemporary urban life. An instantclassic."
"An artful antidote to continually demonised consumerism."
"A timely reminder that investing possessions with meaning isproof of humanity rather than inhumanity."
"In this remarkable book Daniel Miller provides an illuminatingportrait of people's relations to the ordinary objects thatsurround them. The result is a surprising meditation on how we allmaintain order in our daily lives."
"This book offers a bold and creative model for how we might goabout the work of theorising and abstracting, trying to tell moreor less convincing stories about the 'relationships which flowconstantly between people and things'."
Kundenbewertungen
Soziale u. kulturelle Anthropologie, Anthropologie, Social & Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology, Sozialanthropologie, Kulturanthropologie