Understanding Material Culture

Ian Woodward is a professor in the Department of Marketing and Management at the University of Southern Denmark. He has research interests in the sociological aspects of consumption and material culture and in the cultural and consumptive dimensions of cosmopolitanism, cultural openness, and boundary work. Most recently, he published the coauthored books Vinyl, The Analogue Record in the Digital Age (Bloomsbury, 2015, with Dominik Bartmanski) and Cosmopolitanism, Uses of the Idea (SAGE/Theory, Culture & Society, 2013, with Zlatko Skrbis). He has published widely on a range of related theoretical and empirical areas within consumption and material culture studies, alongside studies of everyday cosmopolitanism including most recently studies around consumer cosmopolitanism, gender, hospitality, fairness, and encounters. With Frederick F. Wherry, he is the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Consumption, and with Julie Emontspool, editor of the collection Cosmopolitanism, Markets and Consumption.

This book deserves its niche, both as a textbook covering long standing debates and discussions, but also as an entry point to a particular perspective. It comes about as close as anything I have seen to a genuine standard textbook that tries to transcend particular disciplines.

• PART ONE: LOCATING MATERIAL CULTUREThe Material as Culture. Definitions, Perspectives, ApproachesStudying Material Culture. Origins and Premises PART TWO: THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO STUDYING MATERIAL CULTUREThe Deceptive, Suspicious Object. Marxist and Critical Approaches The Object as Symbolic Code. Structural and Semiotic ApproachesThe Material Representing the Cultural Universe. Objects, Symbols and Cultural CategoriesPART THREE: OBJECTS IN ACTIONObjects and Distinction. The Aesthetic Field and Expressive MaterialityMaterial Culture and Identity. Objects and the SelfMaterial Culture, Narratives, and Social Performance. Objects in ContextsPART FOUR: CONCLUSIONConclusion:Objects and Meaning in Consumer Culture