Wild Things: The Material Culture of Everyday Life

(Hardback)

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What do things mean What does the life of everyday objects reveal about people and their material worlds Has the quest for the real thing become so important because the high-tech world of total virtuality threatens to engulf us This pioneering book bridges design theory and anthropology to offer a new and challenging way of understanding the changing meanings of contemporary human-object relations. The act of consumption is only the starting point of objects lives. Thereafter they are transformed and invested with new meanings and associations that reflect and assert who we are. Defining designed things as things with attitude differentiates the highly visible fashionable object from ordinary aretefacts that are too easily taken for granted. Through case studies ranging from reproduction furniture to fashion and textiles to clutter, the author traces the connection between objects and authenticity, ephemerality and self-identity. Beyond this, she shows the materiality of the everyday in terms of space, time and the body and suggests a transition with the passing of time from embodiment to disembodiment.

Reviews

Wild Things is particularly relevant to ongoing discussions of the politics of things. This is because of both Attfields choice to focus on voices hitherto unheard from working class, domestic, female voices and her effort to situate identity construction in particular gender and sexual identity within the her subjects choices to buy, use, and accrue things. * Design and Culture *
It is wonderful to see a reprint of this seminal wide-ranging, thought-provoking book that, challenges us to consider, and then re-consider, how we think about things, and write about them too. I read the book in early draft form and often return to it; sometimes to think through things raised in it, at others for inspiration, or to remember her pioneering contributions to contemporary material culture studies and reflect upon her enormous impact upon generations of students and scholars across a range of disciplines. A designer before she turned to design history and discovered a passion for anthropology and critical theory, as well as for history from below her lively intellect knew no disciplinary boundaries. In Wild Things Judys love of objects and people, ideas, herstories/histories, and grappling with theory, is everywhere apparent. Enjoy the journey you take with her. * Pat Kirkham, Professor of Design History at Kingston University, London, UK *

Author Bio

Judy Attfield was Senior Lecturer in History and Design at the University of Southampton, UK. A pioneer of the field of material culture studies, she was a member of the editorial board of the journal 'Home Cultures'.