This lecture explores how individuals' personal and home lives, affects what they buy in terms of products. This features multiple anthropological examples.
Lecture 4: Being at home – difference, identity and the
domestic
Questions to consider:
How far does domestic design seek to script behaviour in different types of
homes?
To what extent is gender scripted in to the design of domestic products and
technologies?
How does the organisation of the home create privacy and intimacy?
What kinds of behaviours are used to reinforce these norms
What is ‘homeyness’?
Is there something like it in your society?
How do people where you live make themselves at home?
In general:
The focus of behaviours and meanings about gender, order and morality
Home is a powerful metaphor in political discourses – ideas of home evoke
strong emotions
It is a place of: privacy, intimacy and the personal – interface between public
and private
Way they’re decorated makes statements about the occupants
McCracken, Homeyness. A Cultural Account of One Constellation of
Consumer Goods and Meanings:
Examines styles of middle class American family homes
Main argument: house as a physical structure (organised and decorated in
specific ways) provides material means through idea version of American family
life
Material organisation, e.g. family activities, even if not performed, scripted
‘family life’
Objects used to display meanings about relationships – ‘memory wall’
McCracken – material culture of the home provides a stage and props for the
performance of family
Helps us understand why people invest in their home, remodelling – home
provides context through people being themselves
Daniels – Japanese Homes Inside Out:
Design of a house – tells core values of Japanese society
Idea of contrast between inside and outside – important and reflected within
home
Visitors rarely come into houses, social activities often outside the home as
home is associated with intimacy and family
Japanese homes – intensely private – high walls, fences and gates – separate
their houses from the outside world
Windows are small – privacy
When entering home – take shoes off outside, people change their clothes when
coming inside
Garvey, Domestic Boundaries. Privacy, Visibility and the Norwegian Window:
Similar themes of privacy and intimacy in Scandinavia
Comparing perspectives of immigrants from Africa and Norwegians about
private and public space
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