Material Objects Research Paper

Objects are thus not simply physical entities of a certain size and weight. They are products of culture. Culture endows them with instrumental and symbolic values, which are in turn elaborated on by individuals. Entire disciplines (e.g., archeology) and institutions (e.g., museums) are concerned with the collection and interpretation of objects. Theories of the meanings and functions of objects have been developed by cultural anthropology, sociology, and psychology.

1. Cultural Artifacts

1.1 Systems Of Objects

In the 1960s, semiotic approaches described systems of objects that constitute codes, that is systems of signs, comparable to language. These codes were stipulated to be autonomous from the social and economic systems. Roland Barthes (1964) analyzed the system of clothing fashion. He differentiated three structural levels of fashion: technological (textile structure), iconological (photographic presentation), and verbal (writing about fashion). Other semiotic analyses concerned everyday classifications of objects in museums or department stores. In a related vein, structural anthropologist Levy-Strauss analyzed systems of objects, for example food or clothing, as binary codes that establish basic cultural categories and determine cultural practices.

Semiotic and structural approaches describe systems of material signs or categories synchronically. Systems of objects may also be described in the same formal manner diachronically. Richardson and Kroeber (1940), for example, identified a cyclical pattern in the change of formal properties of female dress across centuries. Barthes concluded from this that semiotic systems have a temporal dimension, but not a historical dimension. However, in 1982 Lowe and Lowe continued Kroeber’s analysis in time and demonstrated that historical changes were not cyclical and were influenced by particular historical and social changes.

Others constructed a diachronic perspective on systems of objects by using the metaphor of Evolution. George Kubler (1972) constructed the history of style in art as that of successive solutions to formal problems, an idea that he extended to instruments such as ploughs. Sigfried Giedion (1948) described the history of instruments in terms of constitutive and transitory facts, alluding to the evolutionary dichotomy of genoand phenotypes. The evolution of Mickey Mouse and of teddy bears during the twentieth century have been analyzed in terms of maximizing congruence with the innate preference for infantile forms. In the quasi-evolution of forms of cultural artifacts, however, environmental demands such as aesthetic preferences and utility compete with each other, as demonstrated by David Norman (1988) with regard to the evolution of the telephone.

1.2 Objects Serve Traditions And Transfer Cultural Knowledge

Objects made of durable material may survive several generations. They lend themselves to passing on information to succeeding generations. Traditions are maintained by objects that explicitly symbolize continuity with the past, such as monuments, museum exhibits, old buildings, and holy objects. Graveyards, tombstones, and relics in churches mark the interface between public tradition and private remembering, for which, among others, family heirlooms, private relics, and pictures are used.

Instruments pass on cultural knowledge implicitly by inviting individuals to use them in specific ways. Similar to texts that complement individuals’ declarative memory, objects serve to complement individuals’ and cultures’ procedural memory for how to do things (Norman 1988). Objects also embody cultural imperatives, so that the emergence of new cultural norms is often accompanied by the invention and social diffusion of new instruments. Norbert Elias used the historical introduction of forks to illustrate the embodiment of norms in instruments in the ‘process of Civilization.’ Forks embodied new table manners which forbid eating with the hands.

Paleontologist Andre Leroi-Gourhan (1964) saw the evolution of human technology as the substitution of humans’ corporal and mental functions with external aids. In Lev Vygotsky’s theory of the ontogenesis of higher mental functions, this phylogenetic exteriorization of physical and mental functions is complemented by the ontogenetic internalization of cultural symbols and instruments. However, also in ontogenesis the external and later mental use of symbols is followed by an increasing use of external means for thinking.

1.3 Social Status In Traditional And Modern Societies

Mary Douglas (1973) saw ritual objects such as uniforms, marital rings, or graduation gown as constituting culture by providing an intelligible universe and as serving the preservation of social structure. With the deritualization of modern societies, ritual objects have increasingly been substituted with consumer goods. They are less durable and serve consumption, and access to goods is less regulated than access to ritual objects. Conspicuous consumption was described by Theodore Veblen (1899) as a normative technique for claiming social status. The more rare, the more expensive, the more useless the good, the more luxury successfully transfers status to the individual. Pierre Bourdieu (1979) introduced the concept of habitus as a set of aesthetic preferences that defines a lifestyle and serves to create social distinction. The habitus is not under the individual’s control, but is socialized early in life. Therefore parvenues and impoverished gentry can be identified by tastes and postures incongruent with their economic situation.

1.4 Individualization Of Natural Or Fabricated Objects

Georg Simmel (1923) hypothesized that increasingly mass-fabricated and commodified objects could no longer be appropriated by the individual or used for self-cultivation, since they were more and more determined by dynamics of production and the market. In 1948 Sigfried Giedion claimed that man was increasingly determined by machines. In 1968 Jean Baudrillard lamented that goods were no longer sold for their utilitarian value, but only for connotations produced by advertisement. These critics seem nostalgic of a traditional past in which individual objects were produced locally and were exchanged rather than traded. To these critics it appeared that in premarket societies objects had been embedded in, and were expressive of personal relationships. In contrast, modern national and global markets of mass-produced goods created anonymous, estranged relationships between individuals and between individuals and objects.

One example of the embeddedness of objects in personal relationships is the socially structured handling and shared consumption of food, drink, and drugs. Dining together (comensality) establishes a bond between participants (Fischler 1990). In contrast to objects that are consumed, and that therefore exist only as uncountables, gifts are usually singular, individual objects that persist. Marcel Mauss (1924) analyzed gift exchange in traditional societies as a system of reciprocal obligations that structure a group and increase its cohesion.

Since the 1980s, cultural anthropology has become less nostalgic for exchange and has focused on commodities and modern consumption as media that provide and express cultural categories. Daniel Miller (1995) even suggests that commodities and consumption patterns will substitute for kinship patterns as the key concept in cultural anthropology. To be exchanged as impersonal commodities, objects need to be comparable to other goods on a scale of value (money). Even modern societies do not consider all objects to be commodities. These inalienable possessions (Weiner 1992) include royal insignia, holy objects, ritual objects, gifts, public territories, and human organs. Objects may acquire and lose the status of commodity by processes of diversification and encapsulation (Appadurai 1986). Encapsulation may concern goods that are collected, such as stamps, or foreign or old instruments displayed as exotica or antiques. Encapsulation is usually accompanied by individualization of the object, for instance by leaving traces of use or by giving the object a personal name (Rogan 1990).

Objects may also become endowed with private meanings that are shared only by some, or even only one, member of a culture. Objects may take on metaphorical and metonymical meanings. A lock of a loved one’s hair, a cinema-ticket from a couple’s first date, a pen that belonged to one’s grandmother all acquire additional metonymical meanings by their association with specific events or persons. These meanings are not easily accessible to outsiders. Objects always have cultural meanings, to which private meanings may be added, increasing their individuality.

2. Personal Objects

Objects that have been individualized and appropriated often gain special significance for the individual (Csikszentmihaly and Rochberg-Halton 1981). Objects to which an individual has become attached have been termed personal objects (Boesch 1991). In a general sense, personal objects are used to increase a sense of self or identity. Studies of uses of personal objects show that most objects tend to be used either instrumentally or symbolically. The most frequent instrumental uses are those of regulating levels of activity (stimulating, helping to relax), the most frequent symbolic uses those of reminding (Dittmar 1992, Habermas 1999). Other symbolic uses are self-presentational and self-communicative.

2.1 Possessions And Instrumental Uses

William James defined the self’s extension by all that an individual could experience as, and call, her or his own. This material self may include family, personal possessions, and any other objects or persons the individual may identify with, and for which they may show self-related emotions such as pride or fear. Although possessions may contribute to self-definition, James’ proposal does not specify what an individual will identify with.

Objects may contribute to the self-dimension of a sense of mastery or self-efficiency by offering a familiar instrument that increases an individual’s ability to physically manipulate the environment, or by offering stimulation through a structure that is complex and novel enough to evoke interest and curiosity, but simple and familiar enough to be explorable. Objects may contribute to identification with one’s body by extending the body’s power (instruments, vehicles) or by accentuating and decorating it (clothes).

2.2 Self-Presentation

Objects used to symbolize identity and to present the self favorably are usually located in the personal space (on or near the body) or in personal places. Living rooms, offices, houses, and vehicles are preferred showrooms of identity. Low status individuals with little or no personal place, like homeless or adolescents, have to use their bodies as a stage for marking their identities. Bodies may be marked by accessories, such as clothes, jewelry, or glasses, by modifying the body through tattoos or haircuts, or by modifying body-shape through dieting, body-building or exercise. Also most instruments are closely linked to the body and used to symbolize the individual’s profession (e.g., a physician’s stethoscope).

The use of objects to symbolize identity allows for the rapid, economical formation of expectations which may inform the decision of whether and how to interact with an approaching other. What is symbolized ranges from very general social categories such as age, gender, or social class, to professional, ideological, or idiosyncratic identities. Identity-statements may range from taking a stance towards a given identity such as gender or ethnicity, to claiming membership, individuality, or personal worth.

Situations that invite the self-presentational use of objects are ones of heightened self-awareness such as when being observed or when in an unfamiliar context. Individuals with a disposition for public self-consciousness prefer personal objects that serve self-presentation, such as clothes. Compensatory motives to boost self-worth were proposed by Alfred Adler and were related to the use of objects by Robert Wicklund and Peter Gollwitzer (1982). When individuals perceive themselves as lacking central attributes of an aspired identity, they use the mechanism of symbolic self-completion to claim that identity, through the use of symbolic objects. An individual who aspires, for example, to be a good tennis player (but is not) may claim that identity by wearing tennis accessories suggesting good performance.

2.3 Personification

Objects may be personified by giving them a name and attributing human capacities to them. Objects that invite personification are ones that represent creatures such as dolls or stuffed animals, that invite imaginary dialogues, such as diaries; cozy objects; instruments that ensure survival, such as vehicles; magic or religious objects such as charms or Christian crosses; or very complex objects that suggest having a life of their own such as computers. Personified objects resemble imaginary companions and symbolize aspects of a generalized other. Communicating with a personified object externalizes the process of thinking or self-communication. Also, it provides the individual with a companion in times when significant others may be missing. In the place of an external other, personified objects may thus serve to confirm the individual’s spontaneous gestures and identity; or, by reinforcing the ‘process of self,’ the internal dialogue between I and Me (G. H. Mead).

2.4 Mnemonic Uses

Objects are often used as prospective reminders to do things (e.g., a knot in a handkerchief). In a less intentional way, the human environment is usually structured to remind us to do things when appropriate. Light switches, for example, are placed near the door to remind us to turn off the lights when leaving the room. Objects that explicitly serve to complement retrospective memory were termed souvenir by Pierre Janet (1928). When personal objects serve mnemonic functions, they extend not only to the past, but also to distant places and absent others, and sometimes to an aspired future as well. Souvenirs serve primarily to remind and are therefore exempted from practical uses. All personal objects, however, at least secondarily also remind of the situations and persons that have been associated with them, and, more specifically in the case of gifts, of the situation when the object was given and of the giver.

Memorabilia, mementos, or souvenirs serve autobiographical purposes by referring to the personal past. Objects may also serve to remind of significant others. Usually they refer to family members or intimate partners. Most often the emotional link to significant others is symbolized in situations of temporary or involuntary separation. The more an individual is attached to significant others, the more these links are symbolized by objects in times of separation. Transitions, such as starting university, migration, or moving into a nursing home, are bridged by reminding uses of objects. Reminding objects apparently reinforce the mental representation of attachment figures and other secure bases. Using objects for reminding serves the self by reinforcing a sense of self-continuity and by reinforcing the mental representation and experience of a link to significant others whose real or imagined response is essential to identity.

In protracted mourning, personal relics of deceased loved ones may become personified and treated as if they were the one they stand for. These linking objects (Volkan 1981) no longer refer to an absent other but stand in his or her place. Here the triadic relationship between sign, signified, and interpretant has degenerated to a dyadic relationship between interpretant and object as an imaginary other.

2.5 Transitional Objects

The precursor of personal objects is, in about half of all toddlers in Western countries, the transitional object, often a teddy bear or soft blanket. It serves as substitute or additional secure base when the attachment system is activated. Winnicott (1971) coined the term transitional object to indicate that it eases the transition from total dependence on the primary attachment figure to independence. As well, Winnicott hypothesized that toddlers would only develop attachment to a transitional object if they had developed a secure attachment pattern.

Thus material objects are part of cultural systems and serve cultural functions of tradition, social functions of regulating status, and economic functions as commodities. Also material objects serve as media for individuals’ relation to culture, to other individuals, and to themselves.

Bibliography:

1. Appadurai A 1986 (ed.) The Social Life of Things. Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
2. Barthes R 1964 Elements de semiologie. Editions de Seuil, Paris Baudrillard J 1968 Le systeme des objets. Gallimard, Paris Boesch E E 1991 Symbolic Action Theory and Cultural Psychology. Springer Verlag, Berlin
3. Bourdieu P 1979 La distinction: Critique sociale du jugement. Les editions de Minuit, Paris
4. Csikszentmihaly M, Rochberg-Halton E 1981 The Meaning Of Things: Domestic Symbols Of The Self. Cambridge University Press, New York
5. Dittmar H 1992 The Social Psychology of Material Possessions. St.Martin’s Press, New York
6. Douglas M 1973 Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. Barrie and Jenkins, London
7. Fischler C 1990 L’homni ore. Le gout, la cuisine et le corps. Editions Odile Jacob, Paris
8. Gibson J J 1979 The Ecological Approach To Visual Perception. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston
9. Giedion S 1948 Mechanization Takes Command. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
10. Habermas T 1999 Geliebte Objekte: Instrumente und Symbole der Identitatsbildung. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, Germany
11. Janet P 1928 L’Evolution de la memoire et de la notion du temps. Cahine, Paris
12. Kubler G 1972 The Shape of Time. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT
13. Leroi-Gourhan A 1964 La geste et la parole. Editions Albin Michel, Paris
14. Lowe J W G, Lowe E D 1982 Cultural patterns and process: A study of stylistic change in women’s dress. American Anthropologist 84: 521–44
15. Mauss M 1924 Essai sur le don. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris
16. Miller D 1995 Consumption and commodities. Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 141–61
17. Norman D 1988 The Psychology of Everyday Things. Basic Books, New York
18. Richardson J, Kroeber A L 1940 Three centuries of women’s dress fashion: A quantitative analysis. In: Kroeber A L (ed.) 1952 The Nature of Culture. University of Chicago Press, Chicago pp. 358–72
19. Rogan B 1990 On the custom of naming artifacts. Ethnologia Europea 20: 47–60
20. Simmel G 1923 Philosophische Kultur. Gustav Kiepenheuer, Potsdam, Germany
21. Veblen T 1899 The Theory Of The Leisure Class. Houghton, Boston
22. Volkan V D 1981 Linking Objects and Linking Phenomena. International Universities Press, New York
23. Wicklund R A, Gollwitzer P M 1982 Symbolic Self-Completion. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ
24. Weiner A B 1992 Inalienable Possessions. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA
25. Winnicott D W 1971 Playing and Reality. Tavistock, London