Background
Miller, Daniel was born on March 24, 1954 in London.
(The aim of Artefacts as Categories is to ask what we can ...)
The aim of Artefacts as Categories is to ask what we can learn about a society from the variability of the objects it produces.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EQC6OBM/?tag=2022091-20
( From cultural studies, sociology, media studies, gender...)
From cultural studies, sociology, media studies, gender studies and elsewhere there have been a spate of books recently which have attempted to characterize the state of modernity. Many of these have also argued that what is required is an ethnographic work to determine how far these supposed trends actually apply to a given population. This book explicitly accepts this challenge and, in so doing, demonstrates the potential of modern anthropology studies. It starts by summarizing some debates on modernity and then argues that the Caribbean island of Trinidad is particularly apt for such a study given the origins of its population in slavery and indentured labour, both forms of extreme social rupture. The particular focus of this book is on mass consumption and the way goods and imported images such as soap opera have been used to express and develop a number of key contradictions of modernity. It will be of interest to anthropologists looking for a new potential for the discipline, as well as students in other fields who will be interested in the new contribution of anthropology to their debates.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0854969179/?tag=2022091-20
(The aim of Artefacts as Categories is to ask what we can ...)
The aim of Artefacts as Categories is to ask what we can learn about a society from the variability of the objects it produces. Dr Miller presents a comprehensive analysis of the pottery produced in a single village in central India, drawing together and analysing a whole range of aspects - technology, function, design, symbolism and ideology - that are usually studied separately. Using the concepts of 'pragmatics', 'framing' and 'ideology', the author points to the insufficiency of many ethnographic accounts of symbolism and underlines the need to consider both the social positioning of the interpreter and the context of the interpretation when looking at artefacts. His invigorating study cogently questions many assumptions in material culture studies and offers a whole range of fresh explanations. Archaeologists in particular will welcome the discussion of familiar materials such as pottery rim shapes, body forms and decoration. However, the book will have a broad appeal to researchers in cultural studies, social anthropology and psychology and will attract all those interested in the problem of relating objects and society.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521104793/?tag=2022091-20
(This book starts from the premise that methodology - the ...)
This book starts from the premise that methodology - the procedures for obtaining an 'objective' knowledge of the past - has always dominated archaeology to the detriment of broader social theory. It argues that social theory is archaeological theory, and that past failure to recognise this has resulted in disembodied archaeological theory and weak disciplinary practice. Ideology, Power and Prehistory therefore seeks to reinstate the primacy of social theory and the social nature of the past worlds that archaeologists seek to understand. The contributors to this book argue that past peoples, the creators of the archaeological records, should be understood as actively manipulating their own material world to represent and misrepresent their own and others' interests. Thus the concepts of ideology and power, long discussed in social and political science yet largely ignored by archaeologists, must henceforward play a central role in our understanding of the past as a social creation. Archaeologists must now consider how the material remains they study were used to create images by past societies, which do not simply mirror or reflect but actively orientate the nature of these societies.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052109089X/?tag=2022091-20
( Exploring materialism and social relationships in moder...)
Exploring materialism and social relationships in modern culture Material Culture and Mass Consumption offers an in-depth exploration of objects, objectification, ideology, and materialism in modern society. Drawing from Hegel, Marx, Munn, and Simmel, the discussion delves into the physicality of the material world and attempts to understand materialism as a form of cultural expression. Targeting mass production as the root of mass consumption, rather than the result, this book positions material goods at odds with genuine social interaction and questions these relationships from the abstract to the intensely specific.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0631156054/?tag=2022091-20
( This provocative book challenges many of our ingrained ...)
This provocative book challenges many of our ingrained assumptions about the direction of contemporary capitalism and offers fresh perspectives that will inform the development of a new and relevant political economy for our times. The complex and often contradictory world within which modern commodities are produced, sold and consumed is set within the larger context of transnational business and economic developments. The importance of factors such as profitability and globalization is highlighted, and a sophisticated analysis of the contradictions and ironies of the world of modern commodities emerges. Trinidad provides an ideal setting for this study, given its recent oil boom and recession and the subsequent experience of both wealth and poverty.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1859731287/?tag=2022091-20
Miller, Daniel was born on March 24, 1954 in London.
Doctor of Philosophy, U. Cambridge, England, 1983.
Lecturer department anthropology, University College London, 1981-1990; reader, University College London, 1990-1995; professor, University College London, since 1995.
( This provocative book challenges many of our ingrained ...)
( Exploring materialism and social relationships in moder...)
(This book starts from the premise that methodology - the ...)
( From cultural studies, sociology, media studies, gender...)
(The aim of Artefacts as Categories is to ask what we can ...)
(The aim of Artefacts as Categories is to ask what we can ...)