Apologies for digressing from this discussion a bit.
As a student of anthropology in the early 1990s, I read Arjun Appadurai’s
edited collection The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural
Perspective (1986)- which brought anthropologists into closer dialogue
with economists and gave rise to new conceptual tools such as "politics of
consumption" and the ‘cultural biography of things.’
Although the focus of the following volume which revists the above, is on
Africa and not Europe or Asia, which is experiencing rapid consumer growth
and production at an environmentally and culturally unsustainable pace,
and where more and more MNCs interested in lean production are shifting
their productions centres to, the content of this book's backcover which
examines the dynamics of commodification and the processes through which
objects/things come to be appears worth reading.
I am yet to get hold of a copy of this book, but I am wondering if this
book's focus on comodification as an important tool to better understand
such interactions between the nations of the North and the "modernising"
South economies in the 21st century, may be of interest to those of us
who are looking to design or co-design the life cycle of objects to better
meet the social, cultural and environmental ethics in the nations of the
South.
Wim van Binsbergen & Peter Geschiere Commodification: Things, Agency and
Identities: The Social Life of Things revisited
Looking to discuss this further offline with anyone who is interested in
this issue when I am able get hold of a copy of this book next month
(after the 20 th) when I am in the US.
Uma Chandru
Resident Anthropologist
Dept of Environmental & Sustainable Design
Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology
Bangalore
India
email:[log in to unmask]
> Dear all
>
> Extending from Francois's post the social and environmental duration of
> objects and the potential form and the impact of object durability in
> terms of social and environmental ethics should be central to design
> research ...not just in the negative spin that social conservatives
> attach to these vital measures ... but because we may learn how to
> design instigations ... that is design the life cycle of our
> productions?
>
> Norm
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
> related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
> Of Francois-Xavier Nsenga
> Sent: Thursday, 23 August 2007 2:12 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Instigation Design
>
> Dear Juris,
>
> In my previous post, I proposed four loci where the activity of design
> occurs as an instigation to design further, eventually. You responded
> with the following suggestion:
>
> "It may be reasonable to propose a "fifth place" to find artifacts.
> My anthropological understanding of the term compels me to suggest an
> "afterlife", if you will, where the artifact comes to serve yet more
> purposes unintended by its maker or user (ie the historical or
> archaeological uses). I mention this not to be facetious, but to
> highlight the 'green' part of the original post by expanding the
> context a bit, to perhaps reconceptualize the artifact's "life cycle
> (...)"
>
> You are absolutely right but, to me, there is no "afterlife" of
> whatever. What there is, in fact, is just a continuum of different
> phases of existence (or use) under respectively appropriate forms or
> formats. So, to be more precise, you'd rather say: "after a certain kind
> of use" instead of "afterlife".
>
> If you agree with this above, then, there wouldn't be a "fifth place",
> for the fourth in my proposed categorization includes what you consider
> to be a fifth. Artifacts found and used for historical and archeological
> purposes, those exhibited in museum or contained in all other cultural
> places, they are in fact in one of the twelve phases in the use process
> of artifacts. We named this phase "disposal" (in the sense of orderly
> arrangement) at the "end" of one cycle use, till resumption of some
> other next use cycles...
>
> Yours,
>
>
> Francois
> Montreal
>
>
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