Mapping Flashcards
Oxford English Dictionary
Commodity: Something useful turned for commercial advantage
Watts (2014)
Commodities surround us, inhabit us as much as we inhabit them.
The history of the commodity allows us to expose the dynamics and history of capitalism
Marx (1867)
The commodity appears trivial and self-sufficient. It is infact a bewildering thing.
Sayer (1999)
The Economization of Culture (assembly lines)
Crang (1997)
The Culturalization of Economy (Branding, consuming culture as part of economy)
Merchant (2017)
The biggest star of the retail world, the iPhone might actually be the pinnacle product of all capitalism.
Kahney (2005)
Apple combined three of its previous downfalls: - Hardware - Software - Online services to make success.
Srnicek (2017)
Platform Capitalism
- Positioning of technology companies as economic actors in the capitalist mode of production
- Platforms are intermediary digital interfaces designed to attract and engage users
Bull (2007)
using music and iPhone to create spaces of our own.
Cook (2004)
“Follow the thing” Papaya, Jamaica to London
- Follow commodities through the spaces they inhabit
Appadurai (1986)
The social lives of things
- objects have social lives and gain meanings through their trajectory
Alberti (2005)
Appealing Narrative Hook to Object Biographies
Hoskins (2006)
Society, culture and human lives play out in object biographies
Thomas (1996)
Objects are not just a product of our society but are fundamental to it.
Hartwick (2000)
Commodity chains
- consumption -> production and beyond
- inherently activist
- addresses ignorance of consumers
- value adding
Thrift (2000)
Du Gay et. al. (1997)
Jackson (2002)
Commodity circuits
- a number of circuits must function to produce commodities
- focus is on these circuits and not the thing
- iPhone knitting together a number of circuits
ACTOR NETWORK THEORY (Latour 1984)
Jackson (1999)
Commodity: Objects of value and exchange
Commodification: Extending the commodity to things that were not previously commodified
Castree (2004)
Must consider the whole socio-spatial universe of places, peoples, identities and beliefs when studying commoditites
Bridge & Smith (2003)
Commodities previously relegated
- Commodities make a difference to social process
- Plural meanings to commodities
Kelly (2007)
Anything to do with Apple iPod
Gosden & Marshall (1999)
Fijian Whale Tooth Necklace
- accumulating value through time and through its life time.
- objects reveal stories and narratives
- an object with a massive spiritual meaning, but social as it was made by Tongan people controlled by Fijian chiefs
Kopytoff (1986)
Commoditization:
a) respects each thing by making it exchangeable
b) respects the system by making more things exchangeable
Weiss (1996)
Coffee makers (Haya people in Tanzania) don’t know what Europeans do with coffee
- spiritual meaning of coffee trees
- connection from producer to consumer is not as clear cut as previously expected
