CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland
Material Culture Studies
Organiser: Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen
van der Hoorn, Mélanie (Utrecht
University, the Netherlands) EXORCIZING STONES. THE CIRCULATION OF ARCHITECTURAL
REMAINS
The destiny of built objects is often at the core of important events like wars
or revolutions. The eventual elimination of undesired buildings is not the
simple reflection of a crisis in the larger context, but a means to articulate
this crisis by projecting very concrete claims, conflicts, frustrations or
questions on a public and visible three-dimensional object. Within an
investigation into the forms and meanings of undesired architecture title:
"Indispensable eyesores" special attention must be paid to what
people do with the remains of destroyed buildings. Examples like the Berlin wall
or the national-socialist seaside resort Prora auf Rügen will illustrate the
importance of these remains, even when they consist of almost unrecognizable
pieces of rock. This paper will explore how the circulation of these objects
as souvenirs, talismans, relics is an effective means and a quasi-religious
ritual to share, and come to terms with traumatic experiences.
Clarke, Alison J. (Royal College of
Arts, United Kingdom) THE PRACTICE OF THE NORMATIVE: COMING OF AGE IN THE
MATERIAL WORLD
An established and growing academic literature addresses the proliferation and
commercialisation of children's material worlds and the proliferation of
child-focused goods and toys. Typically these accounts offer a critique of such
material culture's detrimental effects on the imaginary and creative aspects of
childhood or, in a more liberal approach, consider the consumption of such goods
as a useful aspect of socialisation. Based on an ethnographic study conducted in
north London, England, this paper explores how the ephemeral worlds of
children's goods are used, not just as a means of socialisation, but as a
crucial means of seeking the normative in
contemporary culture. The selection of the 'appropriate' gift by an adult, from
a bewildering array of goods honed to the rapidly changing sensibilities of the
'modern' child, exists in the context of a more general practice of normativity
in which the constant pressure of acceptability and power relations between
individuals, parents, mothers and children informs everyday cultural practice.
Material culture, will be shown to play an active, rather than merely
reflective, role in this process.
Suominen-Kokkonen, Renja (University of
Helsinki, Finland) A MODERNIZATION OF MATERIAL CULTURE IN FINLAND? - ARTEK IN
THE 1930S
Although design research has traditionally taken the author as the starting
point and has focused on showcase piece, it can be claimed that objects
themselves define surrounding culture to the same degree as done by ideology. It
is therefore useful to approach Artek, one of the most canonistic firms in the
domain of Finnish architecture and design, from a non-traditional perspective.
In its founding stages, Artek had close links with the utopian ideologies of
modernism. In viewing the world of objects and artefacts produced and
distributed by Artek, its early collections and series of products, it can be
asked how, in fact, they defined the culture of homes and dwellings, and how
they were expected to represent modernism.
Keller, Margit and Vihalemm, Triin
(University of Tartu, Estonia) THE ROLE OF CONSUMER CULTURE IN CONSTRUCTING
"WESTERN-NESS" IN ESTONIA
The main issue of this paper is: how consumers in post-communist Estonia use
"western-ness" as a socio-cultural reference point in constructing
their collective and individual identity. The empirical material comprises 71
qualitatively analysed student essays and 25 in-depth interviews. The paper sets
the exploration onto two main axes. These are the temporal one of before (the
Soviet time) versus the present and the spatial one of east (the memory of
Soviet Union) versus west. We argue that decoding western consumer culture and
commodities is ambivalent for the Estonian consumer. Location on the map of
these two axes is constantly sought both for one's individual as well as the
Estonian collective identity. Parallel processes are at work: strong distancing
oneself from the Soviet heritage and representing "western-ness" as
the only alternative at the same time trying to "outsmart" the western
consumer (often stereotyped as "over-spending", "mindless")
using the resources of the Soviet experience.
Lehtonen, Turo-Kimmo (University of
Helsinki, Finland) and Nieminen-Sundell, Riitta (University of Art and
Design, Finland) DOMESTICATING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES: A STUDY ON THE INTERTWINED
BIOGRAPHIES OF THINGS AND PEOPLE
We present a study on the adoption of digital technology in the households. Our
material consists of qualitative interviews of 14 people with widely different
backgrounds; they are interviewed recurrently during three years' time (the
first interviews were conducted in winter 2000). The aim of the on-going study
is to map changes in the technoscape of the home, the parallel 'biographies' of
things and people, and to explore the construction of 'needs'. In this paper our
primary focus is on how and why new technologies are acquired. However, we claim
that to gain an appropriate understanding of this one also needs to analyse the
use and the storage of gadgets, their relationship to other furniture and
technology at home and how and why they are finally abandoned.
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