Introduction: commodities and the politics of value

“Art and craft products may also be changed in form, materials, or colors (cf. Cohen 1983), “ . . . in response to the impositions or temptations from large-scale and sometimes far-away consumers” (Appadurai 1986:47) such as in the case of “indirect tourism” (Aspelin 1977).”

“It is perhaps possible for consumers to singularize or decommoditize virtual possessions just as they can with real world possessions (Appadurai 1986; Belk 1988).”

“…different forms in different societies, but it is typical that objects which represent aesthetic elaboration and objects that serve as sacra are, in many societies, not permitted to occupy the commodity state (either temporally, socially or definitionally) for very long (Appadurai 1986, p. 23).”

“Bundling is one of the conditions of possibility for what Kopytoff (1986) and Appadurai (1986) called the ‘biography’ of things, as qualisigns bundled together in any object will shift in their relative value, utility, and relevance across contexts.”

“2002), GVC analysis focuses on more explicit structural elements of production, distribution and consumption rather than on the social/cultural/ symbolic relations among actors (Appadurai 1986; DuPuis 2000; Granovetter 1985; Marsden et al .”

“Situating documents entirely within the dynamics of administrative control is an example of a tendency “to excessively sociologize transaction in things” (Appadurai 1986, p. 5).”

“Appadurai, Arjun (1989) ’Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy’, Theory, Culture and Society 7: 295-310.”

“We do this even as we rediscover the moral, embedded, and special-purpose functions of our “own” money and the calculative and rational dimensions of nonmodern money (Appadurai 1986).”

“As Appadurai (1986a) has noted, anthropological writings tend to oppose Maussian and Marxist approaches, where precapitalist versus capitalist modes of production divide respective theoretical interests.”

“From Appadurai’s perspective, consumption activity has always contained within it significant power to change society, no matter the economic period. To find this power, however, one has to look at consumption with different eyes than those of Marx. One has to see the mutual constitution of social relationships betwee…”

“The pursuit of a more balanced analysis of production and consumption relations is linked to an appreciation of the symbolic as well as material construction of commodities (Appadurai, 1986).”

“Appadurai (1986, 1996) argues that consumption systems are strongly characterized by habit and that anarchic consumption patterns are difficult to achieve.”

“Within this tradition are classic studies of ‘the social life of things’, as Appadurai (1986) puts it.”

“As Mauss was among the first to observe, the significance of many artifacts from Persian carpets (Spooner, 1986) to Massim kula shells (Munn, 1983) are deeply embedded in their histories: how they were made, who has acquired them and how, how they have been used, and so forth (Appadurai, 1986).”

“In The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective, edited by Arjun Appadurai, 3–63.”

“In contrast, in capitalist societies consumption is regulated by fashion (Appadurai, 1986).”

“…social scientists have produced empirical studies of market processes that emphasize the social organization of particular markets (e.g., Abolafia 1996; Baker 1984; Smith 1989; White 1981) and the cultural processes through which things become commodities (e.g., Appadurai 1986; Sharp 2000).”

“They attempt to make restricted items available for general exchange (Appadurai 1986:25-26).”

“A regime of value (Appadurai 1986) is a socially coherent and situated way of establishing what is valuable.”

“4 See Prösler 1996 and 2000.”

“It does seem true that contemporary modes of representation in advertising create an illusion of exclusivity or of scarcity (Appadurai 1986), but other methods such as merchandising and building assortment, in which the process of sorting is fundamental, entertain a more subtle game with categories…”

“Political negotiations and relations between border residents, traders, and customs guards revolve around the transborder exchange of commodities and determine the ever-changing values of such commodities (e.g., Appadurai 1986).”

“…encode things with significance, [while] from a methodological point of view it is the things-in-motion that illuminate their social context' (Appadurai 1986:5; emphasis in original), I seek to elucidate not only the social conditions that have produced the recent explosion of Ostalgie in…”

“In particular, Appadurai’s agendasetting essay on the politics of commodity exchange and Kopytoff’s analysis of the cultural biography of objects, both from The Social Life of Things (Appadurai, 1986; Kopytoff, 1986), were important attempts to refocus analytical attention upon the material embodiment and concrete his…”

“Contemporary work in this tradition includes Miller’s (1998) explorations of the centrality of material objects in mundane aspects of social life, and analyses of the life courses of objects by Appadurai (1986) and Daston (2000).”

“When commodities are acquired outside of the bonding ritual of gift-giving, when they lack sacred contamination from loved ones or other people, or when they are not sacralized by inclusion in a collection or by other means, they are profane commodities (Appadurai 1986; Kopytoff 1986).”

“Useful theoretical discussions of luxuries and their relationship to wealth and other social factors are found in Douglas and Isherwood (1979), Braudel (1981), and Appadurai (1986).”

“Goods then, according to cultural anthropological readings of consumption, are made attractive though their ability to allow consumers to “conjure up” particular values in their imagination (see Appadurai 1986; Douglas and Isherwood 1979; McCracken 1988).”

“Csikzentmihayli and Rochberg-Halton, 1981; Appadurai, 1986; Kopytoff, 1986; McCracken, 1988; Baudrillard, 1990[1970]; Featherstone, 1991; Falk and Campbell, 1997; Bauman, 1998; Zukin, 2004; Arnould and Thompson, 2005).”

“The objectivist approach assumes that authenticity emanates from the originality of an object, which can be measured with objective criteria ( Appadurai, 1986”

“Commodity status is not intrinsic to things and objects often move in and out of commodity status over their “life-time” (Appadurai 1986; Page 2005).5 But what happens when commodities do have a life of their own?”

“…rates (Cerny 1994; Helleiner 1994), the rise of ‘ exible’ modes of accumulation (Harvey 1989), the increasing dominance of exchange over production (Appadurai 1986), new monetary imaginaries and new forms of identi cation (Pryke and Allen 2000; Allen and Pryke 1999) and the emergence of…”

“The ‘object turn’ in the sociology of consumption, which has its origins in anthropology (Appadurai, 1986; Douglas and Isherwood, 1979) focuses on the role of objects in generating and conveying cultural meanings (Woodward, 2001), rather than macro analyses of the role and significance of…”

“In some extreme cases, a history of production and exchange can invest an object with a kind of cultural ‘personality’ (Appadurai 1986a; Kopytoff 1986).”

“Heightened critical interest in commodity branding, however, has only served to reinforce its association with “late capitalism” and Western societies (e.g., Appadurai 1986; Goldman 1994; Wernick 1991; Carrier 1995, 99–104).”

“Since the meaning of, for our purposes branded, objects derives from their uses, forms and patterns of circulation (Appadurai 1986), McFall (2002: 162) supports a contingent and – it is argued here geographically – entangled notion of “Meaning…better understood as a contingent category constructed…”

“…form of theorization, it builds on the capacity of a visual to ‘‘objectify social arrangements’’ by ‘‘disguising itself as information, rather than argument’’ (Meyer et al., 2013: 494) and also builds on the way that artifacts can become ‘‘the Trojan horse of value shifts’’ (Appadurai, 1986: 61).”

“…resource in modern Greek society through an externally originated mechanism of valuation (for discussions on valuation see Thompson 1979; Appadurai 1986; for native perceptions about antiquity before and shortly after the Greek War of Independence see Kakridis 1978; Protopsaltis 1967).”

“Here I focus more closely on ‘the things themselves’ (Appadurai, 1986: 5).”