Material Culture Books

New and Published Books

1. Japanese Women, Class and the Tea Ceremony

   The voices of tea practitioners in northern Japan

   By Kaeko Chiba

   Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

   This book examines the complex relationship between class and gender dynamics among tea ceremony (chado) practitioners in Japan. Focusing on practitioners in a provincial city, Akita, the book surveys the rigid, hierarchical chado system at grass roots level. Making critical use of Bourdieu’s idea...

   Published January 28th 2013 by Routledge
2. The Routledge Companion to Identity and Consumption

   Edited by Ayalla A. Ruvio, Russell W. Belk

   Series: Routledge Companions in Business, Management and Accounting

   "Tell me what you eat, I'll tell you who you are," said Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. Today, "You are what you consume" is more apt. Barbara Krueger’s ironic twist of Descartes - "I shop therefore I am" - has lost its irony. Such phrases have become commonplace descriptions of our identity in the...

   Published December 16th 2012 by Routledge
3. A Philosophy of Material Culture

   Action, Function, and Mind

   By Beth Preston

   Series: Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy

   This book focuses on material culture as a subject of philosophical inquiry and promotes the philosophical study of material culture by articulating some of the central and difficult issues raised by this topic and providing innovative solutions to them, most notably an account of improvised action...

   Published December 13th 2012 by Routledge
4. Milk, Modernity and the Making of the Human

   Purifying the Social

   By Richie Nimmo

   Series: CRESC

   This book undertakes a critique of the pervasive notion that human beings are separate from and elevated above the nonhuman world and explores its role in the constitution of modernity. The book presents a socio-material analysis of the British milk industry in the late nineteenth and early...

   Published November 12th 2012 by Routledge
5. How Institutions Think (Routledge Revivals)

   By Mary Douglas

   First published in 1986 Mary Douglas’ theory of institutions uses the sociological theories of Emile Durkheim and Ludwig Fleck to determine not only how institutions think, but also the extent to which thinking itself is dependent upon institutions. Different kinds of institutions allow individuals...

   Published July 23rd 2012 by Routledge
6. Cultural Hybridity

   Contradictions and Dilemmas

   Edited by Kwok-Bun Chan

   This book brings together a group of scholars from diverse disciplines to interrogate everyday life events in various interpersonal and organizational contexts so as to answer an age-old question: what happens when (carriers of) cultures meet, or, when East meets West? The contributors to this...

   Published June 13th 2012 by Routledge
7. Museums in Postcolonial Europe

   Edited by Dominic Thomas

   The history of European nation-building and identity formation is inextricably connected with museums, and the role they play in displaying the acquired spoils and glorious symbols of geopolitical power in order to mobilize public support for expansionist ventures. This book examines the...

   Published May 29th 2012 by Routledge
8. Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War

   Creativity Behind Barbed Wire

   Edited by Gilly Carr, Harold Mytum

   Series: Routledge Studies in Heritage

   This book focuses on the numerous examples of creativity produced by POWs and civilian internees during their captivity, including: paintings, cartoons, craftwork, needlework, acting, musical compositions, magazine and newspaper articles, wood carving, and recycled Red Cross tins turned into plates...

   Published March 4th 2012 by Routledge
9. The Interpretation of Ritual

   Edited by J.S. La Fontaine

   First published in 1972. A revival of interest in primitive religion has been one of the most marked characteristics of British social anthropology of recent years. Inspired by the work of Audrey Richards, whose writing on ritual contains many of the insights that have been developed in later...

   Published December 12th 2011 by Routledge
10. Political Systems and the Distribution of Power

    Edited by Michael Banton

    Modern political anthropology began in 1940 with the first systematic comparative studies of how primitive societies maintained law and order. The focus was on government and the presence or absence of state institutions. Recently, interest has shifted to the study of power, to examining the...

    Published December 12th 2011 by Routledge