Unpacking Ikea Cultures: Swedish Design for the Purchasing Masses

ISBN-13: 9781138793965 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 162 str.

Pauline Garvey

Opis

This book represents the first anthropological ethnography of Ikea consumption and goes to the heart of understanding the unique and at times frantic popularity of this one iconic transnational store. Based on a year of participant observation in Stockholm's Kungens Kurva store - the largest in the world - this book places the retailer squarely within the realm of the home-building efforts of individuals in Stockholm and to a lesser degree in Dublin. Ikea, the world's largest retailer and one of its most interesting, is the focus of intense popular fascination internationally, yet is rarely subject to in-depth anthropological inquiry. In 'Unpacking Ikea, ' Garvey explores why Ikea is never 'just a store' for its customers, why it is described in terms of a cultural package; as 'everyday' and decidedly classless. Using in-depth interviews with householders over several years, this ethnographic study follows the furniture from the Ikea store outwards to probe what people actually take home with them.

Spis treści

1. Unpacking Ikea,  2.  Benign Intervention: Ikea Showrooms as Tableaux-Vivant,  3. Home Staging, Housing Theatre: Design, Domesticity and the People’s Home,  4. Standardisation, Democracy and Equality: design for the Many People,  5.  Storage Solutions, Clutter and Containment,  6. Still Life? Circulation, Mobility and Emotion,  7.
Epilogue: Design Dispersed

O autorze

Pauline Garvey is senior lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Maynooth University, Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland.