This work is a survey of the enormous number of writings on consumption produced over the last decade. The theorization of consumption is something which increasingly dominates economic, political and social debate - whether parent, passenger or patient, we are all consumers. This book includes contributions from leading researchers in the field. There are chapters on consumption studies in anthropology, consumer behaviour, economics, geography, history, media studies, psychology and sociology. This is an interdisciplinary overview which provides new theories, critical analyses and the latest...

Worlds Apart is concerned with one of the new futures of anthropology, namely the advances in technologies which r eate an imagination of new global and local forms. It also analyses studies of the consumption of these forms and attempts to go beyond the assumptions that consumption either localises or fails to effect global forms and images.
Several of the chapters are written by anthropologists who have specialised in material culture studies and who examine the new forms, especially television and mass commodities, as well as some new uses of older forms, such as the body. The...

In recent years, there has been a spate of books theorizing fashion. Few, however, take on board the artefactual nature of cloth. In contrast, costume historians have looked closely at garments, but have shown less concern with how clothing is informed by social structures. This book fills a major gap by combining these two "camps" through an expressly material culture approach to clothing. In sustained case studies, Kuchler and Miller argue that cloth and clothing are living, vibrant parts of culture and the body. From the recycling of cloth in Africa and India and the use of pattern in the...

In recent years, there has been a spate of books theorizing fashion. Few, however, take on board the artefactual nature of cloth. In contrast, costume historians have looked closely at garments, but have shown less concern with how clothing is informed by social structures. This book fills a major gap by combining these two "camps" through an expressly material culture approach to clothing. In sustained case studies, Kuchler and Miller argue that cloth and clothing are living, vibrant parts of culture and the body. From the recycling of cloth in Africa and India and the use of pattern in the...

The book traces the impact of the cell phone from personal issues of loneliness and depression to the global concerns of the modern economy and the trans-national family. As the technology of social networking, the cell phone has become central to establishing and maintaining relationships in areas from religion to love. The Cell Phone presents the first detailed ethnography of the impact of this new technology through the exploration of the cell phone's role in everyday lives.

Worlds Apart is concerned with one of the new futures of anthropology, namely the advances in technologies which r eate an imagination of new global and local forms. It also analyses studies of the consumption of these forms and attempts to go beyond the assumptions that consumption either localises or fails to effect global forms and images.
Several of the chapters are written by anthropologists who have specialised in material culture studies and who examine the new forms, especially television and mass commodities, as well as some new uses of older forms, such as the body. The...