Materializing difference : consumer culture, politics, and ethnicity among Romanian Roma / Péter Berta ; with a foreword by Fred R. Myers.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Berta, Péter, 1972- author.

Series:

Anthropological horizons

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Romanies--Material culture--Romania.

Romanies.

Romanies--Romania--Social life and customs.

Romanies--Romania--Economic conditions.

Romanies--Romania--Ethnic identity.

Romanies--Romania--Politics and government.

Consumption (Economics)--Romania.

Consumption (Economics).

Romanies--Economic conditions.

Romanies--Ethnic identity.

Romanies--Politics and government.

Romanies--Social life and customs.

Politics and government.

Ethnicity.

Economic conditions.

Manners and customs.

Material culture.

Romania.

Physical Description:

xviii, 372 pages : color illustrations, map ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Toronto ; Buffalo; London : University of Toronto Press, [2019]

Summary:

"How do objects mediate human relationships, and possess their own social and political agency? What role does material culture--such as prestige consumption as well as commodity aesthetics, biographies, and ownership histories--play in the production of social and political identities, differences, and hierarchies? How do (informal) consumer subcultures of collectors organize and manage themselves? Drawing on theories from anthropology and sociology, specifically material culture, consumption, museum, ethnicity, and post-socialist studies, Materializing Difference addresses these questions via analysis of the practices and ideologies connected to Gabor Roma beakers and roofed tankards made of antique silver. The consumer subculture organized around these objects--defined as ethnicized and gendered prestige goods by the Gabor Roma living in Romania--is a contemporary, second-hand culture based on patina-oriented consumption. Materializing Difference reveals the inner dynamics of the complex relationships and interactions between objects (silver beakers and roofed tankards) and subjects (Romanian Roma) and investigates how these relationships and interactions contribute to the construction, materialization, and reformulation of social, economic, and political identities, boundaries, and differences. It also discusses how, after 1989, the political transformation in Romania led to the emergence of a new, post-socialist consumer sensitivity among the Gabor Roma, and how this sensitivity reshaped the pre-regime-change patterns, meanings, and value preferences of prestige consumption."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Part 1 Negotiating and Materializing Difference and Belonging

1 Symbolic Arenas and Trophies of the Politics of Difference p. 23

2 The Gabors' Prestige Economy: A Translocal, Ethnicized, Informal, and Gendered Consumer Subculture p. 53

3 From Antiques to Prestige Objects: De- and Recontextualizing Commodities from the European Antiques Market p. 82

4 Creating Symbolic and Material Patina p. 95

5 The Politics of Brokerage: Bazaar-Style Trade and Risk Management p. 118

6 Political Face-Work and Transcultural Bricolage/Hybridity Prestige Objects in Political Discourse p. 150

Part 2 Contesting Consumer Subcultures: Interethnic Trade, Fake Authenticity, and Classification Struggles

7 Gabor Roma, Carhar Roma, and the European Antiques Market: Contesting Consumer Subcultures p. 177

8 Interethnic Trade of Prestige Objects p. 208

9 Constructing, Commodifying, and Consuming Fake Authenticity p. 219

10 The Politics of Consumption: Classification Struggles, Moral Criticism, and Stereotyping p. 236

Part 3 Multi-Sited Commodity Ethnographies

11 Things-in-Motion: Methodological Fetishism, Multi-Sitedness, and the Biographical Method p. 261

12 Prestige Objects, Marriage Politics, and the Manipulation of Nominal Authenticity: The Biography of a Beaker, 2000-2007 p. 266

13 Proprietary Contest, Business Ethics, and Conflict Management: The Biography of a Roofed Tankard, 1992-2012 p. 281.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781487520403

1487520409

9781487500573

1487500572

OCLC:

1065953048