{"product_id":"my-life-with-things-9780822361367","title":"My Life with Things","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMy Life with Things\u003c\/i\u003e is Elizabeth Chin's meditation on her relationship with consumer goods and a critical statement on the politics and method of anthropology in which she uses everyday items to intimately examine the ways consumption resonates with personal and social meaning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Chin composes a sprawling paean to the joy of stuff and the impossibility of our ever eschewing it. \u003ci\u003eIn My Life With Things\u003c\/i\u003e, she is winningly alert to the ambivalence around our acts of consumption, both the awful guilt and the immeasurable pleasure nonetheless.\"  -- Shahidha Bari * Times Higher Education *\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eMy Life with Things\u003c\/i\u003e is a refreshing and honest book, which gives a rich insight into the experience of engaging with auto-ethnography. It should certainly appeal to the more adventurous, less conventional academic from across the social sciences and not just anthropology, the author’s home discipline.... At the end of the day, researchers interested in anthropology, auto-ethnography and\/or consumption looking for an insider account complete with warts and all, should find this an invaluable companion.\" -- Christina Goulding * Consumption Markets \u0026amp; Culture *\u003cbr\u003e\"With herself as both subject and object of study, Chin . . . weaves a highly personal, idiosyncratic, and explanatory narrative. Ever the provocateur, she brings her own consumer diaries over the span of several years into conversation with the likes of Karl Marx, not only at a theoretical level but also as biographical touchstones. The narratives, structured around the themes of inheritance, survival, and love, detail the author’s close relationship with the everyday items that surround her. The results can be exhilarating, giving readers self-reflexive pause on the consumptive world and how they got there.\" -- C. R. Yano * Choice *\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eMy Life with Things\u003c\/i\u003e is a strange yet fascinating look at our cultural preoccupation with owning and communing with physical objects. Chin uses her anthropological background to present an autoethnography, combining research, theory, and personal writing to criticize (and commiserate with) our love of objects.\"\u003cbr\u003e   -- Jess Kibler * Bitch *\u003cbr\u003e\"Elizabeth Chin’s \u003ci\u003eMy Life with Things: The Consumer Diaries\u003c\/i\u003e, is a fantastic book. I can’t imagine anyone reading it and not wanting to become an anthropologist. It is also one of the funniest books I’ve read in a long time, with actual laugh-out-loud moments.\" -- Ben Highmore * New Formations *\u003cbr\u003e\"Part academic study and part personal essay, \u003ci\u003eMy Life with Things\u003c\/i\u003e offers both casual and scholarly readers an entryway into conversation about the place of material possessions in our lives.... [A] nuanced reflection on both the fact that we are inescapably tied to our possessions and the ways they connect us to our loved ones and neighbors around the world.\" -- Lee Hull Moses * Christian Century *\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eMy Life with Things\u003c\/i\u003e is thought-provoking in the best sense of the term. It poses new questions, approaches old ones in fresh ways, and tugs at the complex heart of people’s relationship to the things they have and the things they want.” -- Carrie M. Lane * American Ethnologist *\u003cbr\u003e\"In the end this book, as Chin tells us, is a focus on moments, rife with the complexities and contradictions of everyday life. Just as in other life moments and journeys, it is full of fodder for contemplation and discussion as well as catalysts for new perspectives. I can imagine it as a resource for teachers as well as students, and I envision many imaginative and lively discussions based on objects described in this book as well as the particular objects animating others’ lives and relationships.\" -- Patricia L. Sunderland * Journal of Anthropological Research *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments  vii\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 1. Introduction  3\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 2. The Entries  37\u003cbr\u003e My Life with Things  37\u003cbr\u003e Learn to Love Stuff  38\u003cbr\u003e Banky  40\u003cbr\u003e A Digression on the Topic of the Transitional Object  42\u003cbr\u003e Cebebrate!  56\u003cbr\u003e My Purple Shoes  58\u003cbr\u003e Newspapers  61\u003cbr\u003e Rose Nails  63\u003cbr\u003e The Window Shade  67\u003cbr\u003e Napkins  69\u003cbr\u003e My White Man's Tooth  72\u003cbr\u003e Should I Be Straighter  76\u003cbr\u003e Cyberfucked  79\u003cbr\u003e Knobs  80\u003cbr\u003e Glasses  82\u003cbr\u003e Curing Rug Lust  85\u003cbr\u003e Window Shopping Online  89\u003cbr\u003e Catalogs  92\u003cbr\u003e Other People's Labor  95\u003cbr\u003e Making Roots\/Making Routes  98\u003cbr\u003e My Closet(s)  101\u003cbr\u003e Joining the MRE  108\u003cbr\u003e Fun Shopping  114\u003cbr\u003e Preschool Birthday Parties  114\u003cbr\u003e Xena Warrior Consumer Princess  118\u003cbr\u003e I Love Your Nail Polish  120\u003cbr\u003e Little Benches  123\u003cbr\u003e The Kiss  126\u003cbr\u003e Are There Malls in Haiti?  127\u003cbr\u003e Baby Number Two Turned Me into Economic Man  129\u003cbr\u003e Pictures of the Rice Grain  132\u003cbr\u003e Panting in Ikea  136\u003cbr\u003e Capitalism Makes Me Sick  139\u003cbr\u003e My Grandmother's Rings  147\u003cbr\u003e Anorectic Energy  157\u003cbr\u003e Mi-Mi's Piano  162\u003cbr\u003e Dream-Filled Prescriptions  169\u003cbr\u003e The Turquoise Arrowhead  170\u003cbr\u003e Turning The Tables  173\u003cbr\u003e Minnie Mouse Earring Holder  176\u003cbr\u003e Make Yourself a Beloved Person  181\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 3. Writing as Practice and Process  187\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 4. This Never Happened  203\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Notes  221\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography  227\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Index  235","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49406095720791,"sku":"9780822361367","price":18.89,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780822361367.jpg?v=1730494510","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/my-life-with-things-9780822361367","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}