Material Culture of the Everyday

The study of ordinary objects — homes, possessions, clothes, household stuff — and the relationships, identities and values they sustain.

Definition

The material culture of the everyday is the body of ordinary physical objects through which people conduct daily life, and the study of how those objects carry meaning, mediate relationships, and shape and express identity.

Scope

This topic examines the everyday material world: the things people own, arrange and live among, and how these objects mediate social relationships and self-understanding. It draws on material-culture studies and ethnographies of the home and possessions, foregrounding the small, often unremarked artefacts of daily life rather than designed art objects or luxury goods. It connects consumer-culture theory to the lived, domestic experience of having and using things.

Core questions

• How do ordinary possessions express and sustain personal and social identity?
• What relationships do people form with the things in their homes?
• How does material culture mediate memory, care and belonging?
• Why has the study of everyday objects become central to consumption studies?

Key concepts

• objectification
• the home
• possessions
• domestic material culture
• the ordinary
• things

Key theories

Objectification

Miller argues, after Hegel, that people create themselves through the objects they make and use: material things are not opposed to social relations but are the medium through which those relations are realised.

The comfort of things

Through household ethnography, Miller shows that possessions and their arrangement reveal and stabilise people's relationships, values and sense of order, especially in conditions of social isolation.

The everyday as object of study

Highmore argues that the ordinary and overlooked textures of daily life, including its material settings, are a legitimate and revealing focus for cultural analysis.

History

Material-culture studies grew at the intersection of anthropology, archaeology and cultural studies. Miller's Material Culture and Mass Consumption (1987) established a theoretical framework of objectification, which he developed through home-based ethnographies such as The Comfort of Things (2008) and the synthesis Stuff (2010). In parallel, scholars of everyday life such as Highmore brought sustained attention to the ordinary and material textures of daily existence.

Debates

Do objects have agency

Whether everyday things merely reflect human meanings and relationships, or whether they actively shape and constrain social life, as material-culture and actor-network approaches suggest.

Key figures

• Daniel Miller
• Ben Highmore

Seminal works

• miller1987
• miller2008
• millerstuff2010

Frequently asked questions

Isn't focusing on people's possessions just trivial?

Material-culture researchers argue the opposite: because possessions are woven into daily routines and relationships, they offer an unusually direct window onto values, identities and social bonds that people may struggle to articulate in words.