Module Catalogue 2026/27

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

1. To explore people’s relationship with material culture and consumer practices over time and across a range of cultural contexts. This will include engaging with concerns around use of artefacts in the display of self, drawing on classic anthropology and bringing this up to date with relevant contemporary studies. Students will also be introduced to wider related interests such as health, the body, and notions of belonging and difference so as to reflect on the multiple ways in which identities may be constituted and reconstituted through our relationship to consumption.

2. To introduce students to recent anthropological debates on consumption locally and globally, alongside anthropological and sociological literature critiquing societal and cultural investiture ascribed to commodities.

3. To develop students’ understanding of key social theories around cultures of consumption and their application to notions of the contemporary social world.

Outline Of Syllabus

How do we incorporate commodities into our lives? What value do we give things? What do we base our lifestyle choices on? How important are these choices to where we place ourselves within our social worlds? From early studies of the exchange of ritual goods to contemporary concerns around the use of objects and ideas in our lives, anthropology has been interested in people’s relationship to things. This module examines this complex relationship in detail.

Lectures and seminars cover a number of interrelated themes exploring anthropology’s long-standing fascination with material culture and consumer practices. Themes include: gift-giving and reciprocity; role of consumption in celebration and ritual; how animal and vegetable substances may be classified as edible/sanctioned or inedible/taboo across cultures and time; the relationship between consumption and contemporary society; ways in which individuals express themselves through consumption practices; how things ‘communicate’ and the study of signs, symbols and semiotics; popular culture and mass consumption; consumption in everyday lives; consuming healthy bodies; ethical questions raised across local and global spheres of consumption; ethnographies of communities at the raw end of the consumer chain; and the social value of life/lives focusing on a case study of the market in body parts. This module explores each theme using theoretical perspectives that examine the relationship between what is displayed and what may be hidden, and the conundrum of identity which can be understood as both malleable and solid.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

By the end of this course the students should be able to:

- Understand a range of literatures that illuminate anthropology’s development of interests around material culture and consumer practices.
- Demonstrate an in-depth and critical understanding of key theoretical concepts in this area.
- Think critically about the multiple and complex ways in which people relate to their social world, particularly with regards to notions of consumer culture.
- Gain familiarity of ethnographic resources available to investigate the social and cultural milieu.

Intended Skill Outcomes

By the end of this course the students should be able to:

Students will develop skills in critical analysis and understanding through engaging with complex theoretical tools and ethnographic material. They will develop a range of practical skills including group work, interpersonal communication, writing skills, and time-management. This will be encouraged through assessments, lectures and seminars.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures are intended to combine theoretical concepts with substantive material around the anthropology of consumption.

Seminars are designed to provide students with structured tasks and readings. Students will be encouraged to discuss their analysis of key texts with their peers.

One of the seminars will be designed around preparing students for the fieldtrip. Students will share their insights from the fieldtrip with fellow students in a subsequent seminar.

The 2 hour fieldtrip will provide students with the opportunity to observe consumption practices in a familiar context using ethnographic tools. This will allow them to put into practice more abstract concepts and argument from lectures and previous seminars, while gaining hands-on experience of ethnographic resources available to reflect on our everyday consuming lives.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Essay format assessment permits students to explore the wider sociological context of a chosen topic in some depth.

The essay will assess the breadth of student knowledge of key debates around anthropology’s enduring interest in material culture and everyday social worlds. The essays will address the first part of the module.
sources to demonstrate.

The critical report will build on the skills level 3 students have developed in their academic career to date. The report will give students the opportunity to develop their depth of understanding of a single, chosen theme through close analysis of ethnographic research. The exercise requires them to develop the format of the report and consider wider implications for the subject when presenting their summary.

Reflecting moves to standardise the resit assessment strategy within GPS, the resit will be 100% formal examination, 3 hours in duration.

General Notes

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