Returning To Marina's Happy Meal Toys
Finally, the objects described above are the end result of a process through which value is socially ascribed to the inanimate. Igor Kopytoff (1986) defines this process in modern nations as a tension between culturally ascribed and individually determined value, which takes into account the degree to which something is unique. Returning to Marina’s Happy Meal toys helps to illuminate this process. Firstly, McDonald’s toys are mass produced from widely-available materials. Culturally, this detracts from their value, unless they are in some way flawed enough to be unique. Low social value is exactly why they are so meaningful to Marina, however, who subverts her parents’ professed fondness for status items. She also find them “sacred” (Kopytoff,
1986, p. 73) in the sense that they have value outside the economic sphere. The time spent with her children and their happiness while playing with the toys cannot be given a numerical value; the toys, in enabling those experiences, exist outside of a socially accepted sphere of exchange. This fits into a wider phenomenon in which socially determined value “...must constantly compete with classifications by individuals and by small networks, whose members also belong to other networks expounding yet other value systems” (Kopytoff, 1986, p. 78). Kopytoff argues consumption in the Modern West is characterized by this tension between commodity and singular items. Both commodification and singularization are social practices: they involve common consensus about the value of items for the former and are the result of social influences on the individual for the latter. Kopytoff’s process of commodification highlights that objects that take on the coding and relational roles described above are not inherently meaningful. Instead, they acquire meaning through a social process. In this sense, objects both impact and are impacted by the social world of the humans that purchase, use, manufacture, and view them. They communicate meaning while simultaneously excluding those not privy to their language. They bring people into physical and social proximity, while at the same time affirming or challenging existing social roles. That objects should act in the social sphere is hardly a surprise, as material culture is the end result of cultural processes that determine value. Objects begin their lives as the product of social circumstances: they are made by someone with a social status, in a certain place, at a certain time. They continue to impact social networks throughout their lives, until they are eventually discarded. This process, too, is navigated culturally: some items end up in landfills, while others find their final resting place in a museum. Understanding how objects operate as social actors grounds the study of material culture. It provides a counterpoint to arguments regarding materiality or, more pressingly, those that argue objects should not be studied at all. In Miller’s (2005) The Comfort of Things, it is clear that objects complicate observations about other elements of people’s lives. The conscientious anthropologist, then, does well to both understand the sociality of objects and to consider them in their analysis of more abstract concepts, like kinship or economics.
1986, p. 73) in the sense that they have value outside the economic sphere. The time spent with her children and their happiness while playing with the toys cannot be given a numerical value; the toys, in enabling those experiences, exist outside of a socially accepted sphere of exchange. This fits into a wider phenomenon in which socially determined value “...must constantly compete with classifications by individuals and by small networks, whose members also belong to other networks expounding yet other value systems” (Kopytoff, 1986, p. 78). Kopytoff argues consumption in the Modern West is characterized by this tension between commodity and singular items. Both commodification and singularization are social practices: they involve common consensus about the value of items for the former and are the result of social influences on the individual for the latter. Kopytoff’s process of commodification highlights that objects that take on the coding and relational roles described above are not inherently meaningful. Instead, they acquire meaning through a social process. In this sense, objects both impact and are impacted by the social world of the humans that purchase, use, manufacture, and view them. They communicate meaning while simultaneously excluding those not privy to their language. They bring people into physical and social proximity, while at the same time affirming or challenging existing social roles. That objects should act in the social sphere is hardly a surprise, as material culture is the end result of cultural processes that determine value. Objects begin their lives as the product of social circumstances: they are made by someone with a social status, in a certain place, at a certain time. They continue to impact social networks throughout their lives, until they are eventually discarded. This process, too, is navigated culturally: some items end up in landfills, while others find their final resting place in a museum. Understanding how objects operate as social actors grounds the study of material culture. It provides a counterpoint to arguments regarding materiality or, more pressingly, those that argue objects should not be studied at all. In Miller’s (2005) The Comfort of Things, it is clear that objects complicate observations about other elements of people’s lives. The conscientious anthropologist, then, does well to both understand the sociality of objects and to consider them in their analysis of more abstract concepts, like kinship or economics.