The socialness of things : essays on the socio-semiotics of objects : International conference entitled "The socio-semiotics of objects: the role of artifacts in social symbolic processes" : Selected revised papers

The United Nations Millennium declarations of 2002 set eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved by 2015. The papers presented in this publication endeavour to address how libraries and information professionals in East, Central and Southern Africa seek to make themselves relevant to national development by asking themselves how libraries and information centres could contribute to the attainment of these MDGs. Introduction Part I. The dialogic object: Artifacts as agents and processes The genuine article Glorious obsessions, passionate lovers, and hidden treasures: Collecting, metaphor, and the Romantic ethic Objects and their maker: Bricolage of the self Fieldwork in the living room: An autoethnographhic essay Bridewealth revisited Melanesian artifacts as cultural markers: A micro-anthropological study Part II. The built environment and the political ecology of artifacts The logic of the mall The ideological commodification of culture: Architectural heritage and domestic tourism in Japan “Take home Canada”: Representations of aboriginal peoples as tourist souvenirs Objects, texts, and practices: The refrigerator in consumer discourses between the wars Communicating democracy: Or shine, perishing republic Part III. Clothing and adornment: The skin of culture Are artifacts texts? Lithuanian woven sashes as social and cosmic transactions Feathers and fringes: A semiotic approach to powwow dancers’ regalia Navajo weaving as sacred metahor What is a t-shirt? Codes, chronotypes and everyday objects Interpreted, circulating, interpreting: The three dimensions of the clothing object Psychoanalytic jewels: The domestic drama of Dora and Freud Subject Index Name Index Roland Barthes once suggested that there should be a science of grades.