In this innovative study, six women and men from Eastern Indonesia narrate their own lives by talking about their possessions--domestic objects used to construct a coherent identity through a process of identification and "self-historicizing." Janet Hoskins explores how things are given biographical significance and entangled in sexual politics, expressed in dualistic metaphors where the familiar distinctions between person and object and female and male are drawn in unfamiliar ways. Biographical Objects is an ethnography of persons which takes the form of a study of things, showing how the object is not only a metaphor for the self but a pivot for reflexivity and introspection, a tool for autobiographic elaboration, a way of knowing oneself through things.
FREE Two-Day Shipping for students on millions of items. Learn more |
| |||||||||||||||
 Sell Back Your Copy for $3.25
Whether you buy it used on Amazon for $8.48 or somewhere else, you can sell it back through our Book Trade-In Program at the current price of $3.25.
Used Price$8.48
Trade-in Price$3.25
Price after
Trade-in$5.23 |
Book Description
Special Offers and Product Promotions
- Buy $50 in qualifying physical textbooks, get $5 in Amazon MP3 Credit. Here's how (restrictions apply)
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Review
[T]he book's heart really lies in the vicissitudes of personal experience, and the ethnographer's relationships with certain individuals. In this respect, the book properly takes its place among other recent works that center on the particularities of experience. Here the author's long fieldwork in Kodi serves her well.
–Indonesia
The stories are beautifully told, and Hoskins makes it easy to enjoy them. ...she is a very welcome guide, helping the reader follow the chains of metaphors that turn experience into poetry. Any student who has suffered through Saussure and Levi-Strauss deserves the pleasure of reading this book.
–The Journal of Asian Studies
–Indonesia
The stories are beautifully told, and Hoskins makes it easy to enjoy them. ...she is a very welcome guide, helping the reader follow the chains of metaphors that turn experience into poetry. Any student who has suffered through Saussure and Levi-Strauss deserves the pleasure of reading this book.
–The Journal of Asian Studies
About the Author
Janet Hoskins is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. She is the author of The Play of Time: Kodi Perspectives on Calendars, History and Exchange (1993), winner of the 1996 Benda prize in Southeast Asian studies.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet.
|
|||
|
Video reviews
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
First Sentence:
Recent theoretical interest in the study of personal narrative has highlighted the extent to which storytelling is a formative process: Through "telling their lives," people not only provide information about themselves but also fashion their identities in a particular way, constructing a "self" for public consumption. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
betel bag, sirih pipers, rato marapu, ritual couplets, biographical object, regency capital, snake cloth, garden hamlet, dragen tot, gender dualism, lineage house, ritual verse, singing ceremony, bush knife, betel quid, ritual speech, funeral shroud, double descent, twisted foot, ancestral village, public commodity, ritual stage, areca nut, exchange histories, wealthy girls Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Maru Daku, Raja Horo, Kahi Buffalo, Rangga Baki, Rangga Ramba Deta, Bondo Kodi, Nona Rio, Rato Ndelo, Deta Raya, East Sumba, Kahi Lendu Awango, Kalanggu Langa Kaka, Rangga Mahemba, Daku Maru, Markos Rangga Ende, Pati Rangga, Randa Peda, Wai Walla, Kalanggu Langa Koko, Londongo Tana, Mina Moto, Van Wouden, Kahi Twisted Foot, Kodi Bokol, United States New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Recent theoretical interest in the study of personal narrative has highlighted the extent to which storytelling is a formative process: Through "telling their lives," people not only provide information about themselves but also fashion their identities in a particular way, constructing a "self" for public consumption. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
betel bag, sirih pipers, rato marapu, ritual couplets, biographical object, regency capital, snake cloth, garden hamlet, dragen tot, gender dualism, lineage house, ritual verse, singing ceremony, bush knife, betel quid, ritual speech, funeral shroud, double descent, twisted foot, ancestral village, public commodity, ritual stage, areca nut, exchange histories, wealthy girls Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Maru Daku, Raja Horo, Kahi Buffalo, Rangga Baki, Rangga Ramba Deta, Bondo Kodi, Nona Rio, Rato Ndelo, Deta Raya, East Sumba, Kahi Lendu Awango, Kalanggu Langa Kaka, Rangga Mahemba, Daku Maru, Markos Rangga Ende, Pati Rangga, Randa Peda, Wai Walla, Kalanggu Langa Koko, Londongo Tana, Mina Moto, Van Wouden, Kahi Twisted Foot, Kodi Bokol, United States New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 68
books:
See all 68 books this book cites
46
books
cite this book:
See all 46 books citing this book
- Cinderella: A Casebook (Garland Folklore Casebooks) by Giambattista Basile on 5 pages
- Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia by Jane Atkinson on 5 pages
- Dealing with Inequality: Analysing Gender Relations in Melanesia and Beyond by Marilyn Strathern on 4 pages
- The Flow of Life: Essays on Eastern Indonesia (Harvard Studies in Cultural Anthropology ; 2) by James J. Fox in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Woman, Culture, and Society by Michelle Rosaldo in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 68 books this book cites
- Clothing Culture, 1350-1650 (The History of Retailing and Consumption) by Catherine Richardson on page 8, page 183, and Back Matter
- Pages from the Past: History and Memory in American Magazines by Carolyn Kitch in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Slavery and Resistance in Africa and Asia: Bonds of Resistance by Edward A. Alpers in Front Matter, and page 126
- Archaeologies of Materiality by Lynn Meskell on page 93, and page 209
- Expressive Genres And Historical Change: Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, And Taiwan (Anthropology and Cultural History in Asia and the Indo-Pacific) by Pamela J. Stewart on page 141, and page 149
See all 46 books citing this book
Books on Related Topics
(learn more)
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
So You'd Like to...
|
|
