Artifacts

As you may or may not know, I just got back to Caracas after a three week trip to the US. Upon returning, I realized that I'd acquired a lot of things on my trip, a lot of cycling related commodities, specifically. What would an archeologist make of these things, these artifacts, if they were to be dug up 200 years from now? That made me think of the role of material culture in the cycling scene, which in turn reminded me of a paper I wrote a few years ago, about material culture, consumption and identity. I thought it might be interesting to post the introduction to that paper, along with photos of just some of the things I acquired on my trip.

Yojimbo's Track Cats supporters shirt - Available from Yojimbo's Garage, 100% of the purchase price goes to support the Track Cats program.

Team Pegasus cycling cap by Cognition Caps.

"In his introduction to the book The Social Life of Things, Arjun Appadurai suggests that consumption is a social, relational, and active practice. Demand, the economic expression of the political logic of consumption, 'emerges as a function of a variety of social practices and classifications rather than a mysterious emanation of human needs, a mechanical response to social manipulation (as in the model of the effects of advertising in our own society), or the narrowing down of a universal and voracious desire for objects to whatever happens to be available,' (Appadurai 1986 : 29). In this sense, consumption is a dialectical process with a multiplicity of meanings and motivations dependant on social, economic, cultural, historical and political contexts.

Beijing Olympics Track Cycling Sake Cup! Thanks Jeff!!

Cycle Sport America (thanks, Andrew!) and ProCycling, two of the best cycling magazines available.

Similarly, Daniel Miller, in his introduction to the book Acknowledging Consumption, suggests that instead of attempting a general catch-all definition we should understand consumption as a 'dialectic between the specificity of regions, groups and particular commodity forms on the one hand, and the generality of the global shifts in the political economy and contradictions of culture on the other,' (Miller 1995 : 34). Thus, attention must be paid to both the native categorizations specific to local practices of consumption, and the larger global context, while all the time aware of the academic need to 'generalize as a means of analysis,' (Miller 1995 : 31).

Nitto cycling cap from Trackstar.

Dispatch101 badges. Thanks, Julio!

Both Miller and Appadurai would also agree that one of the generally important aspects of consumption is its construction, negotiation and expression of meaning. Jean Baudrillard highlights the communicative aspects of consumer goods in his book The Consumer Society, when he says that consumption is no longer defined as 'a fundamental practice of objects or as a mere individual group or prestige function but as a system of communication,' (Baudrillard 1998 : 93). Similarly, Appadurai suggests that consumption is the 'focus not just for sending social messages but for receiving them as well,' (Appadurai 1986 : 31). Miller notes that 'consumer goods commonly serve to communicate social distinctions or reinforce relationships of superiority and inferiority between individuals or groups. They may also be instrumental in creating or confirming an individual’s sense of self or personal identity -- people have found that an identity constructed through consumption is far more empowering and controllable than that which is dependent upon their placement within ever larger systems of production over which they have little control,' (Miller 1995 : 42). This is one reason why Miller says that consumption, as one of the prime processes in the formation of cultural identity, should become a central object of study for anthropology.

CSC cap. The best team in cycling. Seeing as the team is changing to Saxo Bank next year, I bought a lifetime's supply (well, 5) of these caps.

Cog Magazine bar-ends.

In advocating the study of consumption, Miller rejects a post-modernist critique that contemporary society is shallow, superficial and essentially cultureless. As Miller says, 'the problem with a concern for objects that are more transient, or a concern with the surface of style, is that is comes up against one of the fundamental tenets of classical Western philosophy – the critique of superficiality. But there is no reason why important issues of identity, and indeed of ontology, should not be conceptually located in both more transient and more surface-orientated modes,' (Miller 1995 : 25)."

Bicycle Film Festival 2008 limited edition Cinelli musette. Thanks Tristan, Aaron and Michelle!

Of course, all of this is not to deny Marxist critiques of the commodity form. But, applying a material culture semantic analysis to the popular culture of cycling might also be productive, as it is a culture in which consumption of goods, far from being an “erosion of culture” (Miller 1995 : 268), is elemental in the construction of culture.

Works cited:
Appadurai, A., 1986 The Social Life of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bauldrillard, J., 1998 The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications.
Miller, D., 1995 Acknowledging Consumption. London: Routledge.