ABSTRACT
The first four chapters of this book have covered a range of different aspects of social life and social relations, highlighting some of the changes that have taken place, both in everyday life and in the ways in which social scientists provide explanations. Some transformations appear to have resulted from the collective actions of human beings, but these actions are always effected in a material context; in relation to other human beings, other organic forms of life and the objects that make up the material environment and the material conditions in which social life is experienced. For example, the discussion of identity in Chapter 2 showed that people’s presentation of themselves in everyday life is closely linked to materialities, including the objects and artefacts to which we relate: the clothes we wear, the objects we possess and use and the material bodies we inhabit. People buy into particular identities and are recruited into identity positions in relation to objects of consumption, such as the clothes they wear. Clothes are not only signifiers of meaning about the sort of people we are, they also have value and material status in themselves as objects of consumption. Citizenship has been increasingly linked to consumption, for example through the idea that citizens have rights as consumers, although citizenship can also be marked by inequities which have material outcomes as well as sources. As Chapter 3 showed, the equalities and inequalities which create and deny citizenship rights are also material as well as involving symbolic representations and discursive regimes, such as the law.
