Enlivened Objects The Social Life, Death and Rebirth of Radio as Commodity in Afghanistan

This article examines the social maintenance of commodity exchange and use values with specific regard to radio in Afghanistan. It addresses the socio-symbolic significance of the technology, as reflected in the domestic positioning and care afforded to radio sets. Radio brands, durability, disrepai...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of material culture Vol. 10; no. 2; pp. 123 - 137
Main Author Skuse, Andrew
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Thousand Oaks, CA Sage Publications 01.07.2005
Subjects
Afghanistan
Commodities
Communication
Consumption
Everyday Life
Material culture
Meaning
Poverty
Radio
repair
Afghanistan
consumption
enlivenment
radio
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Summary:This article examines the social maintenance of commodity exchange and use values with specific regard to radio in Afghanistan. It addresses the socio-symbolic significance of the technology, as reflected in the domestic positioning and care afforded to radio sets. Radio brands, durability, disrepair and repair are also discussed in the context of poverty, the maximization of future exchange values and the long-term extraction of maximal use values. The article addresses notions of mundane everyday object enlivenment and concludes by suggesting that the meaning invested in certain objects, in this instance radio, is characterized by a process of ongoing economic and semantic investment that serves to maintain the object as a source of information, marker of social status, modernity and symbol of global connection.
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ISSN:1359-1835
1460-3586
DOI:10.1177/1359183505053071