It's Not Forever

The Material Culture of Hope

Bibliographic Data

ID2390865
AuthorsFiona R Parrott (University College London, UK,, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume10
Issue3
Pages245-262
Publication date2005-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Material Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1359183505057151
OpenAlexW2102802394
LanguageEN
Citations received34
References cited32

This article explores the way patients in a medium secure psychiatric unit relate to the institution through the decoration of bedrooms and self-decoration through clothing and accessories. The ethnography reveals that a refusal to decorate can be contrasted with an extreme concentration upon clothing and style. These two material genres are compared in terms of the potential ease with which they lend themselves to different forms of objectification, the values, uses or discourses which are constituted and developed through these acts of objectification and the constraints on the ability of agents to express them. The evidence suggests that patients continue to conceive of themselves primarily in terms of another potential life outside the institution, attempting to 'live within' material cultures that orientate them towards the future and to external relationships

Aesthetics · Art · Clothing · Epistemology · Ethnography · Institution · Objectification · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Style (visual arts · Visual arts · Anthropology · Body Image and Dysmorphia Studies · Decadence, Literature, and Society · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology