Access, Distinction and Material Culture through Coffee

Catalog description

Each object we come in contact with over the course of any given day brings with it its own accumulation of significances and histories, and helps us to shape our identities. The study of things and their constituent materials is a means to examine exchange, power, identity, and the practices through which things become meaningful. Through the close inspection of a single good we can see the complex accumulation and contestation of themes, meanings, and global connections. Issues of access, inequality, and social capital as explored through the world of goods, beginning with a globally-traded commodity with a rich local history: coffee.