model 3
Grant McCracken, 'Clothing as language: an object lesson in the study of expressive properties of material culture,' and 'Meaning manufacture and movement in the world of goods' (1988).
In ‘Clothing as language: an object lesson in the study of expressive properties of material culture,’ McCracken studies clothing as an outward expression of inward ideas. Clothing is a means of communicating, a form of personal expression, is steeped in ritual and rites of passage.
In ‘Meaning Manufacture and movement in the world of goods,’ McCracken focuses on the significance of consumer goods to carry and communicate cultural meaning. He looks at cultural categories (the conceptual grid of a culturally constituted world) and cultural principles (the ideas and/or values behind the organization of cultural phenomena). Goods have a ‘performative function’ – they give cultural meaning a concreteness for the individual that it would otherwise not have (74). They are part of the “completion of the self” (88).
McCracken’s is less a step-by-step model than a guide in which to understand the functions and cultural meanings inherent in clothing and consumer goods. McCracken’s concepts of communication, personal expression and individualization of the self seem valuable in studying the tattoo.
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