Clarity, Cut, and Culture: The Many Meanings of Diamonds, (Hardcover)

<p>Images of diamonds appear everywhere in American<br>culture. And everyone who has a diamond has a story to tell about it. Our<br>stories about diamonds not only reveal what we do with these tiny<br>stones, but also suggest how we create value, meaning, and identity through our<br>interactions with material culture in general. </p><p>Things become meaningful through our interactions with them, but how do<br>people go about making meaning? What can we learn from an ethnography about the<br>production of identity, creation of kinship, and use of diamonds<br>in understanding selves and social relationships? By what means do<br>people positioned within a globalized political-economy and a compelling<br>universe of advertising interact locally with these tiny polished<br>rocks? </p><p>This book draws on 12 months of fieldwork with diamond consumers in<br>New York City as well as an analysis of the iconic De Beers campaign<br>that promised romance, status, and glamour to anyone who bought a<br>diamond to show that this thematic pool is just one resource among<br>many that diamond owners draw upon to engage with their own<br>stones. The volume highlights the important roles that memory, <br>context, and circumstance also play in shaping how people interpret and then<br>use objects in making personal worlds. It shows that besides<br>operating as subjects in an ad-burdened universe, consumers are<br>highly creative, idiosyncratic, and theatrical agents.</p>

• Clarity, Cut, and Culture: The Many Meanings of Diamonds, (Hardcover)
• Author: New York University Press
• ISBN: 9781479810666
• Format: Hardcover
• Publication Date: 2014-06-13
• Page Count: 224