Page 181 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

Bodies and Things 165

that people ’ s needs are met by pooling the resources of the community
through taxes for government - funded care.
We also live in constant interaction with the world of things around us.
Our lives are sustained by everything from toaster ovens to cars. Contact
with things places us in certain kinds of social relations and give us access
to certain forms of cultural meaning. When I come into contact with buses,
a rare experience for me, I encounter people I would not normally encoun-
ter – most recently, a Hispanic mother of several children who worked at
a casino and who was headed for the overnight shift just as I was making
my way home from work through a snowstorm that made driving a car
impossible. I never touch poker chips but if I did inhabit a cultural world

in which such objects were common, I would find myself in a completely
different social milieu from the one I usually frequent as well as a com-
pletely different culture. Instead of a quiet library, I would be in a loud
casino. The first time I went to the local Native American bingo hall, I was

struck by how gray everyone seemed, and it wasn ’ t just hair. Their skin
seemed sallow, as if they came a cultural world in which physical exercise
was not common and eating well was not a priority.
Things can be distillates of meaning for communities that bind the

people of the community together. A crucifix or a Star of David or a cres-
cent, for example, is a material object with intense significance for particu-

lar religious and ethnic communities. All bind different people together in
a common shared understanding of the world. Common everyday objects
can also have more personal meanings. Marcel Proust in his novel
Remembrance of Things Past reports that he once tasted a sweet cake called
a madeleine and was suddenly reminded of his childhood because he used
to eat the same sweet cake when he was young. A whole world of lost recol-
lections was summoned forth by the simple taste of the madeleine. When
I was growing up in Ireland, I attended Catholic mass regularly at a time
in the 1950s when it was said in Latin and accompanied by incense. Now,
whenever I smell incense burning, I am reminded of that church in that
small Irish town. A whole world of lost experiences and realities, from the
sight of men lying dead in beds seen through windows on narrow streets

to the men in fishing boats rowing out to sea to cast nets, is revived by the
smell. It has meaning, and it evokes a now gone culture.
Ordinary useful objects also take on meaning from the ambient culture.
In certain subsistence level tribal communities in South America, the making
of tools is an occupation that requires the effort of the whole tribe at particu-
lar times in the year. The objects assist the survival of the community so