CHAPTER 1
Identity and Nostalgia: Locating in Society
Identity is a fundamental facet of the structure of society. It is the means by which
individuals, groups or nations differentiate themselves from one another. Identity is a
construction, a collection of past and present, inherited or acquired traits, habits and
culture. While some aspects of identity are intangible, it is the material culture of
society that is the physical evidence by which identity is conveyed, imposed and
understood and locates one in social hierarchies. The same objects which make up
material culture of identity can act as foci of nostalgic emotions, which are as equally
subjective and variable as the presentation of identity. Simple definitions of the terms
nostalgia and identity refer to sentimental longing and individuality. However, these
fail to recognise the underlying motivations and influences from which nostalgia and
identity are derived. Definitions of these concepts encompass complex philosophical
arguments. The focus at this juncture however is on interpretations of material culture.
Issues of nostalgia and identity influence everyday social actions and interactions that
lead to a process of identification with or through objects of material culture.
Part I
Nostalgia
In one of its earliest usages the term ‘nostalgia’ denoted a longing for home, which
was seen as an illness or, less acutely, a malaise.1 Mieke Bal identifies it as the
German word Heimweh or homesickness first used in a text in 1688. 2 A translation
of the German word into ‘nostalgia’ in an English text in 1756 adopted a Greek
etymology, using from the Greek, nostos – return home, algia – feeling of pain or
alternatively ‘grief’. This clinical identification reflected a desire in the eighteenth
century to find a rational and scientific explanation for an emotion.3 The term
evolved in the Romantic period of the nineteenth century when there was growing
awareness of nature, the ‘cult of ruins’ and the need for relics or souvenirs as a means
For example, Joseph Banks’ journal of Cook’s voyage in 1770 refers to homesickness as being
“esteemed a disease” (Oxford English Dictionary on line)
2
Mieke Bal, Jonathan Crewe, and Leo Spitzer, eds., Acts of Memory, Cultural Recall in the Present
(London: University Press of New England, 1999). p. 90
3
For discussions on the Age of Enlightenment or Reason, which advocated reason as the primary basis
for authority, see Norman Hampson, The Enlightenment, an Evaluation of Its Assumptions, Attitudes
and Values (London: Pelican1968, reprinted by Penguin 1990).
1
8
of recalling or identifying with an individual, personal or national past. 4 Nostalgia
encapsulated the growing cultural practice of sentimental, wistful longing for an
earlier period or place, perceived to be lost. The concept of ‘loss’ is an important
factor because if the time or place is no longer current, its reality cannot temper its
memory and thus there is greater scope for the imaginative element of the nostalgic
recollection.
The evocation of nostalgia can be caused by an immediate stimulus; a
noise, a smell, an object, giving rise to recollection of a previous occurrence or period.
The most well know evocation of nostalgia is that described by Marcel Proust, 5 but
his experience is repeated in many circumstances when an inconsequential incident or
sight of a familiar or forgotten item can invoke, with apparent clarity, a memory for a
person or place and the emotional experience of the time. Memory is different from
nostalgia. It is the action of remembering from which the nostalgic recollection is
derived. Thus a re-discovered family photograph provides remembrance of a long
forgotten holiday and nostalgia recalls the family picnic on the beach but not the
family dissent or rain. A simple, decorated earthenware plate displayed on a dresser
can evoke a memory of a grandmother and a homely way of life. The perception of
the person and the lifestyle may have evolved over time but they provide a basis for a
family history and present identity. Nostalgia therefore assumes the existence of a
past place or occurrence, either real or imagined, part of the consciousness of an
individual, group or nation. Although Fred Davies in Yearning for Yesterday (1979)
succinctly defined nostalgia as “…memory with the pain removed”6 it is not
necessarily a pleasurable emotion, as there is ‘loss’ but the recollection is only of a
positive experience.
Although Davies’s definition allows for the selectiveness of nostalgia, it suggests
that there is still an element of reality. In her book On Longing (1984) Susan
Stewart defined nostalgia as being not for something that was lost and therefore
had one time existed in reality, but for something that was possibly unreal. She
B. Butler, “Heritage and the Present Past”. C Tilley et al., eds., Handbook of Material Culture
(London: Sage, 2006). p. 467
5
In the autobiographical novel 'A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu', (In Search of Lost Time), French
novelist, Marcel Proust, describes the memory aroused by the taste of a simple cake evoking nostalgia
for childhood experiences.
6
Bal, Crewe, and Spitzer, eds., Acts of Memory, Cultural Recall in the Present. p. 87 (1999) While
Davies’s definition is concise, it counters the origin of the word, where algia means ‘a feeling of pain’
4
9
described it as “sadness without an object…which creates a longing that of
necessity is inauthentic because it does not partake in lived experience.”7
The subject of the feeling of nostalgia cannot be recreated, is different from the
present circumstances, and often only the more positive aspects remain in the
present consciousness. Absence of negative recollection can enhance the positive
aspects until the focus of the recollection becomes unreal or inauthentic. Thus
one can indulge in the illusory aspects without the necessity of having to, or
wishing to, confront reality or truth. Margaret Thatcher’s invocation of
‘Victorian Values’ has often been disparaged as it failed to encompass the level
of destitution, child labour and lack of female rights of that period.8
Thatcher’s
use of the idea of past values depended upon a popular nostalgia for ‘Victorian
values’ but did not include the authentic reality of the Victorian period. 9 Thus,
the recollection of a childhood or past experience is based in the actual, valid
date or place, but is distorted through lapse of time and selective remembrance.
However, inauthentic recollections of imagined pasts or events might be created
consciously or unconsciously as a defence against, or validation of, current
experience.
Nostalgia can be a personal experience, as described by Proust, or a popular
national sentiment. Kathleen Stewart identified four potential differing
viewpoints or motivations of nostalgia. She described ‘hegemonic’, ‘resistant’,
‘class’ and ‘mass culture’ as being part of the culture of the late twentieth
century as society became increasingly fragmented.10 Each perspective being a
means by which varying agenda can identify with the past in order to support or
reject the present. Stewart argued that in a post-modern era, a period of
disorganisation and uncertainty that creates an environment of unreality and loss,
nostalgia becomes an increasingly important function of culture but with equal
7
Susan Stewart, On Longing, Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993).p. 23
8
In the 1983 election campaign, Margaret Thatcher praised "Victorian values". The Victorian age, she
said, was an age of “decent values, hard work and self-respect”, not mentioning the reality of crime,
unemployment and social abuses.
9
A homogenous idealised era of ‘Victorian values’ of morality and domestic virtues was largely
constructed in retrospect and through prescriptive literature. Martin Pugh, State and Society, British
Political & Social History 1870-1992 (Edward Arnold, 1993).
10
Kathleen Stewart, "Nostalgia - a Polemic," Cultural Anthropology 3, no. 3 (1988). p. 227
10
unreality.11 In the context of this thesis Stewart’s analysis will be applied to
earlier periods particularly the post-industrial and post-romantic periods of the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when social, class, cultural and
economic disruption also occurred.
Christopher Tilley in Identity, Place, Landscape12 and Heritage (2006) concurred
with Kathleen Stewart’s argument for the relationship between disorganisation or
uncertainty and nostalgia and observed that when there are threats to identity, people
take refuge in nostalgia for an imaginary landscape.13 Similarly, Beverley Butler’s
essay “Heritage and the Present Past” (2006)14 argued that the periods of reflection or
nostalgia occur at “nodal points of rupture and reinvention: the Renaissance; the
Enlightenment; nineteenth century ‘Victorian’ Britain…”15 and objects can provide a
means of expressing as well as arousing nostalgia. At periods of social dislocation
individuals or society will construct a view of the past that, although incomplete and
inauthentic, is a means of creating, sustaining or presenting a shared defendable
identity. Although the recollected past may be an illusion and incomplete, it is the
belief in its authenticity which gives it reality and underpins and motivates the desire
to search for origins of lifestyle and identity. 16
Marius Kwint argues that history, personal or national, is only constructed after
events have occurred and may be false or incomplete,17 and therefore no
accurate, objective memory or true reflection of the past is possible. ‘History is
written by the winners’ is a popular cliché but nostalgia is evoked by and
recollective of the minutiae of life which are not part of the dominant historical
records but are fundamental to identity. Nostalgia should not be seen as
‘dwelling in the past’; rather that positive recollections as opposed to negative
ones, validate current and future encounters. Janelle Wilson argued that all
11
Ibid. p. 228
The meaning of ‘Landscape’ in this context extends beyond simple topography to a “medium for the
analysis of social identities” Christopher Tilley, "Identity, Place, Landscape and Heritage," Journal of
Material Culture 11, no. 1/2 (2006).p. 8
13
Ibid. p. 13
12
14
Tilley et al., eds., Handbook of Material Culture. (2006) pp 463-479
15
Ibid.. p. 464
16
Ibid.. p. 466
17
Marius Kwint Introduction: The Physical Past quotes the post modernist view of history as illusory
and constructed. M Kwint, Breward, C, Aynsley, J, ed., Material Memories, Design and Evocation
(Oxford: Berg, 1999). p. 1.
11
nostalgia was “affirmative”, as there could not be longing for hardship or
privation.18 She quoted an example of people interviewed about their
experiences in the Great Depression in America in the 1920s. They could
recollect the deprivation of the period but their nostalgia for the positive aspects
of families and communities ‘pulling together’ over-rode the negative aspects.19
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century nostalgia developed as a
cultural practice in order to assuage the non-beneficial aspects of
industrialisation and changes in society’s structure. Nostalgia for an idyllic rural
past, of stability, certainty and fresh air, recalled from the comfort of improved
social conditions and technological developments prevailed over recollection of
the hardship of an agrarian society with its hard work, long hours and poverty.
The memory becomes inauthentic because it is incomplete.
Authenticity and incompleteness are recurrent themes in the texts referred to above in
the discussion of nostalgia. As Davies argued, nostalgia is ‘memory with the pain
removed’ and is imperfect, illusory and unreal. However, it is belief in the
authenticity of the recollection that is more important than the actuality. Thus,
nostalgic reminiscences about ‘Victorian values’ or a rural lifestyle may be
inauthentic or incomplete as to the way life was. However, the importance lies in the
belief in the truth of the memory and, in these examples, association with Christian
morality and a simple, honest lifestyle, which are ideals of the present. Group
nostalgia for an earlier period, such as cooperation during the Great Depression may
provide a basis of social unity in a present or future period.
Authenticity of the objects which evoke nostalgia can relate to place or means of
manufacture, place of purchase or origin, acquisition and ownership. Belief in the
perceived ‘authenticity’ can be more important than the true history of the object.
An inauthentic nostalgic recollection, evoked through subjective belief is perhaps best
evidenced when it is constructed through an awareness of ‘heritage’. Butler describes
the setting up of Skansen, a ‘proto-heritage’ project in Scandinavia, opened in 1891
18
Negative nostalgia can also be used to market or enhance present day goods or experiences by
reference to the hardship or difficulties of previous times, e.g. twenty-first century vacuum cleaners
compared to hand beating of carpets.
19
Janelle L. Wilson, Nostalgia - Sanctuary of Meaning (Lewisburgh Pa.: Bucknell University Press,
2005). p. 27
12
which not only sought to reconstruct or salvage artefacts, but also to act as a metonym
for national identity through nostalgia for a past age.20 In the twentieth century there
was an upsurge in the ‘heritage industry’ in the United Kingdom, which often for
commercial reasons exploited the culture of nostalgia.
Dave Marks in Nation,
Identity and Social Theory, Perspectives from Wales (1999) identified ‘wilful
nostalgia’, created, in his example of the Llanberis and Ffestiniog Railways, through
the ‘reconceptualising’ of an industrial rail tracks and trains serving the slate mines
into a romantic and picturesque tourist attraction.21
Judy Attfield argued that
constructions such as in Scandinavia in the nineteenth century and Wales in the
twentieth century created a focus for nostalgia which occurred as a result of a quest
for intangible and possibly unobtainable social conditions “such as stability, freedom
from strife and happiness…”22 Michael Rowlands argued that what he referred to as
‘heritage revivalism’ or the recreation of old traditions was not entirely without
benefit. It facilitated the search for a past identity and origin to counter lack of family
or social cohesion. Thus nostalgia evoked by heritage sites is linked to “mythologies
which seek to reclaim and possess lost pasts, return to imagined homelands…”23 The
presentation, for example, of a rail line as a nostalgic experience of industrial life is
inauthentic because it is incomplete and lacks the dirt and detail of the harsh life of
the original mine workers. It can be argued that the evocation of close-knit industrial
community serves to construct and defend concurrent notions of identity when
challenged by change or displacement, as suggested by Stewart, Attfield and
Rowlands. However, Marks’s use of the term ‘wilful’ suggests that there was an
intention to deceive. However, the ‘wilful’ or intentional creation of a nostalgic
experience is only successful because the viewer or tourist is willing to engage with
what is knowingly a ‘performance’ or display. The reconstructed heritage experience
is presented to the visitor as a complete and impersonal, public evocation of a past.
The objectives are to encourage visitors to “discover” and “experience for
[themselves] what conditions were like”24 and despite the false reality and
20
B. Butler, Heritage and the Present Past. Tilley et al., eds., Handbook of Material Culture. p. 467
R Fevre and A Thompson, eds., Nation, Identity and Social Theory, Perspectives from Wales
(Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999). p. 191
22
Judy Attfield, Wild Things (Oxford: Berg, 2000). p. 77
23
Rowlands, M. “Heritage and Cultural Property”, Victor Buchli, ed., The Material Culture Reader
(London: Berg, 2002). p 106
24
Quoted from the Gladstone Pottery Museum website,
http://www.stoke.gov.uk/ccm/navigation/leisure/museums/gladstone-pottery-museum/ accessed 15th
May 2008
21
13
commercialisation of many heritage experiences,25 they are founded in fact. Visitors
can actively absorb and be nostalgic for the sanitised versions of political and social
histories, which are part of the formation of the individual and society. Thus it is not
what is true or real that is important in the feeling aroused but the positive emotional
experience it engenders, creating social cohesion and belonging. Lowenthal observed
that when “beleaguered by a sense of loss and change, we keep our bearings only by
clinging to the past as remnants of stability.”26
Nostalgia is not a uniform experience, but differs according to individual or group
point of view. It can also be constructed for commercial purposes but ‘wilful
nostalgia’ or the re-invention of historical, heritage scenarios is not entirely without
social advantage as it helps to acquaint society with the positive aspects of the past,
which could be beneficial in the present. Mieke Bal notes the uses of nostalgia in her
discussion of how memory mediates the link between past and present.
“The memorial present of the past takes many forms and serves many
purposes, ranging from conscious recall to un-reflected re-emergence,
from nostalgic longing for what is lost to polemical use of the past to
reshape the present.”27
Thus nostalgia, individual, group or national, is a product of looking back to
something which is lost and possibly never existed, not for its sake alone but rather
seeking a point of believed authentic stability from which to address contemporary
issues relating to identity particularly in periods of social disruption and dislocation.
Material Culture and the Evocation of Nostalgia
Museums and heritage sites offer a re-construction of particular events or places. The
display of china goods, in the Stoke-on-Trent Museum, behind false shop fronts
represents a nineteenth century pottery dealers’ shop window, but the goods are
inaccessible and the shopping experience is not within living memory. The china
Examples of ‘heritage’ reconstructions can be found at the Jorvik Viking Centre in York , the Blists
Hill Victorian Town in Ironbridge, Shropshire and the Gladstone Pottery Museum in Stoke-on-Trent
26
As quoted in Buchli, ed., The Material Culture Reader. (2002) p. 106
27
Bal, Crewe, and Spitzer, eds., Acts of Memory, Cultural Recall in the Present. (1999) p. vii
25
14
items may evoke a Dickensian image or a period when the taking of tea was part of a
more elegant lifestyle.
Figure 1 Museum display representing a 19th century china dealer’s shop window
The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent
In contrast to a constructed nostalgic and impersonal response created by museums or
heritage sites, a privately run museum in Craven Arms, Shropshire, styled, ‘The Land
of Lost Content’28 is an exemplar of private, personal nostalgia in present-day Britain.
Established in the mid 1990s it is a collection of a wide range of artefacts, images and
ephemera from the 1890s to the modern day and is being added to constantly and for
as long as there is space. It is an object lesson in the evocation of nostalgia. Through
commonplace, largely domestic, objects it strives to demonstrate how the lapse of
time is a key feature in the change from rejected ephemera to valued or collectable
and “each one a memory.”29 The museum aptly quotes Housman in its name
because, as in the poem, it is a nostalgic evocation of feelings or experience at a
particular time rather than actual events.
The museum contains everything from milk bottles, WWII uniforms, and
Beatles’ record albums to ephemera relating twenty-first century television
characters. ‘Nostalgia’ is a word that occurs frequently in the visitor book. The
time elapsed for a memory to evolve into nostalgia is arguably at least a
A quote from A.E. Housman’s, A Shropshire Lad (1887) a nostalgic depiction of rural life, “That is
the land of lost content/ I see it shining plain/the happy highways where I went/and cannot come again”
29
Promotional leaflet for “Land of Lost Content”.
28
15
generation; a period of 25 years or more. This allows for memory to erase, deny
or construct part or all of the reality and recall or recreate a ‘lost’ experience.
1950s’ furnishings and Navy Cut cigarette packets, the ‘Dansette’ record player
and LP records of the 1960s and 1970s, will, for each visitor, prompt different,
un-premeditated, nostalgic recollections. While the items in the museum are
authentic and real their place in each individual visitor’s memory recaptures a
past from varying viewpoints. Individuals recall a past way of life in which they
believe, but the memory is possibly distorted to the point of inauthenticity.
The eclectic and largely un-staged collection of objects in the museum is
reminiscent of stalls at a car boot sale. Ken Russell, reviewing the popularity
and importance of such events in the twenty first century, asks why these second
hand, battered goods draw so many people’s attention. He argues that
“the flotsam and jetsam [objects for sale] are full of living
symbols that speak in each person’s secret language of a
time and place when they were happy and life was
uncomplicated.”30
Thus it is not the major items amongst one’s possessions that are most meaningful,
but the lesser objects, which even divested of their original context or usefulness,
become simple metonyms or narrators of events or periods in the past.
Part II
Identity
Identity is the means by which we locate ourselves in the world, either as individuals,
groups or nations. It extends beyond the physical characteristics of gender or
ethnicity and may vary or change according to context. Contrary to the standard
definition of ‘identity’, as a constant and unchanging state,31 cultural studies and
anthropological theorists demonstrate that there are several approaches to how
identity is perceived and created.32 They argue that the concept of identity as being
30
Ken Russell, "Unlocking Treasured Memories from the Car Boot," The Times online 17th June 2008.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘identity’ as “same in substance”…”the sameness of a person
or thing at all times or in all circumstances…”
32
Tim Edensor, National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life (Oxford: Berg, 2002), Jonathan
Friedman, ed., Consumption and Identity (London: Harwood Academic, 1994), Stuart Hall and Paul du
Gay, eds., Questions of Cultural Identity (London: Sage, 1996).
31
16
acquired at birth or inception, and remaining fixed and inalterable, is false and does
not allow for individual or national growth and change.
Identity is formed by the relationship between internally conceived aspects of
inheritance, social past, social aspiration and the expectation of others. Identity
requires approbation or rejection within a social hierarchy or, in terms of nationhood,
within a world-view, in order to achieve relative status and empowerment. A shared
recognition of common origins or characteristics gives identity to or within a group
and differentiates it from others. As Tilley argued, both internal and external
influences and aspirations change, and therefore identity is a reflection of
“reconstructed past and imagined futures”, “transient”, “mutable, invented and
inventive.”33 The search for a common history or characteristics from which to
establish an ‘authentic’ identity is a means of creating a relationship which
distinguishes the individual, group or nation.
There are common facets between nostalgia and identity. Both are concerned with
reflecting on the past in relation to the present, both can change according to
individual, group or motivation and both seek authenticity in origin in order to
legitimate the present.
Nostalgia does not have to be justified nor require approval by others, whereas
identity exists or is legitimised only when it is recognised by peers, superiors and
subordinates in the same field. Tim Edensor, in his discussion of national identity,
National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life (2000) continued Hall’s and
Tilley’s arguments of identity being a fluid concept. He contended that identity is the
collection of distinctive characteristics used to differentiate one person, group or
nation from another and that in addition to historical characteristics the socio-cultural
context will influence and alter the nature of identity. He wrote;
“Identity is always in process, is always being reconstituted in a
process of becoming and, by virtue of location in social, material,
temporal and spatial contexts.”34
33
Tilley, "Identity, Place, Landscape and Heritage." (2006) p. 9 The concept of the fluidity and
possibility for change in identity is also found in Hall and du Gay, eds., Questions of Cultural Identity.
p. 2 Jonathan Friedman, "The Past in the Future: History and the Politics of Identity," American
Anthropologist 94, no. 4 (1992). p. 837
34
Edensor, National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life. (2002) p.29
17
Identities are created from within, by reference to objects, memories, social
conditions, cultural influences, and are “dynamic, contested, multiple and fluid.”35
Edensor observed that there is potential for multiple identities, for individuals, group
and nations, as they can construct internally, and present externally, a different mix of
origins and characteristics according to the immediate context, social demands and
expectations. Although both flexible, changeable and multiple, the importance of
identity to individuals, groups or nations increases if under threat or in periods of
uncertainty or disruption. Therefore in a period of social change or conflict,
individuals may seek or invent common characteristics to create a shared identity in
order to challenge change or threat. Such a cohesive identity may exist only
temporarily; for as long as the threat is present.
These arguments are largely focused on the internal or ‘self’ creation or presentation
of identity. However identity can be ascribed from without, by the perception and preconception of other persons or groups. The hegemonic or dominant culture can
ascribe or impose an identity on a subservient or subordinate group, which because of
position cannot contest the ascription and may consciously or unconsciously display
the characteristics that support the assigned identity. Women and men conform to
these prescribed expectations in order to create or convey an identity, which is
acceptable and gives status within peer groups and social hierarchies.
In the historical context of this study, female identity in the Victorian period was
constrained by the concept of ‘separate spheres’; women were seen as being in the
‘natural’ sphere and suited to activities within the home. In contrast, men were in the
‘rational’ sphere and active in business and outside the home. Women were defined as
both physically and intellectually inferior to men. Thus female identity was ascribed
by the dominant Victorian patriarchal ideology, which claimed to protect them from
the harsh, amoral, economic world outside the home. In effect it denied them access
to education and employment and protected the authority of men. Roles and social
behaviour were prescribed as a means of social engineering, controlling the available
35
Ibid. p. vi
18
positions and functions for women and leaving them subservient to men.36 Women
became confined to the rearing of children, household management and decoration.
To undertake remunerative, rather than charitable, activities outside the home risked
social criticism or exclusion. These were functions of identity that women found it
difficult to challenge because of social and legal mores.37
Identity and Acquisition
The consumption and display of material goods are indicators of the components of
identity, such as taste, wealth, family and national heritage. The means of assigning
or achieving personal identity was according to Karl Marx not through upbringing or
social conditions but was created by the nature of a person’s labour.38 Daniel Miller
countered Marx’s view by arguing that a better means of establishing identity would
be through ‘lifestyle’ or the nature of a person’s consumption and the material goods
with which he or she is surrounded. He argued that as consumption is something over
which the person has control it is a better indicator of identity than the nature of their
work, which may be driven by external imperatives such as wage levels or work
availability.39 The title of ‘potter’, ‘carpenter’ or ‘teacher’ for example identifies the
work a person does. However it is through the choices made in the disposal or
allocation of income that identity and status are defined. Thornstein Veblen argued
that ‘conspicuous consumption’ was a conscious means by which the ‘leisured class’
sought to identify themselves in differentiation from the ‘working class’.40
However, as Jonathan Friedman observed, the weakness of this route to interpreting
identity is in understanding or misunderstanding the motivation for purchases or
disposal of income. It may be false to assume when observing purchasing patterns or
36
Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock, Old Mistresses. Women Art and Ideology (London: Pandora,
1981). p.10, and Pugh, State and Society, British Political & Social History 1870-1992. p. 59-61
37
Only approximately one-third of women were employed in the Victorian period, often as domestic
servants, dressmakers or in low skilled work in textile mills and potteries. The 1870 Married Women’s
Property Act gave those who had assets rights to their disposal, but all remained subject to male
authority. Jan Marsh “Gender Ideology and Separate Spheres”, Victoria and Albert Museum,
www.vam.ac.uk
38
Marx argued that “A person is what he or she does in transforming nature into objects through
practical activity.” Once, through division of labour a worker becomes estranged or alienated from
work he or she becomes separated from the “essential source of identity…” Sparknotes, Karl Marx,
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, "Estranged Labour"
(http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/marx/section1.html, 2006 [cited 27 January 2008).
39
Miller, D “Consumption” Tilley et al., eds., Handbook of Material Culture. 2006 p. 343
40
Thornstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1899
(Reprinted 1994)). Chapter IV
19
activity that they always stem from a common cultural motivation, or even that the
purchaser consciously understands the motivation. Without written or oral evidence it
is not possible to be certain of individual or group motivations in the acquisition of
goods. 41
The stimulus to purchase or possess ‘things’ can be varied, conscious and
unconscious and on a fundamental level may be solely for survival and comfort.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Christopher Tilley stated that objects function in three
different, complementary ways to locate people in society. Objects demonstrate
position in a social hierarchy, provide a focus for memories and thus continuity and
thirdly provide evidence of valued social relationships. People need material goods to
“objectify the self, organise the mind, demonstrate power and symbolise their place in
society”42 and Csikszentmihalyi argued that the issue of identity is sometimes preeminent over well-being in the acquisition and display of objects.43
Despite their
objective nature, the ownership and presentation of articles in a home are subjective
key elements in the way in which people create, maintain or modify identity, as well
as being signs by which others can ascribe identity. The familiar objects of childhood
may evoke a culture of nostalgia and the authenticity of family and social roots.
Purchased items can be evidence of an acquired or achieved identity or status, serving
to reassure the purchaser and proffer an ‘identity’ to peer groups, superiors and
subordinates.
Summary
In conclusion, the relationship between nostalgia and identity is located in common
characteristics of the ‘past’ and ‘difference’ and in the way in which these are used to
construct or create authentic or inauthentic situations or personae and establish a sense
of constancy and assuredness. Nostalgia is looking back to the past, but erasing some,
if not all, of the reality. Although the origins or past relative to identity and nostalgic
Friedman, ed., Consumption and Identity. p. 31 Colin Campbell, “Understanding traditional and
modern patterns of consumption in eighteenth century England: a character-action approach” John
Brewer and Roy Porter, eds., Consumption and the World of Goods (Routledge, 1994). p. 40-41
42
Tilley et al., eds., Handbook of Material Culture. 2002 p. 61 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi “Why We
Need Things” S Lubar and W.D. Kingery, eds., History from Things (Smithsonian Institute Press,
1993). p. 23
43
Lubar and Kingery, eds., History from Things. (1993) p.24
41
20
recollection may be incomplete and inauthentic, they are validated by the belief in
them. There are both multiple viewpoints from which to create nostalgic memories
and multiple facets by which identity can be presented and perceived. As any or all of
the aspects within a matrix of nostalgia and identity may be false, personal
recollections as a basis for social status may lack reality or authenticity.
However,
despite the inauthenticity and fluidity, in times of disruption or upheaval both
nostalgia and identity increase in importance and are reinforced, as defensive
mechanisms. This reinforcement draws on the material culture surrounding the
individual or nation.
Material culture, the objects and items of a home or society are markers by which
identity within social hierarchies is established or acknowledged through conformity
or differentiation. The items of everyday life and the values and meanings invested
can be both long lasting as well as ephemeral. Objects which are inherited or longowned can enshrine social status and deep-rooted memories. More recently acquired
materials may complement these or testify to changing financial circumstances and
personal or peer-group taste. Thus objects can reflect the fluidity of social and class
relationships. They can be metonyms of the past or indicators of future aspiration.
Nostalgia differentiates the present from a remembered past which is possibly unreal
or only partly real. Identity seeks to establish itself by differentiation from
contemporary peers, superiors and subordinates and can be legitimated by association
with common origins or pasts.
Part III
The Significance of Ceramics in Material Culture
Objects can both evoke nostalgia and act as signifiers of identity. As recall and
memory can be incomplete and inaccurate, objects can act not only as metonyms for
the past but also as mnemonics, that is an aid to memory.44 Within the wide range of
domestic furnishings, by the late nineteenth century, table and tea wares and small
display objects were present in almost all households. These were decorated in a
variety of ways, from transfer printing to hand painting. The willow pattern first
J.S. Marcoux “The Refurbishment of Memory” D Miller, ed., Home Possessions; Material Culture
Behind Closed Doors (Oxford: Berg, 2001). p. 71
44
21
introduced in 1780 was a popular transfer printed pattern but there were other patterns
including decorative borders and others depicting national and local scenes.45
Affordability and availability meant that transfer printed ware dominated the market,
but hand painting continued to be carried out on both earthenware and porcelain.
Expensive hand decorated porcelain wares were valued for both their aesthetic and
manufactured quality. Value however is not always associated with financial worth
or aesthetic value. An ordinary earthenware plate made by a commercial pottery
decorated with a hand-painted naïve motif and handed down through a family or a
crudely made holiday souvenir jug with a colloquial motto can enshrine both moral
and community values linked to inheritance and personal associations. These, or
similar items, of little fiscal merit, can be highly valued and cherished for their
physical or metonymic links with family heritage, local or national origins. Writing
in 1878 William Cowper Prime observed “The dearest associations of old age with
childhood are connected with the home table”46 or as Lowenthal argued over one
hundred years later, heritage is not derived from grand monuments but “the typical
and the vernacular”.47
An interest in and demand for domestic utility ware was initiated in Britain by the
importation of blue and white painted porcelain from China in the 1740s. Although
these were initially considered exotic and exclusive, ceramic wares and the patterns
painted on them were copied by British manufacturers and became widely available
and familiar. Earthenware and porcelain items of wide ranging quality became
increasingly common in all the nation’s households and part of commonplace
experience. In the twenty first century every home has china objects, which are used
everyday and little valued and other items which because of perceived financial
worth, historical or family association are valued.
Tilley argued that an examination
of ordinary domestic item would be more revealing of personal experience and sociocultural contexts than a survey of public art, extraordinary or high status objects.48 As
45
Robert Copeland, Blue and White Transfer-Printed Pottery (Princes Risborough: Shire, 2003).
As quoted in Moira Vincentelli, Woman and Ceramics, Gendered Vessels (Manchester University
Press, 1999). p. 117
47
Michael Rowlands and Christopher Tilley, “Monuments and Memorials”, Tilley et al., eds.,
Handbook of Material Culture. p. 502
48
The distinction between the everyday domestic context of objects and public or high art was
demonstrated in his study of the private garden and allotment compared to the grand expanse of the
formal park or stately home Ibid. (2006) p. 71
46
22
Deborah Cohen observed, the minutiae of domestic decoration, such as a bamboo
plant stand, is more indicative of a Victorian lifestyle than the “elegantly streamlined
tea service designed by Christopher Dresser.”49 Although relatively rare, such works
are displayed in museums as design classics of their period, unlike the plant stand or
every day tablewares and mantelpiece ornaments. As Csikszentmihalyi, Tilley and
Cohen indicated, domestic ceramics are part of the ephemera of everyday life and,
although not ‘style icons’, can act as clearer indicators of broader social identity and
be objects which arouse feelings of nostalgia.
The private prosperity of the late Victorian period coupled with its preoccupation with
possessions led to houses becoming filled with objects.
Figure 2 Dining Room, St Julian’s House, Tenby c. 1890
Tenby Museum and Art Gallery
49
Deborah Cohen, Household Gods, the British and Their Possessions (London: Yale University Press,
2006). p. xv
23
Figure 3 A typical middle class Welsh interior, c. 1890
Tenby Museum and Art Gallery
As illustrations of late Victorian interiors show the influence of the Arts and Crafts
Movement, which encouraged a fashionable taste for craftsman made furnishings and
simplicity, was not pervasive through all homes. William Morris observed in 1876
that the purchase of furnishing and textiles marketed under the Arts and Crafts
Movement was largely to satisfy the “swinish luxury of the rich”.50 The issue of
making affordable goods for the majority of the population is noted in Arnold
Bennett’s Anna of the Five Towns, when the character, Mynors, comments that he
would rather make ‘cheap stuff’ than “make swagger for a handful of rich people”.51
The growing number of middle class households availed themselves of the wide range
of goods and styles available for utility and decoration. A middle class housewife as a
member of a social group that had no previous experience of more complex domestic
etiquette required above the norms of politeness, was guided by the growing number
50
Miller, ed., Home Possessions; Material Culture Behind Closed Doors. p. xvi quoted from Charles
Harvey and John Press, William Morris: Design and Enterprise in Victorian Britain (Manchester:
MUP, 1991).
51
Arnold Bennett, Anna of the Five Towns, Wordsworth Classics (Ware, Herts: Wordsworth, 1902
reprinted 1994). p. 82
24
of published magazines.52 Friedman, as noted above in the discussion on the
interpretation of purchasing motivation, challenged Veblen’s monosemic analysis of
motive and Cohen further argued that the heterogeneity of domestic display
demonstrated the inapplicability of Veblen’s theory of emulation to late Victorian
Britain. Furthermore, a person’s pecuniary stability could be demonstrated through
expansive expenditure and display. However, indications of ‘conspicuous
consumption’ may have been interpreted as a lack of moral and financial probity,
perceived characteristics of the upper classes, which the middle class sought to reject.
The middle class buyers were forming their own identity “as much in opposition of
the aristocracy as in imitation of it…and to promote moral integrity.”53 The purchase
of domestic tablewares was largely the responsibility of the woman in the
household.54 Such activity conformed to the Victorian view of acceptable pursuit
within the female and domestic sphere. Ranges of tablewares and utility items were
affordable to the middle classes and, even when used decoratively, retained their
association with ‘useful’ and therefore moral.
Victor Buchli argued that the modes of consumption and the “ephemerality of the
fashion system”55 since the late nineteenth century made the material artefact
inappropriate as a means of sustaining identity. Domestic ceramics, although constant
in form and function, vary in style and decoration according to taste and fashion.
However, a consideration of the ways in which ceramic decoration was influenced by
changes in society, taste and fashion, coupled with the collection and retention of
domestic wares demonstrates that, contrary to Buchli, ceramics can represent and
reflect both continuity and change through which identity is maintained. It is their
ephemeral nature which matches the fluidity and change in social structure. Ceramics
were novel and rare when first introduced. As they were absorbed into British
manufacture they maintained a link with their first introduction, through the
52
These included titles such as The Lady, The Gentlewoman and The Ladies Pictorial
Cohen, Household Gods, the British and Their Possessions. (2006) p. 133
54
The dining room and its decoration remained within in male sphere but the setting of the table
became the woman’s responsibility. Although there was advice on number of glasses, cutlery and
floral arrangements, there was little advice on the style or source of crockery. Rachel Rich, "Designing
the Dinner Party, Advice on Dining and Decor in London and Paris 1860-1914," Journal of Design
History 16, no. 1 (2003). p. 56 Robert Edis recommended a number of manufacturers but argued that
the essential was that they should be examples of good taste. Robert W Edis, Decoration & Furniture
of Town Houses, 2nd edition ed. (London: Kegan Paul, 1881). pp 246-250
55
Buchli, ed., The Material Culture Reader.(2002) p. 15
53
25
reproduction of patterns on differing quality clay bodies, porcelain to poor
earthenware. They were able to meet growing demand across the wide scope of the
economic domestic market, across all classes of society. Thus a new dinner service or
tastefully displayed chimney garniture could attract peer group approval and intimate
identity and aspiration. As Csikszentmihalyi argued in the wider context, the
domestic artefacts, which are familiar and real to the possessor, “represent both
continuity and change…and thus give permanence to our elusive selves.”56
In an extension of the three ways in which objects function in social identity, 57 the
meaning ascribed to an object or collection of objects is dependent on several factors.
These factors are the context of production and its location, the nature of the
possessor and finally the nature of the viewer. As Tilley argued, an object has no one
single meaning, but is ‘polysemic’. Although the object remains physically fixed, its
presentation and the temporal context of its interpretation change, “in relation to the
manner in which [it is] circulated and exchanged and pass[es] through different social
contexts,”58 thus complementing the fluidity or fixity of identity. Susan Pearce
argued that although the interpretation and reinterpretation of an object might change,
the fundamental link with the original context or purpose is always retained.59 Miller
continued that its “external presence belies its actual flexibility as a symbol [and the]
social positioning of the interpreter and the context of its interpretation.60
For
example, a cup or plate are functional objects but can also signify the relative wealth
or ‘taste’ of the owner. When used as domestic or decorative ware and removed from
the primary function, as when a plate becomes a wall plaque, what it signifies and to
whom is more complex. The constancy of form and function in domestic tableware,
such as cups and plates links them with the original intention of their production and
use. However, changes in their presentation and the context in which they are viewed
modifies their meaning and value. As Pearce observed, the value placed on objects
56
Lubar and Kingery, eds., History from Things. (1993) p.25
Objects can indicate position social hierarchy, be evidence of value social relationships and act as a
focus for memories. Tilley et al., eds., Handbook of Material Culture. (2006) p. 61 Lubar and Kingery,
eds., History from Things. (1993) p. 23
58
Tilley et al., eds., Handbook of Material Culture. (2006) p. 9
59
Susan Pearce, On Collecting (London: Routledge, 1995). p. 9
60
Daniel Miller, Material Culture and Mass Consumption (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987). p. 106
57
26
can vary considerably over their life, “despised rubbish becomes first collectable and
finally a major acquisition.”61
The meaning of an object is essentially non-verbal but it can only be read or
interpreted using words. However, the ability to understand or recognise the social
and cultural characteristics of an object may be constrained by the conventions and
limitations of language.62 Daniel Miller’s exploration of the objectification of
artefacts stated that an object, although having different qualities from language,
“may be equally impressive in the areas of expression and communication.”63 Thus
an object can be more eloquent and indicative of identity. It can narrate a story of
past events or people with more immediacy and clarity than spoken words or text.
The object becomes a ‘sign’ or ‘text’ which is “to be read and decoded, [its] grammar
revealed”64 The object can be analysed from a semiotic approach where it stands as a
sign or signifier for a concept or read as a narrative of an event or sequence of
events.65 Mieke Bal argued that the object becomes a narrative agent (actively
engaged rather than a passive bearer) which is wholly objective and it is the ‘reader’
who subjectively interprets the facts presented.66 A narrative analysis can be ‘read’ as
an account of the social and cultural context that is more complex and revealing than
a contemporary literary text, should one exist.
61
Susan Pearce, ed., Interpreting Objects and Collections (London: Routledge, 1994). p. 2
Miller, Material Culture and Mass Consumption.(1987) p. 100
63
Ibid. p. 98
64
Tilley et al., eds., Handbook of Material Culture. (2006) p. 1
65
Daniel Chandler, Semiotics: The Basics (London: Routledge, 2002). p. 17 et seq.
66
Mieke Bal, A Mieke Bal Reader (London: The University of Chicago Press, 2006). p. 270
62
27
In 1899 Henry Willett identified particularly the function of ceramic objects in
material culture. In the catalogue for an exhibition of his collection he wrote
“The history of a country may be traced on its homely
pottery…on the mantelpieces of English cottage homes,
representations of which its inmates or their forefathers admired,
reverenced, trusted in…They [the pottery and porcelain in the
collection] form, in fact, a kind of unconscious survival of the
Lares and Penates [household gods] of the Ancients. The
classification has been made not so much in reference to the
maker, the time and place of manufacture, but with regard to the
great human interest which each object presents.” 67
Willet’s observation predates Tilley’s and Cohen’s argument that small
items found in a domestic context can locate individual and group identity
in society more effectively than grand monuments.
Figure 4 Llanelly Pottery Bread Plate, 1914
Carmarthen Museum, Abergwili
The earthenware bread plate illustrated in Fig. 4 was made at the Llanelly Pottery in
South Wales in 1914. It is press moulded68 and hand-painted with a briar rose and the
67
Henry Willett (1823-1903) collected ceramics in order to tell the history of the British people. The
2000 pieces of his collection were gifted to Brighton and Hove Museum and available on line.
68
A sheet of soft clay is pressed into a plaster of Paris mould.
28
name of a married couple and givers.69 It creates a narrative where no written text
exists of marriage, gifts, the unknown pasts and futures of the individuals as well as
the importance of a staple food.70
In this example it is the wording, with its hand-
painted personal reference, which is significant. However, hand-painted motifs, such
as flowers, cottages or farmyard animals can extend beyond the simply decorative
and have particular significance as references to political, social, national and local
identities, although these meanings may change or be lost over time.
Material culture theory argues that objects are not passive adjuncts to life but actively
provide meaning and context to identify ourselves and to be identified by others.
Artefacts, their use and value, are evidence of the attitudes and values that construct
society. They are the unconscious, unrealised material signs or expressions of culture
and identity.
The study of ceramics in material culture becomes a discourse
between the ephemerality of clay objects, their susceptibility to, and facilitation of,
changes in fashion and taste and their continuity of form and function. Their function
as a focus of identity or nostalgia is enhanced as, having been handled in their
manufacture and hand decoration they can provide a quasi-physical connection with
their history or narrative. Everyday household tablewares, which are both fragile and
of little intrinsic value, have been kept as family heirlooms and are evidence of
emotional value or reverence, not necessarily related to financial worth but associated
with family history, heritage, nostalgia and identity.
Conclusion
Nostalgia and identity are key elements in social and cultural structures and it is
through the ownership and acquisition of everyday items, the material culture of a
society, that they are constructed, identified and displayed. Among the typical useful
and decorative items in a home are the table and tea wares, which often become part
of a family inheritance, valued for their association with the family origins. By
focusing on hand-painted ceramic decoration in its various forms it is possible to
demonstrate the several ways in which nostalgia and identity were constructed and
“A wedding present for Mr and Mrs Webster from David John and Ivor Davies 1914”
It was not uncommon for lists of wedding gifts to be published in local newspapers, however, these
were usually restricted to the nobility or local wealthy families.
69
70
29
displayed in the nineteenth century and which then informed similar issues into the
twenty first century.
Christopher Tilley contended that nostalgic feelings occurred or were heightened
when a person, a group or a nation were under threat and in the nineteenth century
social disruption encouraged a culture of nostalgia as the previously long established
foci of identity were eroded. As Butler and Stewart argued, the accuracy of a
remembrance is not always relevant to its validity as a supporter of a notion of
identity. Similarly, the authentic origin of an object or the accurate use of a handpainted motif, which acts as an evocation of nostalgia, is less important than the belief
in its veracity. Thus it is argued that although associations of hand-decorated
domestic chinaware with inheritance or tradition may be illusory, such items can be
signifiers of social heritage and identity.
30
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