Acknowledgments vii
1. Introduction 3
2. The Entries 37
My Life with Things 37
Learn to Love Stuff 38
Banky 40
A Digression on the Topic of the Transitional Object 42
Cebebrate! 56
My Purple Shoes 58
Newspapers 61
Rose Nails 63
The Window Shade 67
Napkins 69
My White Man's Tooth 72
Should I Be Straighter 76
Cyberfucked 79
Knobs 80
Glasses 82
Curing Rug Lust 85
Window Shopping Online 89
Catalogs 92
Other People's Labor 95
Making Roots/Making Routes 98
My Closet(s) 101
Joining the MRE 108
Fun Shopping 114
Preschool Birthday Parties 114
Xena Warrior Consumer Princess 118
I Love Your Nail Polish 120
Little Benches 123
The Kiss 126
Are There Malls in Haiti? 127
Baby Number Two Turned Me into Economic Man 129
Pictures of the Rice Grain 132
Panting in Ikea 136
Capitalism Makes Me Sick 139
My Grandmother's Rings 147
Anorectic Energy 157
Mi-Mi's Piano 162
Dream-Filled Prescriptions 169
The Turquoise Arrowhead 170
Turning The Tables 173
Minnie Mouse Earring Holder 176
Make Yourself a Beloved Person 181
3. Writing as Practice and Process 187
4. This Never Happened 203
Notes 221
Bibliography 227
Index 235
Elizabeth Chin is Professor of Media Design Practices at Art Center College of Design and the author of Purchasing Power: Black Kids and American Consumer Culture.
"Chin composes a sprawling paean to the joy of stuff and the
impossibility of our ever eschewing it. In My Life With Things, she
is winningly alert to the ambivalence around our acts of
consumption, both the awful guilt and the immeasurable pleasure
nonetheless."
*Times Higher Education*
"My Life with Things is a refreshing and honest book, which gives a
rich insight into the experience of engaging with
auto-ethnography. It should certainly appeal to the more
adventurous, less conventional academic from across the social
sciences and not just anthropology, the author’s home
discipline.... At the end of the day, researchers
interested in anthropology, auto-ethnography and/or
consumption looking for an insider account complete with warts
and all, should find this an invaluable companion."
*Consumption Markets & Culture*
"With herself as both subject and object of study, Chin . .
. weaves a highly personal, idiosyncratic, and
explanatory narrative. Ever the provocateur, she brings
her own consumer diaries over the span of several years into
conversation with the likes of Karl Marx, not only at a theoretical
level but also as biographical touchstones. The narratives,
structured around the themes of inheritance, survival, and love,
detail the author’s close relationship with the everyday items that
surround her. The results can be exhilarating, giving readers
self-reflexive pause on the consumptive world and how they got
there."
*Choice*
"My Life with Things is a strange yet fascinating look at our
cultural preoccupation with owning and communing with physical
objects. Chin uses her anthropological background to present an
autoethnography, combining research, theory, and personal writing
to criticize (and commiserate with) our love of objects."
*Bitch*
"Elizabeth Chin’s My Life with Things: The Consumer Diaries, is a
fantastic book. I can’t imagine anyone reading it and not wanting
to become an anthropologist. It is also one of the funniest books
I’ve read in a long time, with actual laugh-out-loud moments."
*New Formations*
"Part academic study and part personal essay, My Life with Things
offers both casual and scholarly readers an entryway into
conversation about the place of material possessions in our
lives.... [A] nuanced reflection on both the fact that we are
inescapably tied to our possessions and the ways they connect us to
our loved ones and neighbors around the world."
*Christian Century*
“My Life with Things is thought-provoking in the best sense of the
term. It poses new questions, approaches old ones in fresh ways,
and tugs at the complex heart of people’s relationship to the
things they have and the things they want.”
*American Ethnologist*
"In the end this book, as Chin tells us, is a focus on moments,
rife with the complexities and contradictions of everyday life.
Just as in other life moments and journeys, it is full of fodder
for contemplation and discussion as well as catalysts for new
perspectives. I can imagine it as a resource for teachers as well
as students, and I envision many imaginative and lively discussions
based on objects described in this book as well as the particular
objects animating others’ lives and relationships."
*Journal of Anthropological Research*
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