Wednesday, July 18, 2012
producing and consuming
Today’s readings really connect to the readings we did last week about women being primary domestic consumers. And since quilting is almost primarily seen as women’s work, it makes sense that the role of producers and sharers of quilts would be girls and women. Consumption and production are community building, enforced and enhanced by social networks. Girls are positioned as producers and consumers through their desires to be viable parts of a community, a social group, and an accepted circle. Quilts, in particular, “represent an all-inclusive portrait of these women. The quilts are an artistic expression of their selves and their whole experience” (Cooper & Allen, 15).
Objects and things are a way to visibly articulate what group or social community one ascribes to, and a way to see that in others. The clothes girls wear, the changes they make to them, the way they do their hair, the phones they have, the backpack they use, the books they read, the poetry they write, their Facebook pictures and posts, all these are constructions and productions of a self within a greater understood social community.
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Good point about women as primary domestic consumers, and how quilting was socially acceptable and desirable.
ReplyDeleteI asked in my post, how do we get back to building community? Yes, girls are creating community through social groups and social networks. You state the the greater social community-thanks for answering my question or reminding me that girls continuously create community through all those commonplaces.
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ReplyDeleteI like how you brought the idea of social community into your post and your discussion of how girls are positioned as producers and consumers of quilts through their desire for identification with a community.
ReplyDeleteCan we say that a girl construction of herself, through consuming certain products, evolves primarily around a social need?
ReplyDeleteThinking about production and consumption as community building is powerful. I think we can all get behind the idea of production (a quilting bee, a barn raising, a Habitat for Humanity house) as building community, but often consumption is painted in a less positive light. I am know thinking of ways consuming builds community - it builds jobs, values skills, creates dialogue.
ReplyDeleteGreat post - thanks!