Collecting in a Consumer Society

by Russell W. Belk

An examination of the relationship between the development of the consumer society and the rise of collecting by individuals and institutions. The first book to focus on collecting as material consumption.

Genres: Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published June 29, 2001

Reviews

[Tim Verleg · Rating 4 out of 5]

H4 overgeslagen. Interessante inzichten

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belk is a prodigious scholar whose work on collection spans many articles, some of which I've read and frankly found underwhelming. This book, however, was exactly the opposite. Not only did it take a relatively novel view of the hobby itself, but it did so with an historical perspective. Belk synthesizes quite a bit of both theoretical and empirical scholarship on collection into his overview of its history. From here, he develops his own working definition of collection and goes on to examine its ramifications from both an individual and institutional perspective. What I liked most was his insistence on reformulating our ideas on collection with reference to the hobby's relation to consumer society. While it might be arguable that a relationship to material objects as consumable was in the works long before the era of mass production he focuses on, mass production did radically alter the scope and content of many collections, as well as it provided collectors with a different frame of reference against which to rationalize and understand their hobby. As I hope to argue that new media and digital technologies do the same, this seems a worthy precedent to note.

[Christina Stind · Rating 4 out of 5]

Russell Belk is one of the go-to guys when you're studying what it is to collect and contemporary consumerism. In this very accessible book, he discusses several important aspects of consumerism and collecting, both the rise of consumerism, outlines the history of collecting and takes a closer look at individual and institutional collectors and the differences between these.
Overall, his view is that collecting can be a good thing for individuals if they don't take it to the extreme.
This is the one book that got me convinced that collecting was the subject that I should write my master thesis about.