INSIDE THE CLASSROOM - With Anthropologist Paige West
 Students enrolled in Paige West's "Anthropology of Consumption" course see the consumer world from every angle: where an item comes from, who is involved in its production, why value is attached to it, and who wins and loses from its purchase. The class is an eye-opener for students living in a click-to-purchase world.
From nutrition bars and Russian mail-order brides to SUVs and jeans, students follow the production of things, chronicling their social and political history and how different cultures attach value to each thing. These commodity ethnography projects integrate theories of consumption and exchange and help students realize the human element behind the making of each product.
"Today, we come to understand ourselves as 'selves' in part, because of the things we consume," says West, assistant professor of anthropology, who created the popular course. "The way personhood is configured is often through consumption of products."
However, West believes consumers rarely if ever connect the dots in the evolution of a commodity. She developed the course in part because she was struck by how little public space there is in New York City that doesn't involve the sale of things.
"So much of the city is about consumption, shopping, cafes, you name it," she says. She wondered what would happen if students began thinking beyond the products they purchased to the conditions under which they were made, how production changed through the years, and why value was attached or lost with each.
The result is a course that has attracted students from all backgrounds and majors and exceeded enrollment expectations in each of the three semesters West has taught it. (This semester 60 students signed up for 20 slots.)
"I get so many emails from students who tell me how affected they are once they begin thinking about the social histories of things they notice in their apartment, things they used to take for granted," says West. "One told me I'd ruined his life because now every single thing he buys he wonders how it was made, who was affected by it and whether its value is real."
West believes the class pushes students in academically sophisticated ways. For instance, when one student considered the songs she could buy to create a disc for her friends, she used a theory discussed in class to ask what happens when a commodity becomes a gift. Was there an artificial distinction between the two? How did its value change?
When another discovered an Italian handbag was being manufactured in China then transported back to Italy for trade marking, she explored why the value attached was so much higher for a bag made in Italy. Another looked at the meaning of very expensive tailor-made jeans: What does it say about a person when they wear a pair of $800 jeans?
"They found the group of people who bought these high end jeans wanted to set themselves a part from the masses, and what was fashionable was what others couldn't get," says West.
Students and West alike say the ethnography projects "jazz up" the theories they study, reinforcing the interconnectedness of the global, political, and material dynamics involved in the process of production and consumption.
"These students will be the captains of industry. Most aren't anthropology majors," West says. "A class like this sends them out thinking about how products are made and how the companies they'll be a part of can be progressive in remembering the real people who work for them."
—Jo Kadlecek
READING LIST: In Virtualism: A New Political Economy . James G. Carrier and Daniel Miller, eds. Berg. (1998)
A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, Lizbeth Cohen, (2003 Vintage).
Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture, William Leach, (1994 Vintage).
ASSIGNMENTS: In addition to the commodity ethnographies, students lead discussions on assigned readings and are required to participate in what West calls "random annoying spur-of-the-moment assignments" throughout New York City; for example, following class discussions on "branding" by major retail chains (Gap, Old Navy, Starbucks) students are sent to new kinds of stores to define the brands and write about their findings.
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