Objects and their maker: Bricolage of the self

Pursuing the meaning of meaning in the commercial world: An international review of marketing and consumer research founded on semiotics

“…Semiotic analyses of products and consumption have also contributed to understanding identity (e.g. Askegaard 1991;Dano, Roux, and Nyeck 2003;Harms 1999;Fukuda 1994;Mark 1994). At the level of the individual consumer, there is a fascinating case study by Mark (1994) of a Mr. Sendat who was of French and Spanish ancestry.…”

“…Askegaard 1991;Dano, Roux, and Nyeck 2003;Harms 1999;Fukuda 1994;Mark 1994). At the level of the individual consumer, there is a fascinating case study by Mark (1994) of a Mr. Sendat who was of French and Spanish ancestry. Mark's observations and interpretations draw heavily from Lévi-Strauss' notion of bricoleur -someone who is a resourceful tinkerer -to explicate Mr. Sendat's consumption behaviors as a semiotic representation of self, history, politics, and society.…”

“…According to Mark (1994), these objects encoded deep tensions about Mr. Sendat's heritage as a rural cobbler and shoe merchant, as a Christian, as a Spaniard (for which he was taunted as a young boy in France), and as an extreme right-wing ideologue (for which he was charged with Nazi collaboration during WW II, and subsequently served a two-year prison term). Through his bricolage with product parts, Mr. Sendat continually negotiated, expressed, and created his self-concept up to his death at the age of 90.…”

“…Finally, with converging and extending macro insights relative to Mark (1994) and Askegaard (1991), the Japanese advertising executive Fukuda (1994) adopted Barthes' conception of myths and proposed a conceptual framework that focuses on sign systems such as music and advertising that transform as a culture moves from one era to another. Fukuda's 'Spiral model' asserts that many sign systems work in concert as they reflect the progressions and regressions of a culture as it coils between opposite states of axial human settings and perceptions (e.g.…”

Review article

“…Analogously, Thompson, Locander, and Pollio (1989 have used a similar inquiry style to study the lifestyles and consumption patterns of married women. Mark's (1994) very detailed ethnographic portrait of a French bricoleur is highly reminiscent of the affectionate, personalized account of the possessions of a Canadian woman constructed by McCracken (1988). The autoethnographic treatise by Riggins (1994) echoes similar poignant self-reflections by Holbrook (1986Holbrook ( , 1988.…”