Pearce, S. M. (1998) Collecting in Contemporary Practice.

Pearce, S. M. (1998). Collecting in Contemporary Practice. London: Sage. Summarized by Laura Rickard

• This book explores: how “culture is collected”; what “collections are like as culture” in their own right.

• Justification for this study, or, a “hypothesis” posed by the author: “…Collecting practice is significant in contemporary British society because it can tell us more about the nature of that society and of the individuals which comprise it; that since collecting practice is essentially an individual enterprise, understanding of it must start with the collectors themselves; and that collecting is embedded in the individual collector’s emotional, economic, and inter-personal life…” (p. 17).

• This book is based on the 1993 Contemporary Collecting in Britain Survey. This mail survey, including both multiple choice and free-response questions, was distributed to 1500 randomly selected adults in GB. This survey aimed to:
o Look at narratives of the collectors to try to determine “collecting rhetoric”
o Focus not so much on the collectors themselves, or their collections, but more on offering explanations of the process of collecting (p. 8); this is seen as a “paradigmatic shift” to the field known as “collecting studies.”

Main questions posed by the book (roughly corresponding to chapters):

1. What things are collected, and by people from what background and social context?
• “Collectors, therefore, are not a different or in any meaningful sense a particular personally characterized group either within the survey respondents, or within the population as a whole; on the contrary, they are drawn proportionately from the general population” (p. 26).
• 42% male, 58% female described as having “normal” or “traditional” lifestyles, thus contradicting the popular image of the collector as a loner or outcast.
• Peak of collecting appears to be in early adulthood (18-30ish), second peak in late 50s and early 60s, sharp decline after age 65.
• Very small % of ethnic minorities were represented in the survey, a smaller percentage than in British population at large, but author argues that their collecting patterns are the same as non-minorities.
• Large differences between what men and women collect (e.g., machinery and musical instruments collected by men; most of the jewelry and tourist goods held by women)
• Discussion of kitsch and the “axes of value in objects and collections” (p. 41); one idea here is that people collect kitsch and tourist items both sincerely and in jest (ironically) and there is a spectrum of “quality and rubbish” as well as “masterpiece and artefact” within which you can “locate” any collectible.
• The particular category of the object that people collect does not seem to be related to class. This seems to run against the “popular wisdom” of certain classes collecting certain objects.

2. How do collectors integrate ideas about work and leisure/play into their habits and relationship with the outside world?
• A small percentage of respondents belonged to “collector’s clubs”; however, younger professionals are more likely to see demarcation between work and play as “fluid”: “their work and their collecting interlace, with the one feeding from the other” (p. 71)
• According to the survey, the notion of the collection as “set aside” and “sacred was most often expressed by more blue-collar workers, whereas younger, technologically-based professionals were more likely to express a less clear boundary between work and collecting.

3. What is the relationship between the collector and the marketplace (i.e., role of consumption)?
• About a third of the respondents gathered material “actively” (i.e., sought out particular things) whereas the rest “wait[ed] for it to appear” (p. 77). Nearly all were in some way involved in the commercial marketplace and purchased things for themselves.
• “…people’s own fierce collecting passions can and do influence perceptions of value and hence have impact upon systems” (p. 94)—in other words, people don’t necessarily fall victim to the “manipulative corporation,” despite its power.
• I wonder if the discussion of purchasing (i.e., how collectors get their material to begin with) would be wildly different now, given the tremendous success of eBay and other online brokers.

4. How does collecting operate within the family and home?
• “Family” in the study denoted “a man and a woman living together on what is intended to be a permanent basis, whether in marriage or partnership, together with any children of either of them who are living with them” (97).
• Gift giving played a critical role in the development of many collections.
• Collecting does not necessarily strengthen relationships, e.g., marriages, but can give a spouse a sense of “personal individuality” (p. 124).
• Differences between male and female patterns of collecting were touched upon. More specifically, women expect that men will live with material passed down from women’s grandmother, mother, etc., but women wouldn’t expect that they would have to live with heirlooms from men’s fathers, grandfathers, etc.

5. How does collecting inform/is informed by gender?
• Author suggests that collecting takes on a “gendered” or “sexual” meaning, and has come to be associated with discussions of sexuality.
• There are gendered associations of certain collected items; people tend to collect within widely accepted gender stereotypes.
• The particular uses of collections vary across genders— serving a memorial role (e.g., of a dead relative), intrinsic role (e.g., “to look good”), etc.
• Women are more likely to use collecting as a way to showcase family relics throughout the home; men’s collecting is more private, geared more toward control and domination. Women’s collections can actually promote family stability and the “warmth” of the household.

6. What is the collector’s inner life, of thought and feeling?
• People understand their collections in many varied ways
• The “body” is understood both as a collector’s physical body (e.g., there is a discussion of piercing and tattooing) and the “body of the world” (p.154)
• Collecting can be understood as a way of turning the physical world into an “aggregation of signs” (p. 170).

7. What would be an “integrated view” of collecting in contemporary Britain?
• The final chapter of the book again highlights some of the results presented in the previous chapters, and tries to draw out broad themes.
• Contemporary collecting is described as “postmodern”: “Collecting is therefore an emblematic activity which ransacks the past to create a present idiosyncrasy of style” (p. 14).
• Also: “Postmodernism is seen as developing an aesthetic of the body which exalts the surface of things instead of their content, to prefer appearance to meaning” (p. 177). In this way, collecting can also “deny” society’s foundational meta-narratives: “…collections are organized according to individual whim, seen as an authentic record of particular experience, rather than an affirmation of received values” (p. 177).
• Part of the postmodern “task” for the collector is making sense of himself and his experience: “…helps in the construction of a personal narrative of selfhood and recognizable, individual identity” (p. 174). Yet, at the same time, the author warns: “The role of collecting in the effort to make meaning within collectors’ lives must not be over-estimated….the obsessed collector is the anomaly, and most collectors take a relaxed, low-key, unemphatic approach, even while taking their collection seriously as a focus of their lives” (p. 184).

My critique: Having limited knowledge of this subject area, I found it hard to relate this text to some of the larger themes of our class. I appreciated Pearce’s continual discussion on the “postmodern” project of collecting, and wonder how other scholars have characterized historical collecting. Though I understand Pearce’s argument for declaring the collection of kitschy tourist memorabilia “postmodern,” would some of the same “sense making” be occurring with other collectors in earlier times? And, if so, would that still be “postmodern”? I would like to know more about the transition from individual collections to museums, as I can imagine that the process of moving from personal to “public” might have required collectors to be more deliberate and forthright about their aims. If someone were collecting medical paraphernalia just because he/she found it “interesting,” would that be enough justification to create a public viewing place? When a collection becomes public, how much (if any) interpretation is needed/expected/required? (For instance, I may have a collection of rare insects that I don’t label specifically because the information is known tacitly. If I make my collection public, how much information must I share with the public, beyond the “obvious” genus, species, etc.?)