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OverviewSwedish designers are noted for producing distinctive and elegant forms; their furniture and household goods have an especially loyal following around the world. Design in Sweden has more than just an aesthetic component, however. Since at least the late nineteenth century, Swedish politicians and social planners have viewed design as a means for advocating and enacting social change and pushing for a more egalitarian social organization. In this book, Keith M. Murphy examines the special relationship between politics and design in Sweden, revealing in particular the cultural meanings this relationship holds for Swedish society. Over the course of fourteen months of research in Stockholm and at other sites, Murphy conducted in-depth interviews with various players involved in the Swedish design industry-designers, design instructors, government officials, artists, and curators-and observed several different design collectives in action. He found that, for Swedes, design is never socially or politically neutral. Even for common objects like furniture and other household goods, design can be labeled ""responsible,"" ""democratic,"" or ""ethical""- descriptors that all neatly resonate with the traditional moral tones of Swedish social democracy. Murphy also considers the example of Ikea and its power to politicize perceptions of the everyday world. More broadly, Swedish Design serves as a model for an anthropological approach to the study of design practice, one that accounts for the various ways in which order is purposefully and meaningfully imposed by designers on the domains of human life, and the consequences those impositions have on the social worlds in which they are embedded. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Keith M. MurphyPublisher: Cornell University Press Imprint: Cornell University Press Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 22.90cm Weight: 0.454kg ISBN: 9780801479663ISBN 10: 0801479665 Pages: 264 Publication Date: 16 April 2015 Recommended Age: From 18 years Audience: College/higher education , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of ContentsReviewsSwedish Design contains many interesting juxtapositions, thought-provoking statements, and good (sometimes fun) ideas about Sweden and design. -Anders Linde-Laursen, Eastern Michigan University, author of Bordering: Identity Processes between the National and the Personal Swedish Design is an acute, revelatory, and wholly original exploration of the cultural life of forms. Attentive to talk, embodied practice, and the broader social geometries that designed forms refract and subtly transform, this is a remarkable account of the literal shaping of cultural experience and identity. -Don Brenneis, University of California, Santa Cruz, coeditor of Annual Review of Anthropology Author InformationKeith M. Murphy is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. He is coeditor of Toward an Anthropology of the Will. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |