Daniel Miller (anthropologist)
Daniel Miller (born 1954) is an anthropologist most closely associated with studies of our relationships to things and the consequences of consumption. His theoretical work was first developed in Material Culture and Mass Consumption and is summarized more recently in his book Stuff. This is concerned to transcend the usual dualism between subject and object and to study how social relations are created through consumption as an activity.
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[edit] Education
Miller was originally trained in archaeology and anthropology at the University of Cambridge but has spent his entire professional life at the Department of Anthropology, University College London which has become a research center for the study of material culture and where more recently he established the world’s first program dedicated to the study of digital anthropology.
[edit] Anthropological Position
A prolific author, Miller criticises the concept of materialism which presumes our relationships to things are at the expense of our relationship to persons. He argues that most people are either enabled to form close relationships to both persons and objects or have difficulties with both.
With his students he has applied these ideas to many genres of material culture such as clothing, homes, media and the car, through research based on the methods of traditional anthropological ethnography in regions including the Caribbean, India and London. In the study of clothing, his work ranges from a book on the Sari in India to more recent research explaining the popularity of blue jeans and the way they exemplify the struggle to become ordinary. His initial work on the consequences of the internet for Trinidad was followed by studies of the impact of mobile phones on poverty in Jamaica and more recently the way Facebook has changed the nature of social relationships.
His work on material culture also includes ethnographic research on how people develop relationships of love and care through the acquisition of objects in shopping and how they deal with issues of separation and loss including death through their retention and divestment of objects. He argues that since we cannot control death as an event, we use our ability to control the gradual separation from the objects associated with the deceased as a way of dealing with loss. Complementary to this work on separation from things are three books about shopping, the most influential of which, A Theory of Shopping, looks at how the study of everyday purchases can be a route to understanding how love operates within the family. He has also carried out several projects on female domestic labour and being a mother, including studies of au pairs, and Filipina women in London and their relationship to their left behind children in the Philippines. Most of these projects are collaborations.
[edit] Works
2011
Madianou, M., Miller, D. (2011). Crafting love: letters and cassette tapes in transnational Filipino family communication. SOUTH EAST ASIA RES 19(2), 249-272 doi:10.5367/sear.2011.0043.
Madianou, M., Miller, D. (2011). Mobile phone parenting: Reconfiguring relationships between Filipina migrant mothers and their left-behind children. NEW MEDIA SOC 13(3), 457-470 doi:10.1177/1461444810393903.
MILLER, D. (2011). Consumption beyond dualism. In Ekstrom, K. (Ed.). Beyond the Consumer Bubble ( pp.70-82). London: Routledge.
MILLER, D. (2011). Facebook a Trinidad. Sciences Humaines 229, 30-33
MILLER, D. (2011). Landsbyen Facebook. Jordens Folk 1, 12-17
MILLER, D. (2011). Power of Making. In T^he Power of Making ( pp.14-27). London: Victoria and Albert Museum.
MILLER, D. (2011). Power of Making. Crafts 232, 86-93
MILLER, D. (2011). Reply to Mitch Rose `Secular Materialism. Journal of Material Culture 16, 325-329
Miller, D. (2011). Tales from Facebook. Polity.
MILLER, D. (2011). The Limits of Jeans in Kannur, Kerala. In Global Denim ( pp.87-101). Oxford: Berg Publishers.
MILLER, D., Miller, D. (2011). Introduction. In Global Denim ( pp.1-21). Oxford: Berg Publishers.
Miller, D., Woodward, S. (2011). Global Denim. Berg Pub Ltd.
Woodward, S., Miller, D. (2011). Unraveling Denim: Introduction. TEXTILE 9(1), 7-10 doi:10.2752/175183511X12949158771310.
2010
Miller, D. (2010). Anthropology in blue jeans. AM ETHNOL 37(3), 415-428 doi:10.1111/j.1548-1425.2010.01263.x.
MILLER, D. (2010). Beyond the Boundaries. Etnografica 14(3), 587-591
MILLER, D. (2010). Designing Ourselves. In Design Anthropology ( pp.88-99). New York: Springer.
MILLER, D. (2010). Le blue-jean ou Pourquoi la technologies vient en dernier. Technique et Culture (52-3)
Miller, D., Burikova, Z. (2010). Au Pair. Polity.
2009
Borgerson, J., Miller, D. (2009). Materiality and the comfort of things: drinks, dining and discussion with Daniel Miller. Consumption, Markets and Culture 12, 155-170
Miller, D. (2009). Anthropology and the Individual. Berg Pub Ltd.
Miller, D. (2009). Anthropology and the Individual. Berg Pub Ltd.
MILLER, D. (2009). Buying Time. In Shove, E., Trentmann, F., Wilk, R. (Eds.). Time, Consumption and Everyday Life ( pp.157-169). Oxford: Berg Publishers.
MILLER, D. (2009). Individuals and the Aesthetic of Order. In Anthropology and the Individual ( pp.3-24). Oxford:
Miller, D. (2009). Mediated Memories in the Digital Age. INT J CULTURAL STUD 12(6), 663-665 doi:10.1177/1367877909342500.
Miller, D. (2009). Stuff. Polity.
Miller, D. (2009). Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software. AM ANTHROPOL 111(4), 532-533
Miller, D. (2009). What is a mobile phone relationship? In Alampay, E. (Ed.). Living the Information Society in Asia. ( pp.24-35). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Miller, D., Parrott, F. (2009). Loss and material culture in South London. J ROY ANTHROPOL INST 15(3), 502-519
2008
Miller, D. (2008). Material Culture. In Bennett, R., Frow, J. (Eds.). Handbook of Cultural Analysis ( pp.271-290).
Miller, D. (2008). Migration, Material Culture and Tragedy: Four Moments in Caribbean Migration. Mobilities 3(3), 397-413 doi:10.1080/17450100802376712.
Miller, D. (2008). So Whats Wrong with Consumption? RSA Journal (Journal of the Royal Society for the Arts. Summer 2008, 44-47
Miller, D. (2008). The Comfort of Things. Cambridge: Polity.
Miller, D. (2008). The uses of value. Geoforum 39, 1122-1132
Miller, D. (2008). Very big and very small societies. In Ribeiro, A. (Ed.). The Urgency of Theory ( pp.79-105). Manchester: Carcanet Press.
Miller, D., Parrott, F. (2008). Death, Ritual and Material Culture in South London. In Brooks-Gordon, B., Ebtehaj, F., Herring, J., Johnson, M., Richards, M. (Eds.). Death Rites and Rights ( pp.147-161). Oxford: Hart Publishing.
2007
(2007). Pobreza Da Moralisade.
Miller, D. (2007). Consumo como cultura material. Horiontes Antropológicos 28, 33-63
Miller, D. (2007). Foreword: Getting Behind the Wheel. In Cardenas, E., Gorman, E. (Eds.). The Hummer: Myths and Consumer Culture ( pp.vii-x). Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.
Miller, D. (2007). Mobiles and impoverished households in Jamaica. Id21 insights 69
Miller, D. (2007). Stone Age or Plastic Age.
Miller, D. (2007). What is a relationship? Is kinship negotiated experience? Ethnos 72(4), 535-554
Miller, D. (2007). Why the best furniture goes to the house you can’t live in. O. Lofgren Ed. Double homes, double lives? Ethnologia Europaea: Journal of European Ethnology 37, 45-50
Miller, D., Bauer, E. (2007). Jamaican hands across the Atlantic. J ROY ANTHROPOL INST 13(3), 744-745
Miller, D., Woodward, S. (2007). A Manifesto for the Study of Denim. Social Anthropology 15(3), 335-351
Slater, D., Miller, D. (2007). Movements and Moments in the Study of Consumer Culture: A discussion between Daniel Miller and Don Slater. Journal of Consumer Culture 7(1), 5-23
2006
Horst, H., Miller, D. (2006). The Cell Phone: An Anthropology of Communication. Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (2006). Personal, portable, pedestrian: Mobile phones in Japanese life. CURR ANTHROPOL 47(6), 1050-1051
Miller, D. (2006). The unpredictable mobile phone. BT Technology Journal 24(3), 41-48 doi:10.1007/s10550-006-0074-1.
Miller, D. (2006). Things that bright up the place. Home Cultures 3(3), 235-249 doi:10.2752/174063106779090712.
2005
(2005). A fogyasztás mítoszai.
Miller, D. (Ed.) (2005). Materiality. Durham: Duke University Press.
(2005). Noël à Trinidad ou l'alter-matérialisme". In Martyne Perrot Ed. "Faire Sien".
Kuechler, S., Miller, D. (2005). Clothing as Material Culture. Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (2005). Afterword. In Meskell, L. (Ed.). Archaeologies of Materiality ( pp.212-219). Oxford: Blackwell.
Miller, D. (2005). Can’t publish and be damned. Anthropology Matters 7(2)
Miller, D. (2005). Reply to Michel Callon. Economic Sociology: European Electronic Newsletter 6(3), 3-14 Author URL
Miller, D. (2005). Une rue du nord de Londres et ses magasins: imaginaire et usages. Ethnologie Francais special issue Négoces dans la ville Ed. 1, 17-26
Miller, D. (2005). What is `Best Value? Bureaucracy, virtualism and local governance. In Du Gay, P. (Ed.). The Values of Bureaucracy ( pp.233-254). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miller, D. (2005). Why we shouldn’t pair `local’ with `culture’ or `global’ with `capitalism’. In Ho, C., Nurse, K. (Eds.). Caribbean Popular Culture and Globalisation ( ). Kingston: Ian Randle.
Miller, D., Horst, H. (2005). Cell phone come like a blessing: religion and the cell phone in Orange Valley Jamaica. Jamaica Journal 29(1), 12-17
Miller, D., Horst, H. (2005). From kinship to link-up - Cell phones and social networking in Jamaica. Current Anthropology 46(5), 755-778
Miller, D., Horst, H. (2005). Understanding Demand: A Proposal for the Development of ICTs in Jamaica. Author URL
Miller, D., Skuse, A., Slater, D., Tacchi, J., T, C., T, H., H, K., J, (2005). Information Society: Emergent Technologies and Development Communities in the South. Author URL
Miller, D., Slater, D. (2005). Comparative ethnography of new media. In Curran, J., Gurevitch, M. (Eds.). Mass Media and Society ( pp.303-319). London: Hodder Arnold.
Norris, L. (2005). Cloth that Lies: the secrets of recycling in India. In Küchler, S., Miller, D. (Eds.). Clothing as Material Culture. ( ). Oxford, New York: Berg.
2004
Miller, D. (2004). Afterword. Berg.
Miller, D. (2004). How infants grow mothers in North London. In Taylor, J. S., WozniakD F, L., L, (Eds.). Consuming Motherhood ( pp.31-51). New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Miller, D. (2004). The little black dress is the solution. But what’s the problem ? In Ekstrom, K., Brembeck, H. (Eds.). Elusive Consumption ( pp.113-127). Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D., Slater, D. (2004). Etnografia on e off line: Cibercafés em Trinidad. Revista Hotizontes Antropologicos 10(21), 41-65
Miller, D., Slater, D., Suchman, L. (2004). "Anthropology" in The Academy and the Internet: Digital Formations. In Nissenbaum, H., Price, M. (Eds.). The Academy and the Internet: Digital Formations ( pp.71-89). Peter Lang.
2003
Banerjee, M., Miller, D. (2003). The Sari. Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (2003). Advertising, Production and Consumption as Cultural Economy. In Malefyt, T., Moeran, B. (Eds.). Advertising Cultures ( pp.75-90). Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (2003). Could the Internet defetishise the commodity? Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 21(3), 359-372
Miller, D. (2003). Educating Ethical Consumers. Ethical Consumer Magazine , 26-28 Manchester:
Miller, D. (2003). Living with the New (Ideals of) Technology. In Garsten, C., Wulff, H. (Eds.). New Technologies at Work ( pp.7-23). Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (2003). The virtual moment. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 9, 57-75
Miller, D., Slater, D. (2003). Ethnography and the Extreme Internet. In Eriksen, T. (Ed.). Globalisation: studies in Anthropology ( pp.39-57). Pluto Press.
2002
Miller, D. (2002). Accommodating. In Painter, C. (Ed.). Contemporary Art and the Home ( pp.115-130). Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (2002). Buying and believing: Sri Lanka advertising and consumers in a transnational world. J ROY ANTHROPOL INST 8(1), 184-184
Miller, D. (2002). Consumption. In Buchli, V. (Ed.). The Material Culture Reader ( pp.237-263). Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (2002). Making Love in Supermarkets. In The Everyday Life Reader (Reprin ed. pp.339-345). London: Routledge.
Miller, D. (2002). People - The Missing Ingredient. In Holden, J., Howland, L., Stedman, D. (Eds.). Foodstuff: Living in an Age of Feast and Famine ( pp.123-128). London: Demos Collection 18.
Miller, D. (2002). Purchasing power: Black kids and American consumer culture. AM ANTHROPOL 104(4), 1234-1235
Miller, D. (2002). The Unintended Political Economy. In Du Gay, P., Pryke, M. (Eds.). Cultural Economy: Cultural Analysis and Commercial Life ( pp.166-184). London: Sage.
Miller, D. (2002). Turning Callon the right way up. Economy and Society 31, 218-233
Miller, D., Clarke, A. (2002). Fashion and Anxiety. Fashion Theory 6, 191-214
Miller, D., Slater, D. (2002). Relationships. In Askew, K., Wilk, R. (Eds.). The Anthropology of Media ( pp.187-209). Oxford: Blackwell.
2001
Miller, D. (Ed.) (2001). Home Possessions: material culture behind closed doors. Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (Ed.) (2001). The Poverty of Morality. Journal of Consumer Culture , 225-243
Miller, D. (2001). Alienable Gifts and Inalienable Commodities. In Myers, F. (Ed.). The Empire of Things: Regimes of Value and Material Culture ( pp.91-115). Sante Fe: School of American Research.
Miller, D. (2001). Behind Closed Doors. In Miller, D. (Ed.). Home Possessions: Material Culture Behind Closed Doors ( pp.1-19). Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (2001). Car cultures. Berg Publishers.
Miller, D. (2001). Driven Societies. In Miller, D. (Ed.). Car Cultures ( pp.1-33). Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (2001). Home possessions. Berg Publishers.
Miller, D. (2001). Introduction. In Miller, D. (Ed.). Consumption Volume Two: History and Diversity of Consumption ( pp.1-6). London: Routledge.
Miller, D. (2001). Introduction. In Miller, D. (Ed.). Consumption Volume Four: Objects, Subjects and Mediations in Consumption ( pp.1-6). London: Routledge.
Miller, D. (2001). Introduction. In Miller, D. (Ed.). Consumption Volume One: Theory and Issues in Consumption ( pp.1-14). London: Routledge.
Miller, D. (2001). Introduction. In Miller, D. (Ed.). Consumption Volume Three: Disciplinary Approaches to Consumption ( pp.1-6). London: Routledge.
Miller, D. (2001). Possessions. In Miller, D. (Ed.). Home Possessions ( pp.107-121). Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (2001). The Dialectics of Shopping (The 1998 Morgan Lectures). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Miller, D. (2001). The Fame of Trinis: Websites as Traps. In Pinney, C., Thomas, N. (Eds.). Beyond Aesthetics: Art and the Technologies of Enchantment ( pp.137-155). Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (2001). The memory bank: money in an unequal world. J ROY ANTHROPOL INST 7(1), 165-166
2000
Miller, D. (Ed.) (2000). The fame of trinis: Websites as traps. Journal of Material Culture 5(1), 5-24
Miller, D. (2000). Marketing and modernity. J ROY ANTHROPOL INST 6(1), 176-176
Miller, D. (2000). The birth of value. In Jackson, P., Lowe, M., Miller, D., Mort, F. (Eds.). Commercial Cultures: economies, practices, spaces ( pp.77-83). Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D., Jackson, P., Lowe, M., Mort, F. (2000). Introduction: Transcending Dualisms. In Jackson, P., Lowe, M., Miller, D., Mort, F. (Eds.). Commercial Cultures: economies, practices, spaces ( pp.1-4). Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D., Slater, D. (2000). The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach. Oxford: Berg.
1999
Miller, D. (Ed.) (1999). Fashion and Ontology in Trinidad. Culture and History (7), 49-77
Clarke, A., Miller, D. (Eds.) (1999). Je m'y connais peut-^tre en art mais je ne sais pas ce que j'aime. Terrain 32, 99-118
Carrier, J., Miller, D. (1999). From Private Virtue to Public Vice. In Moore, H. (Ed.). Anthropological Theory Today ( pp.24-47). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Miller, D. (1999). Border fetishisms: material objects in unstable places. J ROY ANTHROPOL INST 5(2), 332-333
Miller, D. (1999). Shelf life: Supermarkets and the changing cultures of consumption. SOCIOL REV 47(3), 623-625
Miller, D. (1999). Signs of recognition: powers and hazards of representation in an Indonesian society. J ROY ANTHROPOL INST 5(3), 503-504
1998
Miller, D., Rival, L., Slater, D. (Eds.) (1998). Comparative Ethnographies of Sexual Objectification. Theory Culture and Society (15), 295-321
Miller, D. (Ed.) (1998). Groans from a bookshelf. Journal of Material Culture 3, 379-388
Carrier, J. G., Miller, D. (1998). Virtualism. Berg Publishers.
Miller, D. (1998). A Theory of Shopping. (1)Cambridge: Polity Press/Cornell University.
Miller, D. (1998). A Theory of Virtualism. In Virtualism: A New Political Economy ( pp.187-215). Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (1998). Anthropology and cultural diversity (A reply to Adam Kuper's review of my recent publications). TLS-TIMES LIT SUPPL (4963), 17-17
Miller, D. (1998). Den lokale Coca Cola og den globale Coca Cola. Sosiologisk Arbok , 147-175
Miller, D. (1998). Groans from a bookshelf - New books in material culture and consumption. J MAT CULT 3(3), 379-388
Miller, D. (1998). Material Culture: the social life of external objects. British Journal of Psychotherapy (14), 483-492
Miller, D. (1998). Material cultures. Routledge.
Miller, D., Jackson, P., Thrift, M. N., Holbrook, B., Rowlands, M. (1998). Shopping Place and Identity. London: Routledge.
Rival, L., Slater, D., Miller, D. (1998). Sex and sociality - Comparative ethnographies of sexual objectification. THEOR CULT SOC 15(3-4), 295-+
1997
Miller, D. (Ed.) (1997). How infants grow mothers in North London. Theory, Culture and Society 14(4), 67-88
Miller, D. (1997). Capitalism - An Ethnographic Approach. Oxford: Berg.
Miller, D. (1997). Coca-cola: a black sweet drink from Trinidad. In Miller, D. (Ed.). Material Cultures ( pp.169-187). London: UCL Press/University of Chicago Press.
Miller, D. (1997). Consumption and its Consequences. In Mackay, H. (Ed.). Consumption and Everyday Life ( pp.1-50). London: Sage.
Miller, D. (1997). Could shopping Ever Really Matter? In Campbell, C., Falk, P. (Eds.). Shopping Experience ( pp.31-55). London: Sage.
Miller, D. (1997). Cultura material i consum de masses. Dialeg amb Daniel Miller. Revista d'Etnologia de Catalunya 10, 131-139
Miller, D. (1997). Why some things matter. In Miller, D. (Ed.). Material Cultures ( pp.3-21). London and Chicago: UCL Press/University of Chicago Press.
1996
Miller, D. (1996). The making and unmaking of the Haya lived world: Consumption, commoditization, and everyday practice - Weiss,B. AFR AFFAIRS 95(381), 627-628
1995
Miller, D. (1995). Acknowledging consumption. Psychology Press.
Miller, D. (1995). Unwrapping Christmas. Oxford Univ Pr on Demand.
Miller, D., Conference, A. O. S. A. O. T. C. (1995). Worlds apart. Burns & Oates.
1994
Miller, D. (1994). Modernity, an ethnographic approach. Berg Publishers.
1991
Miller, D. (1991). Material culture and mass consumption. Blackwell Pub.
1985
Miller, D. (1985). Artefacts as categories. Cambridge Univ Pr.
