Objects in Flux - RMIT Research Repository - RMIT University

chameleon-like freezer takes on the spots and stripes of its surroundings.
It is, for instance, a symbol of modernisation in the 1970s, a pre-condition
for domestic and economic efficiency in the 1980s and a device of
convenience in the busy 1990s’ (2000, p. 314).
Stove and Southerton demonstrate how such narratives are influenced
by changing social conditions – freezers are established as ‘necessary’
appliances through the normalisation of freezer-dependent foods such
as burgers, pizzas and ice cream (2000, p. 308). They also show how an
object’s functionality imposes certain demands on users, and structures
narratives of use in specific ways – freezer use requires an understanding
of the steps needed to prepare food for freezing or defrosting. The
‘becoming normal’ of the domestic freezer is therefore ‘a two way
process in which freezers respond to their surroundings and at the same
time impose something of their own script’ (2000, pp. 314-315).
Narratives of use position objects within broad social contexts and in
doing so they ‘make sense’ of an object’s functionality for a specific
social group at a specific time. Such narratives are therefore crucial in
the formation of meaning structures and the normalisation of objects
within society. It may be argued, as Hackett and Lutzenhiser do in their
analysis of the domestic refrigerator, that the consumer’s understanding
of what a particular object is for ‘is a consequence, not a determinant, of
their use’(1985; cited in Shove & Southerton, 2000, p. 315).
Narratives of use are frequently forcefully deployed along with the
objects of mass-production, frequently leaving consumers with little
room to move; ‘gadgets and appliances script the actions of their users
in ways which simultaneously create the illusion of choice while also
closing avenues of possible action’ (Shove & Southerton, 2000, p. 315).
Within these imposed regimes of use, the consumer is forced to make
their own meaning within an order they often can not escape. This
‘making do’ establishes a degree of plurality within the imposed order –
authorised narratives of use are riddled with the heterogenous stories of
everyday consumer practices. These stories are ‘not simple narrations in
the standard linguistic sense of the term’ (Law, 2000, p. 2), they do not
simply represent reality but ‘perform themselves into the material world
… in the form of social relations, but also in the form of machines,
architectural arrangements, bodies, and all the rest’ (Law, 2000, p. 2).
Rethinking Objects
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