3 Review(s)

Judith Attfield's pioneering book Wild Things, first published in 2000, was one of the first and best to bridge design theory and anthropology, and in so doing to offer a new and challenging way of understanding the changing meanings of contemporary human-object relations. Shortlisted for the Design History Society Scholarship Prize 2001-2002, the book shows what the life of everyday objects reveals about people and their material worlds. In Attfield's exploration, the act of consumption is only the starting point in how objects live within our worlds. They are transformed and invested with new meanings that reflect and assert who we are. Exploring the notion of "things with attitude", Attfield differentiates highly visible fashionable object from taken-for-granted "ordinary" artefacts and revalues their role and resonance. By tracing connections between "objects and authenticity, ephemerality and self-identity" she uses the "ordinary" to stage a deeper exploration into design's contribution to anthropology. Wild Things is reissued with a new introduction by Daniel Miller, Professor of Anthropology at UCL, UK, as part of Bloomsbury's 'Design Classics' series.