Practical and conceptual appropriation

Various qualifiers are often attached to appropriation, ‘cultural’ and ‘so-cial’ being among the most common. They are, however, used in different senses. Mackay and Gillespie (1992, 698), for instance, speak of the social appropriation of technology in their discussion of users and their adoption of technologies. According to them, technologies are subjectively appropri-ated in processes in which the codes written into the technology encounter the individual ways of using it. (Ibid., 709.) Hård and Jamison, on the other hand, use the concept of social appropriation to describe the appropriation of technology in a broader, social and societal sense (Hård & Jamison 1998, 4). ‘Cultural appropriation’ is in turn used to denote the study of

technol-3 Appropriation as a theoretical perspective on consumption

ogy in the context of other life-worlds and practical activities (Jamison &

Hård 2003, 82; see also Dant 1999, 38). Jamison and Hård (2003) stress that the processes of cultural appropriation are asynchronous, overlapping and inter-related in complex ways. In addition, new products and technologies influence everyday practices while at the same time affecting, at discursive level, what people say and think. They filter through into the institutional arrangements as well as into linguistic practices, producing new words and concepts and transforming the meanings of existing ones. (Ibid., 88–89.)

In addition to the social and cultural aspect, it has been noted that ap-propriation involves both practical and symbolic work. Appropriating even the smallest object requires that the object be assigned a place not only in the physical but in the mental space as well. (Douglas & Isherwood 1979, 75; Lie & Sørensen 1996; 4, 17; Elzinga 1998, 23.) In everyday life people con-stantly have to learn new skills, digest new information and reflect on the consequences of their own choices. When they take objects into use, they establish new practical routines that do not necessarily observe the script the designers of the product had in mind. Objects and technologies acquire meaning only in interaction with everyday life.

Geels (2005, 41) has suggested that in adopting new technologies peo-ple rely for support on what already exists in their everyday lives and its categorisations. New products and technologies are approached through existing concepts, categories and rules. Not until later does the new tech-nology ‘come into its own’ and acquire its own meaning. To give an exam-ple: when the first cars arrived in the streets, they were described as horse-less carriages (ibid., 44–45). Another example is from the end of the 19th century, when Oglala Indians in North America domesticated new, white people’s foods by means of a ‘metaphorical extension’ in which the new foods were likened to the old. The cow, for example, was called a ‘spotted buffalo’, a peach a ‘hairy apple’ and flour ‘bread dust’. (Powers & Powers 1984, 64, 80.) We name the new, be it food or some technical device, ac-cording to familiar categorisations and assign it meaning using the world we know.

Previous researchers have noted that appropriation involves different aspects, such as cultural and social appropriation in society as well as men-tal and physical appropriation in everyday life. However, even though there have been numerous studies of consumers’ appropriation of new products and technologies, they have not made use of the distinction between men-tal or symbolic and physical or practical appropriation. The studies have concentrated on the role and significance of objects in people’s lives with-out, however, differentiating between the two aspects.

In this dissertation, I look at the appropriation of functional foods by making an analytical distinction between what I term conceptual and practical appropriation. The central idea in conceptual appropriation is that the objects carry meanings and take their place in everyday thinking and

43 concepts. They exist not only physically but also ‘in our heads’, in the ways we see and conceptualise the world. Objects work on what is already there, both physically and conceptually; they do not enter a void waiting to be filled (Strathern 1992, viii). The new technologies and objects are on the one hand linked with the existing concepts and interpreted with existing cat-egorisations; on the other hand they have the potential to transform and renew old classifications. The processes of appropriation are not purely in-dividual; they take place in a socio-cultural environment that shapes the meanings of commodities. At the same time the environment sets certain limits to the extent to which meanings can be transformed in appropria-tion and use.

The term I use to denote the everyday and material side of appropria-tion, i.e., living with objects, is practical appropriation. It is part of the ma-terial nature of objects that they are taken into use and find their place in homes and everyday life, sometimes also at work. They become a con-crete, material part of life and their loss would leave a physical void. They are part of everyday life in a very concrete way, and they become part of the routines that give order to life. Once objects have occupied a permanent place in our lives, we no longer actively debate or question their existence.

My argument is that in examining people’s relations with everyday objects, it is important to consider both aspects of appropriation and their inter-action, because one does not exist without the other. In seeking to under-stand consumption, it is not enough for us to look only at the use of prod-ucts or only at their meanings and symbolic functions in social life. It is im-portant that we try to attain an understanding of both dimensions.

As has been pointed out, in earlier research the terms appropriation and domestication have been used with diverse, but also to some extent simi-lar meanings. In this summary article I use the term appropriation to refer to the conceptual and practical process of making functional foods ‘own’

among consumers. There are two reasons for choosing the term appropri-ation instead of domesticappropri-ation. First, although the approaches and ideas originating in social studies of science and technology have to some extent inspired and directed my own approach, the present study is, in its back-ground and objectives, more closely related to the tradition of consumption research than to that of technology studies. The concept of appropriation is more familiar and more widely used in consumption research than the term domestication that has won an established place in technology stud-ies. Second, the concepts are also in line with the distinction I made in one of the original articles (I). There, appropriation refers to the micro-level, the ways in which consumers adopt functional foods in their own lives. Do-mestication in turn denotes the macro-level, the broader social processes by which functional foods enter and become part of research and develop-ment, food industry, public debate, retailers’ selections and finally consum-ers’ eating habits.

3 Appropriation as a theoretical perspective on consumption