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Objects of Desire

Objects of Desire: Order and Territory

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12/10/2016

Order and Territory

BBC Radio 4 - Objects of Desire, Order and Territory

Matthew Sweet and guests reflect on our need to order our homes and create personal space.

Matthew Sweet invites sociologist Rachel Hurdley and writer and researcher Ed Attlee to reflect on our need to order our homes and carve out personal space within them.

This is the story of how the things we accumulate around us say more than we might imagine about who we are. 

"The fate of the object," said the French thinker Jean Baudrillard, "has been claimed by no-one." Unless, of course, the object in question is the Mona Lisa or the Alfred Jewel. In these programmes, Matthew Sweet will be looking at the other stuff. The cups. The spoons. The knick-knacks. The things we might keep, even if we don't quite have the room for them.

Through the prism of what people have in their homes, Objects of Desire explores the work of sociologists and anthropologists like Pierre Bourdieu and Mary Douglas, and philosopher Gaston Bachelard, in order to understand the curious mixture of display, memory, emotion and chance that informs the objects we surround ourselves with.

Episode Three - Order and Territory. In which Julie reflects on some seriously tidy cupboards; Gerry and Jan consider the presence of her mother's ashes in the conservatory; and Matthew invites the sociologist Rachel Hurdley and the writer and researcher Ed Attlee to reflect on our need to order our homes and carve out personal space within them.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Matthew Sweet explores how the things people accumulate reflect who they are.

Matthew Sweet explores how the things people accumulate say more than expected about who they are.

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