This thesis concerns collecting, an activity that, although widespread, is often misunderstood; an activity that is frequently treated with mild amusement as the harmless province of ecentrics, and, more seriously, as an antisocial or even an unhealthy pursuit. The thesis considers the question of why collectors do what they do. How can collecting be explained? Why do people collect what they collect in the way they collect it? Two independent discourse types are used to address the question: a fictional artefact and an exegetical study. / Thesis (PhDSocialScience)--University of South Australia, 2008.

This thesis concerns collecting, an activity that, although widespread, is often misunderstood; an activity that is frequently treated with mild amusement as the harmless province of ecentrics, and, more seriously, as an antisocial or even an unhealthy pursuit. The thesis considers the question of why collectors do what they do. How can collecting be explained? Why do people collect what they collect in the way they collect it? Two independent discourse types are used to address the question: a fictional artefact and an exegetical study. / Thesis (PhDSocialScience)--University of South Australia, 2008.

This dissertation investigates how collectibles are made meaningful within collecting communities in order to better understand the intricate processes by which lead soldiers, toy trains, dolls, Dinkie cars, Star Wars figurines, and teddy bears come to be so enchanting for their collectors. An ethnography of toy collecting, including interviews with toy collectors, and observations at toy fairs and gatherings, this project contributes to debates on the use and role of material goods in practices of meaning making and social reproduction. In contrast to theories of material culture, this project aligns itself with consumer theories of the cultural constitution of objects. Emphasizing that object-centered analyses provide little insight on the value of collectibles, it advocates, instead, the centrality of perception and imaginative practice in the hold collectibles come to have over collectors. Drawing from consumer culturalists work on processes of identification; Bourdieus theory of consumption; Foucault on the archive; as well as Marxist inspired theories of the fetish, this project engages with nostalgic practice, the collectible market, judgments of authenticity, practices of ordering, as well as the complicated rules governing collecting. Working from collectors own stories, debates, contradictions, discussions and imaginative engagements this study uncovers that the mutability of the meanings assigned to collectibles is at the heart of collectors enchantment with their collectibles, and a central factor in how collecting becomes an eminently political activity. Collectors are not free to construct meanings for their collectibles at will but subject to community constraints, markets and battles of legitimacy. The various mystifications and social maneuverings present in their collecting practices imply that an objects value is the outcome of a careful mediation of both personal and wider cultural meanings. Mobilized to particular ends however tenuously held their meanings may be, material goods become powerful components to the wider cultural, social and economic fields in which they circulate. / Sociology

Hoarding tends to appear in museum studies scholarship primarily as a foil for “proper” museological collecting. Yet hoarding has attracted a constellation of assumptions and meanings. In popular discourse, hoarding is often perceived as a behavior learned from a life of deprivation, while clinical discourse about hoarding seeks to determine how it should be classified in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. These multiple perspectives inform the ways in which hoarding, and by extension collecting and museum practices, can be defined and understood. This report, then, examines how the idea of the museum is incorporated, reworked, or even rejected in three case studies of hoarding: art-historical approaches to Andy Warhol’s hoarding habits; "Clean House," a television show that cleans and redecorates families’ cluttered homes; and "Hoarders," a television show that pairs hoarders with psychiatrists and professional organizers. In each case study, the discourse surrounding the hoarder attempts to bring hoarding in line with “acceptable” collecting practices. At the same time, this particular discourse competes with other messages about the cultural role of collecting, generating a dialogue with important implications for collecting institutions about acquisition and appraisal, curatorial and archival bias, and institutional identity. / text

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Thesis (doctoral)--Philipp-Universität zu Marburg.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Greifswald.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1924. / Autobiography. Published also without thesis note. "Selected references" at end of most of the chapters.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-78).