Clarity, Cut, and Culture: The Many Meanings of Diamonds

Images of diamonds appear everywhere in American

culture. And everyone who has a diamond has a story to tell about it. Our

stories about diamonds not only reveal what we do with these tiny

stones, but also suggest how we create value, meaning, and identity through our

interactions with material culture in general.

Things become meaningful through our interactions with them, but how do

people go about making meaning? What can we learn from an ethnography about the

production of identity, creation of kinship, and use of diamonds

in understanding selves and social relationships? By what means do

people positioned within a globalized political-economy and a compelling

universe of advertising interact locally with these tiny polished

rocks?

This book draws on 12 months of fieldwork with diamond consumers in

New York City as well as an analysis of the iconic De Beers campaign

that promised romance, status, and glamour to anyone who bought a

diamond to show that this thematic pool is just one resource among

many that diamond owners draw upon to engage with their own

stones. The volume highlights the important roles that memory,

context, and circumstance also play in shaping how people interpret and then

use objects in making personal worlds. It shows that besides

operating as subjects in an ad-burdened universe, consumers are

highly creative, idiosyncratic, and theatrical agents.