Toy houses: a socio-anthropological approach to analysing objects

Abstract

This article analyses the toy house as an object away from its usual context, using a socio-anthropological approach. In an earlier publication (2003), Brougère analysed the social dimension of the toy where it was viewed as part of a socially built system of networks involving many actors (manufacturers, parents, children and others) and many processes (manufacturing, distributing, advertising, buying, giving presents, using, playing, destroying). However, this interdependent system must be considered first through the objects that form the nodes of this network as only by examining its material culture can we can better understand the way it functions.