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7 - The Affective Regime of Luxury and Exclusivity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2019

Lionel Wee
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
Robbie B. H. Goh
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
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Summary

This chapter examines the ways in which areas such as luxury housing projects and enclaves are structured as luxurious, desirable and valuable by virtue of being unattainable by the general public. The nature of such “Veblen goods” is primarily to confer preeminent stature upon the owner; as such, they have to be strictly demarcated as being both desired by the majority of people, and also distinctly out of their reach. The chapter shows how dialectical tension between strong desire and distinct unattainability relies on a complex semiotics combining some of the elements of conviviality (safety, acceptance, comfort and well-being) with quite different elements of awe, superiority and rejection.

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Chapter
Information
Language, Space and Cultural Play
Theorising Affect in the Semiotic Landscape
, pp. 127 - 149
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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