UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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Author: search.filters.author.Wallace, Brandon TylerSubject: search.filters.subject.Customization

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    Consuming the (Postmodern) Self: Sneaker Customization and the Symbolic Creation of Meaning and Identity
    (2019) Wallace, Brandon Tyler; Andrews, David L; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    With regard to the centrality of symbolic cultural consumption in late capitalism (Jameson, 1991; Mandel, 1978), this thesis broadly details how consumers negotiate meaning and construct identity through engagement with cultural commodities. I examine this phenomenon through the athletic sneaker: a commodity that’s value largely derives from the cultural meanings it exhibits (Baudrillard, 1983; Miner, 2009; Turner, 2015). Specifically, I analyze sneaker customization, or the act of personal modification of traditional sneakers. Drawing from 15 in-depth interviews with individuals who have experience with sneaker customization, I explicate the various meanings that participants attach to sneaker customization, along with articulating its emergence, current position, implications and significance within its broader sociocultural contexts. This thesis contributes to understandings of how everyday individuals engage with popular cultural practices – such as sneaker customization – to create and define the means of their existence amidst the societal conditions with which they are confronted (Hall, 1996).