View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Keele Research Repository The Turnover Club: locality and identity in the North Staffordshire practice of turning over ceramic ware. Dr Rebecca Leach School of Social Science & Public Policy, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK. Correspondence Address: School of Social Science & Public Policy, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire, UK, ST5 5BG.
[email protected] 00 44 (0)1782 733359 Notes on contributor: Rebecca Leach is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Keele University, Staffordshire, UK. Her research focuses on an interdisciplinary approach to material and consumer cultures, focusing on notions of home and belonging/belongings. Previous work has considered the consumer cultures of the baby boom generation, the material cultural narratives of new housing estates, the shifting value of consumed art objects and the ‘narration’ of interwar domesticity by the Le Play Institute of Sociology. 1 The Turnover Club: locality and identity in the North Staffordshire practice of turning over ceramic ware. Abstract: This paper explores a key practice adopted by those local to or from Stoke-on- Trent, and outlines its significance in the wider context of ‘ordinary’ consumption and material cultures, globalisation and local identity. Being a ‘turnover-er’ – someone who always turns over pottery to check whether it is Stoke-on-Trent ware - is an oft practised, but little examined part of the living heritage that connects those with affinity to ‘the Potteries’ (as the region is known) and its ceramic ware. The project set out to explore qualitative accounts of turning over and to gauge its salience and reach as a practice, linking this to broader accounts of material culture, consumption and heritage.