Reading Practice
A Theory of Shopping
For a one-year period I attempted to conduct an ethnography of shopping on and around a
street in North London. This was carried out in association with Alison Clarke. I say
‘attempted’ because, given the absence of community and the intensely private nature of
London households, this could not be an ethnography in the conventional sense.
Nevertheless, through conversation, being present in the home and accompanying
householders during their shopping, I tried to reach an understanding of the nature of
shopping through greater or lesser exposure to 76 households.
My part of the ethnography concentrated upon shopping itself. Alison Clarke has since
been working with the same households, but focusing upon other forms of provisioning
such as the use of catalogues (see Clarke 1997). We generally first met these households
together, but most of the material that is used within this particular essay derived from my
own subsequent fieldwork. Following the completion of this essay, and a study of some
related shopping centres, we hope to write a more general ethnography of provisioning.
This will also examine other issues, such as the nature of community and the implications
for retail and for the wider political economy. None of this, however, forms part of the
present essay, which is primarily concerned with establishing the cosmological foundations
of shopping.
To state that a household has been included within the study is to gloss over a wide
diversity of degrees of involvement. The minimum requirement is simply that a householder
has agreed to be interviewed about their shopping, which would include the local shopping
parade, shopping centres and supermarkets. At the other extreme are families that we
have come to know well during the course of the year. Interaction would include formal
interviews, and a less formal presence within their homes, usually with a cup of tea. It also
meant accompanying them on one or several ‘events’, which might comprise shopping trips
or participation in activities associated with the area of Clarke’s study, such as the meeting
of a group supplying products for the home.
In analysing and writing up the experience of an ethnography of shopping in North London,
I am led in two opposed directions. The tradition of anthropological relativism leads to an
emphasis upon difference, and there are many ways in which shopping can help us
elucidate differences. For example, there are differences in the experience of shopping
based on gender, age, ethnicity and class. There are also differences based on the various
genres of shopping experience, from a mall to a corner shop. By contrast, there is the
tradition of anthropological generalisation about ‘peoples’ and comparative theory. This
leads to the question as to whether there are any fundamental aspects of shopping which
suggest a robust normativity that comes through the research and is not entirely dissipated
by relativism. In this essay I want to emphasize the latter approach and argue that if not all,
then most acts of shopping on this street exhibit a normative form which needs to be
addressed. In the later discussion of the discourse of shopping I will defend the possibility
that such a heterogenous group of households could be fairly represented by a series of
homogenous cultural practices.
The theory that I will propose is certainly at odds with most of the literature on this topic. My
premise, unlike that of most studies of consumption, whether they arise from economists,
business studies or cultural studies, is that for most households in this street the act of
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shopping was hardly ever directed towards the person who was doing the shopping.
Shopping is therefore not best understood as an individualistic or individualising act related
to the subjectivity of the shopper. Rather, the act of buying goods is mainly directed at two
forms of ‘otherness’. The first of these expresses a relationship between the shopper and a
particular other individual such as a child or partner, either present in the household,
desired or imagined. The second of these is a relationship to a more general goal which
transcends any immediate utility and is best understood as cosmological in that it takes the
form of neither subject nor object but of the values to which people wish to dedicate
themselves.
It never occurred to me at any stage when carrying out the ethnography that I should
consider the topic of sacrifice as relevant to this research. In no sense then could the
ethnography be regarded as a testing of the ideas presented here. The Literature that
seemed most relevant in the initial anaLysis of the London material was that on thrift
discussed in chapter 3. The crucial element in opening up the potential of sacrifice for
understanding shopping came through reading Bataiile. Bataille, however, was merely the
catalyst, since I will argue that it is the classic works on sacrifice and, in particular, the
foundation to its modern study by Hubert and Mauss (1964) that has become the primary
grounds for my interpretation. It is important, however, when reading the following account
to note that when I use the word ‘sacrifice’, I only rarely refer to the colLoquial sense of the
term as used in the concept of the ‘self-sacrificial’ housewife. Mostly the allusion is to this
Literature on ancient sacrifice and the detailed analysis of the complex ritual sequence
involved in traditional sacrifice. The metaphorical use of the term may have its place within
the subsequent discussion but this is secondary to an argument at the level of structure.
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Questions 1-3
Choose THREE letters A-F.
Write your answers in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.
Which THREE of the folloivmg are problems the writer encountered when conducting his
study?
A uncertainty as to what the focus of the study should he
B the difficulty of finding enough households to make the study worthwhile
C the diverse nature of the population ot the area
D the reluctance of people to share information about their personal habits
E the fact that he was unable to study some people’s habits as much as others
F people dropping out of the study after initially agreeing to take part
Questions 4-11
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 4-11 on your answer sheet write
YES if the statement agrees with the news of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
4..................... Anthropological relativism is more widely applied than anthropological
generalisation.
5..................... Shopping lends itself to analysis based on anthropological relativism.
6..................... Generalisations about shopping are possible.
7..................... Tire conclusions drawn from this study will confirm some of the findings of
other research.
8..................... Shopping should be regarded as a basically unselfish activity.
9..................... People sometimes analyse their own motives when they are shopping.
10..................... The actual goods bought are the primary concern in the activity of
shopping.
11..................... It was possible to predict the outcome of the study before embarking on it.
Questions 12-14
Complete the sentences below with words taken from Reading Passage 3.
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Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
Write your answer in boxes 12-13 on your answer sheet.
12 The subject of written research the writer first thought was directly connected with his
study was 12.....................
13 The research the writer has been most inspired by was carried out by 13.....................
14 The writer mostly does not use the meaning of ‘sacrifice’ that he regards as
14.....................
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Solution:
1. C/D/E 8. YES
2. C/D/E 9. NOT GIVEN
3. C/D/E 10. NO
4. NOT
11. NO
GIVEN
5. YES 12. thrift
6. YES 13. Hubert and Mauss
7. NO 14. colloquial/metaphorical
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