As the going gets tough

The tough have to go shopping. This article really only touches the surface of possibilities open to us in developing a better understanding of shopping and of consumption in contemporary societies. As I see it, both are intriguing, and both present immense challenges in terms of making sense of the complexity of human action and interaction. Hopefully, by this point you will all be itching to access the nearest information source.

So far, so good. Be warned, though. Sometimes, dealing with academic work could send you too close to the edge of Reason for comfort. For example, any commercial researcher reading Daniel Miller‘s A Theory of Shopping will, at times, need to be patient. For those well versed in researching shopping, and food shopping in particular, there are two or three ’revelations’ that are nothing short of trite.

The bigger claims made in the book about sacrifice and ritual may well serve to engage, anger or, more likely, do both simultaneously. The argument that shopping is an expression of the “transcendence from de-humanising to humanising social relations” is unlikely to be a winner in debrief situations. The links made between shopping and sacrifice, however, are profound; I would urge all readers to take a look for themselves.

As the demands on commercial researchers increase, we need to break down and reconcile our solitudes – to intellectually get out a bit more, if you like. We need to acquaint ourselves with diverse forms of knowledge in order to increase our grasp of ’things‘ and enhance our own relevance. As we all know, a better understanding of culture and society benefits not only our ability to think critically about shopping, but also our ability to be better researchers.
 

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