No 8. What does consumption really mean?
An intro to the Anthropology's approach to 'consumption' to exercise some Big Brain energy
I promised this substack would lean into all the Big Brain type thoughts - the needs you have to fulfill when you can’t rely on your Big Brain and a celebration of all that a Big Brain can think, do, and go down rabbit holes
Today, I put on my anthropologist hat and posit a lot of questions that don’t have definitive answers, but let’s think for a second. Let’s talk “consumption.”
You could say I’m a professional other thinker and over-researcher, but as of late my job has been taking up all of my big brain and I haven’t found myself wandering down rabbit holes. I’ve been oscillating between the news about the world and getting through daily life. I have delayed this post cause I didn’t know if I wanted to write a blog style about my life behind the scenes or go into some new holy grail research or recent purchases (like getting a portable AC which was the big one of the week).
But my first thought was that I just didn’t feel like writing about something to do with consumption this week. It was that thought that I said in my brain and then… I
*Bingo*
My brain went from consumption to a Substack I read recently by the
talking about the buzzword of “conscious consumerism. He goes on to say that working with brands behind the scenes discussing the discerning consumer making choices based on sustainability or quality did not reflect in company earnings. He muses that these “conscious consumers” are just more occupied with signaling that they are “conscious consumers.”Which brings us to how an anthropologist would interject into this conversation, thought process, and “consumerism” at large.
Anthropologists take 10 steps back and interrogate our entire construct: what does it mean to consume? Is “consumption” the same everywhere? Should we even work with this language?
Mary Douglas, a very famous British anthropologist wrote a book on the concept of consumption with an economist (shocking!) which opened up the idea of “consumption” to become this whole area of Anthropological inquiry. For example, my old department at Cambridge even teaches a whole class on it so if you’re keen on this stuff check out Dr. Pickle’s reading list (and I’m not joking his name is Dr. Pickles). She describes the way that anthropologists approach it as the:
The economist assumes the desire for objects is an individual psychological urge. The anthropologist assumes objects are desired for giving away, or sharing, or fulfilling social obligations. Saying that consumption is for other people turns the whole subject on its head. Consumption is not a way of behaving that is added on after social patterns have been fixed. It is part of a way of life.
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She argues that consumption should really be viewed at less like the market wants us to, what we want to buy for ourselves because of our own animalistic urges - but instead what consumption is for other people. She argues in the book that consumption is a series of rituals. Like how the Fabriculteralist mused that conscious consumers wanted to signal to others their values in being conscious.
Ultimately, Mary Douglas argues that “Consumption is making gestures for marking esteem, marking the calendar, marking identity, like the hall-marking of silver. Shopping is preparing for consumption rituals, or developing the infrastructure for them. The patterns of consumption show up the pattern of society.”
They wrote this book before the Cold War and the concepts have been updated, but ultimately they wanted to look at how creating a theory of consumption was really creating a theory of culture. They were trying to bridge the gaps between Economics and Anthropology to really talk about the in-between-ness of how we operate in theory from the markets to how our society actually works socially and culturally.
Like an economist wants to know what makes a consumer do things - basic I know- but in the conscious consumer example the boardroom is trying to assess how to get people to consume. But an anthropologist sees that consumption in a network of so many other things in their lives and that even the act of “consuming” means different things in different contexts. Like is even “consuming” the right word?
Anthropologists like to use the consumption of food and drink as a metaphor for maybe how we can understand “consumption.” When we use food and drink consumption as an example of “consumption” and the choices we make apart from bare survival to “consume” it teases out something we’re trying to grasp when we look at styling “consumption.” For example, we can look at many layers of power involved in food and drink choices. Or, the power that is imbued in first labeling someone as a “consumer” in relation to the market versus those that are on the peripheries of global markets? How can we think about each of these? There is this new book called Bottled: How Coca-Cola Became African by Sara Byala, which I want to read cause it interweaves so much of how we can think about “consumption” along lines of materials, markets, culture, race, all of it.
But, since Mary Douglas, the discipline has been having a really fun existential crisis about “consumption” as a field of anthropological inquiry because some argue that even the concept could be replaced with different things. Other Anthros over the years have taken down the idea that we’re even studying it, like this guy David Graeber. This is really when I sometimes dip out of Anthropology when the papers become too long and the conversation is more about Anthropology as a discipline than a mode of inquiry (still important but I am still bored) .
But I do think the whole hoopla and argument links up well with the potential existential spiral we might find ourselves in when we ask ourselves: Why do I want that?
It’s an important exercise and a socially interesting one to ask when we scroll our feeds. Why want a Stanley? I asked this week about Baggu bags on tiktok. An anthropologist is curious about what other social relations are involved or gets so deep in the spiral they’re asking why there even asking *sigh.*
One of those questions could be - cause I like it. But even here we can diverge and ask why? Perhaps we think we have great taste. But even taste must be deconstructed.
For example, another big thinker Mr. Pierre Bordieu wrote this book in 1984 called Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. One of my favorite creators Jesica Elise write all about this kind of thang in her
breaking it down on tiktok at how taste is constructed & all fashion theory deep dives and hot takes. In Bordieu’s words ‘There is an economy of cultural goods, but it has a specific logic.” He basically argues that there are some with power that have “cultural capital” and come to define good taste. He subsequently takes it alllll apart and how taste it is really a form of symbolic violence where dominate classes just push on their own definitions of good taste and bad taste. So, that is why there is a lot of chatter online around how “taste” isn’t a real thing its a construction and if you’re gonna say you have taste you better check out how its built.So to bring it back, a *true* conscious consumer in my mind might just be someone having so much conscious thought about what they are going to consume that they never purchase their cart, tbh.
Today, I “consumed.” I bought a portable AC and it was 1 of 2 portable AC’s left. I was an economic actor forced into a choice because I had no other options. That kind of purchase is but a byline in the Anthropological world because it was for “physical service” just like water and food, but when we get into the consumption that moves into maybe having a “social life” or if you’re like me “enacting a social life safely from ones own home,” then we’re talking about all these questions.
Anthropology is vast with many winding rabbit holes, but when you hear the term consumer it’s interesting to ask what we’re really talking about? What are we assuming? Who is consumer and what dynamics is it replicating? And based on what we consume… what are we really doing?
Xx Bailey
The World of Goods: Towards and Anthropology of Consumption by Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood.
I had to go and find your TikTok about Baggu bc I have been wondering what the boom is all of a sudden. I got my first baggu shopper as a PR gift in 2010 and the whole premise of the brand was encouraging sustainability. I still have and use that same bag for groceries (plus I’ve added two more!), and it’s in the same condition, not rips, no fray, nada. I also have a Fanny pack and a few leather goods (2 bags and a coin pouch). And again, awesome quality. I love your analogy to the Stanley’s bc somehow we as consumers are taking well made products we only need one of and hoarding them. Maybe it has to do with all the fun colors and patterns and individuals just don’t know their taste enough to just pick one and be happy with it??? 🤷♀️
This was so interesting, thank you! I was immediately reminded of parlors back in the day, the way the possessions in one's parlor communicated to visitors all sorts of status- and taste-related things about the family. It was definitely a much more complex phenomenon than a family buying and consuming a bunch of stuff!
It's super intriguing to me how consumption is becoming immaterial. When we buy things, we increasingly buy them to have them in a picture rather than in our lives. People window shop images rather than physical things. I don't know what it means, but it's fascinating (and also kind of terrifying).