Multiple meanings: shopping and the cultural politics of identity

Environment and Planning A 1995, volume 27, pages 1913-1930 Multiple meanings: shopping and the cultural politics of identity P Jackson Department of...
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Environment and Planning A 1995, volume 27, pages 1913-1930

Multiple meanings: shopping and the cultural politics of identity P Jackson Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, England B Holbrook Department of Anthropology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, England Received 3 November 1994; in revised form 8 February 1995

Abstract. Many studies of contemporary consumption have tended to reduce a complex and contested process to a momentary and isolated act of purchase. A similar kind of reduction is common in many semiotic analyses of shopping malls and in studies of advertising which assume an audience's readings rather than investigating them empirically. Drawing on field research in north London, we provide evidence from focus group discussions of the social use of shopping centres and of the multiple meanings of such apparently mundane activities for the consumers themselves. Five themes are highlighted concerning skill, style, and shopping; shopping as a source of pleasure and anxiety; shopping as a socially situated activity; consumers as knowing, active subjects; and shopping as a highly and complexly gendered activity. These themes illustrate that the consumption process condenses many aspects of our contemporary identities including the dynamics of class and ethnicity, gender and generation, and the cultural politics of space and place. Introduction Since the mid-1980s, there has been a rapid growth in the study of consumption (for example, see Bowlby, 1985; McCracken, 1988; Tomlinson, 1990; Lunt and Livingstone, 1992; Nava, 1992; Bocock, 1993; Fine and Leopold, 1993; Lee, 1993). This has been mirrored in geography with studies both from 'cultural' and from 'economic' perspectives (for example, see Jackson and Thrift, 1995; Wrigley and Lowe, 1996). In this paper we aim to contribute to this burgeoning interdisciplinary literature, exploring the complex links between consumption and identity via some preliminary empirical findings from current research in north London. We take a 'cultural politics' perspective (Jackson, 1989), examining the multiple and contested meanings with which we invest the world of contemporary 'consumer culture'. From such a perspective, the apparently mundane activity of shopping can be seen to offer a range of insights into how our identities are constructed and negotiated in place through complex social relations of class and ethnicity, gender and generation. We also aim to demonstrate in this and subsequent work how these social relations are played out spatially, through distinctions of public and private space, through reflections on the politics of neighbourhood change, and through an understanding of the complex ways in which people handle their increasingly mediated relationships with the 'natural' world. Redefining consumption and identity Writing as an anthropologist, trained in the study of material culture, Daniel Miller (1989, page 4) has argued that 'mass consumption' is now the dominant context through which people in modern societies relate to the material world. The project on which we are currently engaged (with Miller and others) is an attempt to work through the dynamics of this complex relationship between people and goods, to achieve a more grounded understanding of the links between consumption and

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identity in the modern world.(1) The project rejects the common reduction of consumption to an isolated and momentary act of purchase, arguing instead that consumption is a social process whereby people relate to goods and artefacts in complex ways, transforming their meaning as they incorporate them in their lives through successive cycles of use and reuse. The meanings that goods and artefacts acquire are not free-floating but linked in identifiable ways to the social relations of production and consumption. We take a similar approach to the concept of identity, arguing that modern identities are not fixed and singular but dynamic and multiple. We have been influenced here by recent work on the cultural politics of identity (Jackson, 1991; Keith and Pile, 1993; Rutherford, 1990) which rejects the false dichotomies of black and white, gay and straight, male and female, to assert a plurality of identities. As Frank Mort argues in his essay on the politics of consumption: "We are not in any simple sense 'black' or 'gay' or 'upwardly mobile'. Rather we carry a bewildering range of different, and at times conflicting, identities around with us in our heads at the same time. There is a continual smudging of personas and lifestyles, depending on where we are (at work, on the high street) and the spaces we are moving between" (1989, page 169). There has been a welcome insistence in much of the contemporary cultural studies literature on the importance of space, place, and location (for example, see Bird etal, 1993; Carter etal, 1993). The inverse has not always been the case, however, as geographical studies of shopping malls and other consumption spaces have rarely moved beyond a very traditional (passive and singular) conception of 'the consumer'. Many of these accounts are characterised by an all-pervasive political pessimism towards modern consumerism, adopting a patronising view of the (apparently undifferentiated) members of an anonymous 'mass society'. In such accounts, consumers are stripped of their human agency, becoming mere pawns in the hands of the faceless 'hidden persuaders'. Not all accounts go this far, of course, but recent reviews of the literature on shopping malls (for example, Goss, 1993; Shields, 1992) show it to be a very widespread tendency. Characteristically, such studies reveal very little about what people actually do when they go shopping, substituting sometimes ingenious semiotic analyses for any direct engagement with consumers 'on the ground'. As with so much recent work in cultural studies, elegant and sophisticated essays on various forms of representation take the place of empirically grounded research. The long-awaited 'ethnographic moment' seems almost permanently postponed.(2) In short, the opportunity now exists for a serious engagement with the dynamics of contemporary consumption, based on a more grounded empirical approach which aims to trace the complex processes through which goods and artefacts are valued and given meaning, and which allows us to trace how these meanings change as goods and artefacts are incorporated into people's everyday lives. This involves moving away from the site of purchase into the social contexts of consumption at the level of neighbourhoods and households as well as a closer attention to the (1)

The project is entitled "Consumption and identity: an ethnography of two north London shopping centres", funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (grant number R000234443). The project involves an interdisciplinary team including, besides the authors, Daniel Miller and Michael Rowlands (Anthropology, University College London) and Nigel Thrift (Geography, University of Bristol). (2 > Similar criticisms of the recent geographical literature on consumption have been made by Nicky Gregson (1995) and followed through in her own work on car-boot sales (Gregson and Crewe, 1994).

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practices of consumers themselves. We hope that such a strategy will lead to a more nuanced social geography than the stark choice between consumer-as-dupe or consumer-as-hero that pervades so much of the literature and to a more subtle cultural mapping of the specific contexts in which these apparent alternatives combine and cohere. Methodology The project on which this paper is based focuses on a comparison between two north London shopping centres: Wood Green (an 'inner-city' development opened in 1981 with fifty retail units in an indoor 'Shopping City', with nearby open-air and indoor markets and an adjacent high street) and Brent Cross (Britain's first purposebuilt, out-of-town regional shopping centre, opened in 1976, with over seventy retail units and associated services). The two centres were selected because they were already well known to members of the research team, because they presented some interesting contrasts in terms of the class and ethnicity of their clientele, because they were equally accessible to large numbers of north London residents and because they were 'ordinary' rather than 'spectacular' sites of consumption, an accepted part of many people's everyday lives. Wood Green acts as a local shopping centre with access (from a 2.5 km radius) primarily on foot or by public transport. The retailers in Shopping City attempt to cater for Wood Green's multicultural community (including people of Afro-Caribbean, Greek, and Cypriot descent). In comparison with Brent Cross, the Shopping City appears rather drab and downmarket, with several vacant units and just one small-scale department store (D H Evans). The management of Wood Green Shopping City have attempted to cultivate its local character by organising social activities and exhibitions in the centre. They are well aware of the competition from the adjacent High Street (with stores such as Marks & Spencer pic, BhS, and Next Retail Ltd) as well as from more distant centres such as Edmonton or Brent Cross. Brent Cross is a regional centre (the average journey to the centre is 6.5 km) with access principally by bus and car, its "blockhouse style ... reminiscent of the North American shopping mall" (O'Brien and Harris, 1991, page 104). It is more prosperous and upmarket than Wood Green, with several department stores and fashion outlets (John Lewis, Fenwick, Hennes, Laura Ashley, Miss Selfridge, The Gap). It appeals to a largely middle-class clientele, including a substantial number of South Asian and Jewish customers. Whereas Wood Green claims to offer "a local shopping experience with a difference", Brent Cross boasts that it is "London's North West End". The study uses a combination of methods from extensive social surveys at the shopping centres, through focus group discussions in neighbouring clubs and community centres, to intensive ethnographic work in people's homes and neighbourhoods. Fieldwork in the shopping centres focuses on the social use of shopping space and the multiple meanings that the same environment has for different users. The survey phase is now complete and the results will be reported elsewhere. The ethnographic work is currently in progress. Two phases of focus group discussions are planned. The first (in and around Wood Green) was used to inform the design of the questionnaire survey. The second (in and around Brent Cross) will be used to develop some of the initial insights from the survey phase and earlier round of focus group research. Here, we shall be drawing primarily on the results of the first round, conducted in January-February 1994. The main strength of focus groups is that they enable people to express views in their own words, reflecting the relatively spontaneous style of everyday conversations. The opportunity is created for people to talk about issues of mutual concern

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in a friendly and supportive environment. The method aims to encourage people to articulate issues that may previously have been taken for granted, allowing a consensus to emerge but providing an opportunity for participants to voice discordant views. The method is particularly useful for studying issues such as people's attitudes towards consumption where the complex motivations, feelings, and attitudes people hold on the subject can be explored in depth, bridging the gap between everyday experience and more abstract 'academic' ideas. Having exprimented with different recruitment methods, we decided to focus on preexisting 'natural' groups for the first phase of research (see Holbrook and Jackson, forthcoming). This had the advantage that participants were already comfortable with one another, a point that was reinforced by holding the focus groups in their own familiar surroundings (community centres, youth clubs, etc). The approach also encourages the participation of people who might be intimidated by more structured or formal research methods. In selecting the groups we aimed to mirror the diversity of people who shopped in the two centres in terms of class, gender, age, and ethnicity (although we make no claims to having assembled a statistically representative sample of north London shoppers). Groups were chosen because of their familiarity with the twocentres and on the basis of common aspects of identity rather than aiming for the social mix and lack of prior acquaintance that is characteristic of the market research use of similar methods. Six groups were eventually recruited for the first phase of the research: a playgroup for mothers with small children, a local youth project (mixed gender), an old people's indoor bowling club (mixed gender), a Greek Cypriot youth group (mixed gender), a senior citizens' luncheon club (all women), and a 'job club' for unemployed people learning English as a Second Language (ESL) (mixed gender). Each discussion lasted for 6 0 - 9 0 minutes and was tape-recorded and transcribed in full. The groups varied in composition from six to ten people and were held in the centres where the participants routinely met for social purposes. Each meeting had a loose agenda, reflecting the theoretical issues that we wished to pursue. Rather than asking direct questions, however, we sought to phrase topics in an open-ended fashion concerning the kinds of shopping that people particularly liked or disliked; their experiences of the two shopping centres; the differences between shopping centres, high streets, and markets; differences between men and women in attitudes towards shopping; shopping as work and/or leisure; and special kinds of shopping (Christmas gifts, January sales, etc). Focus groups have been criticised for their lack of generalisable results, for the inadequacy of the 'sample' and for their tendency to generate conformity within groups as a result of peer pressure (Stewart and Shamdasani, 1991). Some of these criticisms derive from a misunderstanding of the epistemological basis of qualitative research which rests on what Mitchell (1983) calls logical as opposed to statistical inference. Respondents are not chosen for their typicality or representativeness, and inferences are not drawn from the 'sample' to a wider population. Rather than searching for statistical regularities, focus groups are highly context specific and allow for the interpretation of socially constituted meanings, aiming for depth of interpretation rather than for statistically representative results. The effects of 'peer pressure' are harder to assess. Groups comprised of previously unacquainted individuals may be less subject to such pressures but they take longer to establish mutual trust and rapport. 'Natural' groups are subject to previously established hierarchies and may lead to people being reluctant to express divergent opinions. But skilful intervention by the group moderator can help draw out such views and there is

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plenty of evidence from our own transcripts of the emerging consensus being challenged and 'unpopular' views being expressed. The role of the moderator in recruiting the groups, setting the 'ground rules' and initiating the discussion is crucial as has been recognised elsewhere in the literature (compare Burgess et al, 1988a; 1988b). In our case, four of the groups were led by Bev Holbrook; two (the first and last) were conducted jointly by Bev Holbrook and Peter Jackson. We presented ourselves as university researchers who were interested in finding out about the views of 'ordinary consumers' because such views are rarely heard in academic and policy circles. After some initial suspicion, the necessary degree of trust was established to allow the groups to proceed. We were most conscious of our own postionality (as middle-class, white academics in our late twenties and late thirties) when the group's composition was socially most different from ourselves (with the unemployed ethnic minority group and with the senior citizens' group, for example). On other occasions, similarities of age, sex, or family status helped establish rapport. We attempted to adjust reflexively to these changing circumstances in conducting the groups, aiming to influence the direction and content of the discussion as little as possible and intervening only to keep the conversation going, to bring in reticent members or to move the discussion on. Ultimately, however, it is impossible to judge the full effect we had on the group's internal dynamics. Would the senior citizens' group have expressed their views about racial change in Wood Green in quite so open a way if the moderator had not been white? Would the young people's comments about their parents have been different if the moderator had not been a young white woman? Focus groups methods, like other kinds of interpretative research, also run the risk of 'overinterpretation', where inappropriate categories are imposed on people's own, more practical, kinds of understanding. We regard the process of interpretation as a dialogue between our academic understanding and the participants' socially situated knowledge. Participants in the groups rarely used the term 'skill', for example, to describe their learned shopping behaviour. Their choice of an alternative vocabulary does not invalidate our interpretation of their words as relating to what we choose to call 'skill'. Instead, it provides evidence of how such attributes are valued in this context in comparison with the more formal world of paid work where the language of 'skill' may be more routinely employed. A sensitivity to language, both in posing questions and in interpreting the results, is one of the key requirements of successful focus group work. Once the discussions had been transcribed, they were read closely and repeatedly by both researchers, coding manually as we went through the transcripts and returning to the tapes when further clarification was required. From our initial analysis, we have chosen to highlight five key themes: skill, style, and shopping; shopping as a source of pleasure and anxiety; shopping as a socially situated activity; consumers as knowing, active subjects; and shopping as a highly and complexly gendered activity. These themes were chosen because they allow us to address some of our theoretical concerns about the cultural politics of identity or because they allow us to take issue with ideas that appear elsewhere in the literature on contemporary consumption. We do not claim that the themes have 'emerged' from the discussions independent of our own prior interests. In several cases, however, we were able to start with an initial assumption (concerning the gendered nature of consumption, for example) and to use the empirical material to show how the issue was capable of more subtle or nuanced readings that had previously been assumed. In each case, we would argue, the material shows how identities emerge through interaction, and are situationally negotiated and discursively expressed.

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Skill, style, and shopping There were mixed views among our respondents about the skilled nature of shopping. Some argued that shopping was simply a matter of 'common sense' that did not involve particular skills (understood as something formally learned). In this sense, their acquisition of informally acquired skills was frequently devalued. This was particularly true of several women at the playcentre group who thought that shopping did not require any particular skills: "you just learn them", "it's just something you do as you go along". Other participants acknowledged that these skills were learned and that judgment was required concerning what constituted a 'bargain' or 'value for money'. The following extract from the youth project group contains several references to shopping as a skilled activity involving planning and 'taste'. Laura You have to learn to shop ... I go shopping with my sister, she's got more taste. Bev So she tells you what looks nice on you? Laura My mum will say ... like I want a pair of jeans for £25 and they're good quality. My mum will go for £15 and tell me to get that. My mum will tell me you go for that if you want to save up your own money. I'll buy you this, but I won't buy you that. That's what I hate, say like you're a teenager now ... and you want to choose your own stuff. My mum doesn't give me a chance to do that. That's why I hate shopping with my mother. It is clearly a very different social experience for Laura to go shopping with her sister from when she goes with her mother. She acknowledges her sister's 'taste' and criticises her mother's apparent lack of concern for 'quality'. This example also indicates fundamental differences in the type of activity that is regarded as skilled. 'Skill' for both Laura and her mother involves making choices but they have contrasting views about what constitutes a 'good choice'. Laura sees the skill in shopping as exercising good taste and being able to spot good quality whereas her mother sees skill as the ability to compare prices and choose the best value for money. There are clearly interesting differences between women (as well as between women and men) in what they define as 'skill' and in how skills are acquired. In another focus group, participants defined the skill involved in going shopping as the ability to manage money. The women in this group referred to their adolescence as the time in which they acquired this skill. It was not necessarily something that parents taught their children; money management was 'learnt by doing', when young people started to receive an independent income. Laura's account of her disagreement with her mother illustrates how the development of skills in regard to shopping intersects with the cultivation of a sense of personal style and taste. Laura appears to resent the lack of control over her own purchasing decisions and, like other teenagers, wants 'to choose her own stuff. This kind of conflict is common in adolescents developing their own sense of personal identity and can be accentuated in families that cling onto traditional values in a society where identities are becoming more complex and dynamic. Similar issues concerned with attempts to articulate an individual style are apparent in the following account by Zoe, a young Greek Cypriot woman: Zoe We have arguments over shoes, you know, I've always had. I really like rock music and I like the rock look you know. I like DMs [Doctor Martens] so my Dad We have changed the names of participants to preserve their anonymity. Extracts are given verbatim, except where a few words have been omitted (...) or added [...] as indicated. We refer to ourselves by our first names, Bev and Peter.

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doesn't allow me to wear them. This year he gave me money and said, "your mum is going with you to buy some shoes" [she laughs]. I thought, I'm 18 years of age I can do it myself ... Yeah, he made me take a pair of boots back just because they were up to here [pointing to mid-calf]. You know he's a very strict man, like you can't buy ... I bought a football top once and he had a go at me and started shouting and everything. So it's really, you've got to ask him what you can wear and what you can buy. However, these differences between generation, genders, and cultures are managed with less conflict in other households as suggested by the response of Denny, another Greek Cypriot, to Kerry's remarks: Denny My Dad was good, my Dad used to be brilliant. If I used to say, "I like that", he used to go, "OK" and buy it for me you know. He used to do it the other way round. He was ... he used to spoil me too much rather than say no. But I never went over the top ... I didn't want Doctor Martens. Maybe if I had wanted Doctor Martens then my Dad would have gone mad as well. You know I didn't want to cut ..., shave my head or you know, I didn't want to do stupid things like that so that he would say no. Although there is an indication that Denny may not have wished to provoke her father's disapproval, there is evidence of a process of negotiation here that was not apparent in the case of Laura (a black teenager) or the Greek Cypriot teenager, Zoe. Another black teenager talks about how she and her mum enjoy making choices together about shoes and clothing and here it seems that both mother and daughter have similar styles and taste. In response to general agreement among other participants about the difficulty of teenagers being able to make independent choices, Michelle remarks: Michelle No I go shopping with my Mum but she's got the same taste so it's alright. Bev You don't have arguments? Tracy You and your Mum are like sisters though, like best friends. Michelle Yeah. Tracy So you've got a different relationship than what I have. Bev Is your Mum older, is that why? Tracy Yeah I think it's more or less like ... she still treats me like ... I see myself as a teenager. I like to get what I like and she doesn't. Michelle She's got the same boots as me [her mother] ... We just go everywhere together. It's just like me and my Mum's friends we just go out together all the time, the West End, Sainsburys ... This dialogue between Tracy and Michelle is typical of the many instances where participants aired their differences and disagreed with one another. Such accounts demonstrate that focus groups do not always tend towards the production of consensus and that multiple meanings can be drawn from similar experiences (compare Morgan, 1993). Our second theme takes up this issue of apparent inconsistencies in the social experience of shopping. Shopping as a source of pleasure and Our transcripts suggest that the same taneously (or in quick succession) pleasures of shopping appear to be

anxiety participants can experience shopping as simula source of anxiety and of pleasure. The particularly heightened in adolescence, when

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young people can make relatively carefree choices. Such pleasure is also related to the novelty of making independent purchase decisions.(4) Michelle, from the youth project, talks about the pleasure of buying an expensive pair of trainers, but it is not a purely hedonistic pleasure. Though it "makes me feel good", the pleasure is especially intense "if you've saved up and bought it out of your own money". A clear sense of morality is being expressed here: pleasures have to be earned and they are more likely to occur when individuals have autonomy over their own purchasing.