I think Miller's 'A theory of shopping' is required reading for anyone interested in what motivates people as they buy stuff. The simplest purchase is laden with meaning and ritual.
I hadn't thought about this for awhile, but a few projects have reached some sort of critical mass and it's bubbled back up, espescially in the context of how couples slowly circle each other at the start of a relationship. You see, in most cases, shopping is an act of love
Shopping says for more about our relationships than we realise. We rarely have just ourselves in mind when we buy stuff - it's about love. From the mother who perseveres in finding the best food for her family, to the man who starts looking beyond his comfy clothes repertoire and looks for clothes that will make his partner proud to be with him.
And that can be tough love, like the main supermarket shoppers thanklessly trying to improve their clans. From the howls of protest from the grumpy children who cannot understand why they're being forced to eat fruit in place of a chocolate bar, to the husband who resists attempts to make him try more than his prized meat and two veg and eventually falls in love with all things spicy. Love can be tough, and much of it can be seen in the way we shop for each other.
It's similar to the way the wife of a man I know insists on ironing his t-shirts, despite his moans that he wants to wear them now. She loves him too much to let him be as scruff in public, she realises his workmates will think his attitude to ironing applies to his views on work.
But that kind of comfy love is preceded by courtship. The long, intricate dance of moving beyond the initial attraction to finding out how compatible you are - occasional sorties into working out what you both like, the achingly slow diplomacy that goes into deciding if, and how you'll live as a long term item.
Shopping is one of the main battlegrounds. It enables a couple to see if they will function as an item. There are obvious battlegrounds of course, choosing furniture for the first time, getting a car, or the agonising thrill of shopping for each other at Christmas for the first time. But most of the unwritten rules that govern how you'll go about this have been established in those early, innocent fumbles around the shops.
Apart from enabling couples to establish how they might behave together on things that will matter later on, it allows couples to flaunt their relationships to the world (and themselves for that matter). They can find common tastes, areas of compatibility, opportunities for 'improving their partner' and the no go areas.
It also allows them to conspicuously compromise on things, Make a big show of an effort to make the other person happy. Naturally, gender politics comes into play too. She's getting a feel for his his desires, he's trying to establish where he can have the final word. And most of this goes on without you even realising it.
What are strange species we are.
You realise everyone reading this is going to think about it next time they go shopping!
Posted by: Rob Mortimer | November 01, 2007 at 12:15 PM
I just ordered it from Amazon. It was just the push I needed to start reading something for a paper I'm working on for university so I have to say thank you for the recommendation, it seems to be really on-topic, unlike other books I had on my list!
Posted by: Andrea | November 01, 2007 at 04:21 PM
It's worth it trust me. Hard going in bits (what is it with academic prose, reminds me of Newton writing everything in Latin to stop plebs reading his stuff) but really insightful.
Posted by: np | November 01, 2007 at 04:43 PM
jesus you're amazing NP! rather than think about this the next time i go shopping, i'm going to think about this when working out if i like a guy!
i've always known that 'stuff' matters - ie, what rekkids you buy, or what books you're into, but i never thought that the PROCESS of buying/shopping/choosing would be such a fantastic indicator of personality type and more intimate habitual quirks! (i know, i'm a bit slow.)
in fact, it makes a lot of sense (of course it would, you bloody wrote it) and i'm sure i'll think about it for the next year at least!.. brilliant.
and i like the idea of being a 'brand architect'.. works well for me..
Posted by: lauren | November 02, 2007 at 01:17 AM
Hi lauren, that's very nice of you.
Hope I haven't inadvertantly killed some great love stories with this...
Posted by: NP | November 02, 2007 at 10:19 AM
i wouldn't worry about that NP..
Posted by: lauren | November 02, 2007 at 10:26 AM