Table Of ContentLived Experiences of Public
Consumption
Encounters with Value in Marketplaces
on Five Continents
Edited by
Daniel Thomas Cook
9780230_517042_01_prexvi.tex 25/1/2008 15: 14 Page i
Consumption and Public Life
Series Editors: Frank Trentmann and Richard Wilk
Titles include:
Mark Bevir and Frank Trentmann (editors)
GOVERNANCE, CITIZENS AND CONSUMERS
Agency and Resistance in Contemporary Politics
Daniel Thomas Cook (editor)
LIVED EXPERIENCES OF PUBLIC CONSUMPTION
Encounters with Value in Marketplaces on Five Continents
Nick Couldry, Sonia Livingstone and Tim Markham
MEDIA CONSUMPTION AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
Beyond the Presumption of Attention
Forthcoming:
Jacqueline Botterill
CONSUMER CULTURE AND PERSONAL FINANCE
Money Goes to Market
Roberta Sassatelli
FITNESS CULTURE
Gyms and the Commercialisation of Discipline and Fun
Consumption and Public Life
Series Standing Order ISBN 1-4039-9983-X Hardback 1-4039-9984-8 Paperback
(outside North America only)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order.
Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with
your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above.
Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
9780230_517042_01_prexvi.tex 25/1/2008 15: 14 Page ii
Also by Daniel Thomas Cook
THE COMMODIFICATION OF CHILDHOOD: The Children’s Clothing
Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer
SYMBOLIC CHILDHOOD
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Lived Experiences of Public
Consumption
Encounters with Value in Marketplaces
on Five Continents
Edited by
Daniel Thomas Cook
Rutgers University
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Selection and editorial matter © Daniel Thomas Cook 2008
Chapters © their authors 2008
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication
may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90
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Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this
work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2008 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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175 Fifth Avenue, NewYork, N.Y. 10010
Companies and representatives throughout the world
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
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ISBN-13: 978 0 230 51704 2 hardback
ISBN-10: 0 230 51704 8 hardback
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lived experiences of public consumption : encounters with value in
marketplaces on five continents / edited by Daniel Thomas Cook.
p. cm. (Consumption and public life)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 230 51704 8 (alk. paper)
1. Markets Social aspects. 2. Consumers Social aspects. 3.
Consumption (Economics) Social aspects. I. Cook, Daniel Thomas,
1961
HF5470.L58 2007
306.3 dc22
2007051164
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
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For my buddy, Gene Michaud (1946–2005). We are all only
memories anyway.
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Contents
List of Figures xi
Acknowledgements xii
Notes on Contributors xiii
Introduction: Dramaturgies of Value in Market Places 1
Daniel Thomas Cook
A context 1
The contents 3
A note on the dramaturgy of value 6
Part I Playing In and With Market Places
1 The Play of Authenticity in Thai Handicraft Markets 13
Frederick F. Wherry
Disconnected lives 13
Connected lives 16
The setting 19
Putting on the play 20
Conclusion 28
2 Tradition, Adventure, and Pleasure in
Santiago, Chile’s Informal Markets 31
Joel Stillerman
Relational work in street markets 34
The thrills of the hunt and other pleasures in flea markets 38
Conclusion 44
3 Shopping for People, or Shopping for People?:
Deciphering the Object of Consumption
Among Tourists in Banaras 50
Jenny Huberman
Introduction: something extra 50
Consumption and symbolic exchange 51
The tourists 54
The riverfront of Banaras 56
The gift of chocolate 57
Foster children 62
vii
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viii Contents
The shopping list 63
Conclusion: shopping for people, or shopping for people? 65
Part II Blurred Boundaries Between Market and Home
4 ‘Pleasure from Bitterness’: Shopping and Leisure in the
Everyday Lives of Taiwanese Mothers 71
YuLing Chen
Between work and leisure: traditional markets and
mothers’ geographies 74
Hypermarkets: a playground for all of us 77
Between a mother and a woman: department stores and
women’s self-representation 80
I shop, therefore I am 85
5 ‘Attention, Shoppers – Family Being Constructed on
Aisle Six!’: Grocery Shopping and the
Accomplishment of Family 92
Jan Phillips
‘Doing’ family by way of personal grocery shopping 93
Consuming families, constructing families:
the theoretical view 96
Grocery shopping practices 99
Conclusion 105
Part III Transgressions and Interstitial Spaces
6 Spreading Like a Dis/ease?: Afro-Jamaican Higglers
and the Dynamics of Race/Color, Class and Gender 111
Winnifred R. Brown-Glaude
Theoretical framework 112
Cities and markets: constructed and produced 114
The ‘problem’ of higglering 116
Higglers vs formal businesses 118
Conclusion 130
7 ‘The Flow of Words and the Flow of Value’: Illegal
Behavior, Social Identity and Marketplace
Experiences in Turin, Italy 137
Giovanni Semi
Introduction 137
The area 138
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Contents ix
The exchange 138
Dealing with uncertainty: cooperation and conflict 140
The police 143
Exchange, joking and conflict in the market 144
From informal to illegal: temporal dimensions of
market behavior 150
Conclusions 155
Part IV Global Patrons, Globalizing Markets
8 Beyond Borders: The Politics and Place of the Global Shop 161
Kim Humphrey
Introduction 161
Emergence and consolidation 164
The book and the beverage 166
In place 171
9 Framing a Fair Trade Life: Tensions in the Fair
Trade Marketplace 179
Keith Brown
Origins of Fair Trade 181
Research design 182
Who are ‘Fair Traders’? 184
Four economic and cultural tensions: market demands
and the Fair Trade movement 185
Discussion 197
10 The Mall and the Street: Practices of Public Consumption
in Mumbai 203
Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria
Geography of street consumption 205
On the street 207
In the mall’s shadow 210
In the mall 212
Conclusion 217
11 ‘They Come, and They Are Happy’: A Gender
Topography of Consumer Space in Dubai 221
Anette Baldauf
Inside the women’s center 223
Imaginary elsewheres 224
