ABSTRACT
It is now a common theoretical assumption among cultural theorists and anthropologists that social identities, differences and inequalities are shaped and legitimated through our material and cultural consumption (Appadurai, 1986; Douglas and Isherwood, 1979; McCracken, 1988; Miller, 1987). Bourdieu has given the now classic demonstration of the way in which distinctions of social class and status are expressed through distinctions in taste: ‘taste classifies and it classifies the classifier’ (1984: 6). This final chapter examines how ethnicity, as a form of cultural difference, shapes and in turn is shaped by material and symbolic consumption practices and aspirations. It investigates how young Punjabis identify and distinguish, critique and endorse particular hierarchies of taste and style in how they look, what they eat and drink, and in what they find beautiful or ugly, ‘cool’ or ‘naff’ (or ‘pendu’). It demonstrates how, from a position of generally limited consumer potential, young people articulate their preferences, distinctions and aspirations as consumers through talk about the TV ads which they consume, both literally and metaphorically.
