ABSTRACT
It is not hard to find references to studies of consumption at almost any period of modern anthropology. These are most often found within works that were primarily concerned with other topics prominent at the time, such as spheres of exchange (Bohannon 1955), gifting (Gregory 1982), the study of prestige goods (Friedman and Rowlands 1977), sumptuary laws, cargo cults (Worsley 1957), boundary maintenance (Hodder 1982) and so forth. Sometimes they are linked through the category of ‘material culture’ with archaeological concerns. None of this, however, amounted to a recognised category of consumption studies. They were largely isolated instances of concern with consumption that had no accretive result. More sustained has been a continual movement of anthropologists into commerce. This included several figures who appear in Belk’s chapter because, although trained in anthropology, they moved into business and consumption studies.
