ABSTRACT
In this chapter we argue that ‘family shopping’ is one of the key contexts in which the relationship between consumption and identity is currently being forged. By this we mean that the majority of shopping decisions are made in respect of a relatively narrow range of social relationships, predominantly within a familial/domestic context. Few of our respondents engaged in the kind of hedonistic, self-indulgent consumption practices that have been celebrated in the literature of ‘lifestyle shopping’ (as described by Shields 1992a and Featherstone 1990). Far removed from the world of luxury and personal pleasure, our respondents generally adopted a language of thrift and social responsibility (particularly in the case of families with small children). There is an important distinction, though, between going shopping as a family (which few of those we surveyed at Brent Cross and Wood Green actually did, and which those who did generally disliked) and the familial context of shopping which, we argue, is the dominant context of contemporary consumption as revealed by our focus group and ethnographic research (see also Miller forthcoming).
