The Uses of Goods, a chapter from The World of Goods, offers an anthropological approach towards consumption.

Going beyond the traditional economist's naive conception of consumption referring to utilitarian activity.

Here, utilitarian activity can be defined as an activity maximizes happiness and reduces suffering.

In the article, authors refer to two central ideas in traditional economic theory related with consumption;

-Significance of free choice in consumption process -Consumption as a part of commercial activity

Instead, for Douglas and Isherwood, consumer goods are communicators which make visible and stable the categories of culture.

So the notion of consumption is beyond commercial activity and free choice.

The evolution of culture through consumption choices;

"Consumption is the very arena in which culture is fought over and licked into shape." (pg. 74)

An example of mother going to shopping. In her shopping bag, she reserves something for her children, husband or her guests. Also whom she invites into her house, how often, what she offers them for music, food, drink or conversation etc choices express and generate culture in the most general sense.

Here, consumption is beyond commerce and free choice because social sanctions, values and norms are manifesting themselves from consumption activity.

An example of boundary between cash, gift or newly emerged gift card etc.

So in the field of consumption, there is self-generated and operative boundary between two kind of services; a personal one and a professional one related with commerce.

Dougles and Isherwood defined it as first step for cultural theory of consumption.

At this point, the authors bring the notion of material possession in the field of consumption to the fore by emphasizing two significant roles of it;

-providing primary needs-drawing lines of social relationship

They give an example of cattle system which define all social processes and relationships such as marriage in Nuer culture.

This kind of approaching to goods, which is material possession having double role, may present an axiomatic system in anthropology

An anology with Durkheim's "social facts" in sociology.Durkheim proposed to use social facts as things to understand social phenomena for the first time in social science.

Dougles and Isherwood, in stead of individualist theories of knowledge and behaviour, offer new approach that discusses cultural analysis as a whole.

"Cultural analysis sees the whole tapestry as a whole, the picture and the weaving process, before attending to the individual threads"

This new approach is encouraged by three intellectual positions which have been developed until today. These are;

- phenomenology / questions our body of knowledge about other persons

- structuralism / affords possibilities of interpreting culture

- ethnomethodology (or social accounting) / focuses on procedures of interpretation

Meaning flows and drifts, it can differ from one person to another. As stated in the article, these drifts of meanings are bordered by rituals in societies.

Without rituals, meaning may lost its solidarity. According to Douglas and Isherwood, permanance of meaning depends on the types of rituals.

In verbal rituals, permanancy of the meaning is hard to achieve due to its vocalized and unrecorded existence.

In material rituals, goods, accordingly consumption, plays adjunctive roles within the process.

In order to construct ritual within society, there has to be defined spatial and temporal dimensions.At this point, consumption of goods is used to define the environment and the intervals of rituals.

Within these defining processes, the choice of goods create a set of markers within the spatial and temporal frame of people's lifes.

As a result, these markers continously create certain patterns that constitute discrimination within societies and play active role in the shaping and reshaping process of culture.

As authors stated, the goods, which are the visible part of culture, construct our way of life.

Thanks for your attention