this – socially, economically and individually –
might be is unclear. What, for example, will be
the effect/s of transformations in online shop-
ping? Are inequalities in relation to certain goods
as significant for some disadvantaged consumers
as for others?
These are just some of the critical questions
raised by rethinking inequality through con-
sumption cultures, but what these arguments also
begin to suggest is the need to rethink, too, old
assumptions about the identification of inequali-
ties with specific class, race and gender differ-
ences. The category ‘disadvantaged consumer’ is
heterogeneous: it cross-cuts these divisions
and differences and disrupts their pre-eminence.
Perhaps this is no bad thing. But, if we switch for
a moment to thinking about consumption as the
work of shopping (admittedly a much narrower
definition than consumption cultures), then – as
many studies continue to show – it is women
upon whom the onus of this work rests, particu-
larly when it comes to weekly food shopping,
gift buying and so on; and it is women who con-
tinue to sacrifice themselves as consumers
within the household, buying for themselves last,
if at all. This is something that needs careful
thought. So, whilst at one level, as Miller has
argued, this is about shopping as love, at others –
particularly in relation to routine food shopping
and for that matter its end point in meal prepara-
tion – it is about inequalities in domestic labour.
These differences matter, and increasingly so in
a world in which women’s relation to the labour
market is undergoing radical change. The question
that perhaps needs to be asked here though is
whether it is helpful to continue to think about
this in terms of inequality. My answer to this
would be equivocal. At one level, yes, I think it
is. That men in general do less of this consump-
tion work is a problem for (many) women; it is
part of what used to be called the ‘double day’.
But to progress requires that we break out of
thinking in terms of categorical identifications
and inequality, for identifying this situation as a
gender inequality offers few insights into how
things might be changed. Instead, I would urge
that it is precisely here, amidst the material, that
anti-foundationalist thinking can exert its most
radical effects. For (re)reading these inequalities
as regulated performance/s of gender enables
them to be seen as just this – as performances
which can be disrupted and enacted differently.
Having said this much, I want to return finally
in this section to make a few very general obser-
vations concerning those previous concerns of
social geographers: housing, education, health
care and so on. No longer central concerns, par-
ticularly for a reconfigured social geography,these remain nonetheless critical components
within societal reproduction, and the manner of
their provision and use is not just a policy consi-
deration but a key indication of the organizing
principles of any society. Specifically then, I
want to suggest – indeed urge – that their analy-
ses be retrieved; that they not be abandoned to a
social geography that is motivated by a revisionist
political economy. I think this can be achieved
by connecting them with contemporary research
on consumption culture/s, material culture and
the discursive. I say this because, whilst there
have been many fine studies of provision by
social geographers, these studies remain that:
analyses which look at the nature and geo-
graphies of these services up to the point of
delivery. Looking at these services as they are
consumed, as commodities and/or as goods,
would seem to have additional advantages. One,
possibly the most significant in terms of its criti-
cal purchase, would be that it would allow us to
see if certain services and/or goods are seen by
consumers and understood to be significantly
different in their meaning/s to others. If they are,
in whatever ways, then this is important. Is
health care (and education for that matter) still
regarded as a basic right, notwithstanding its
increasing permeation with commodity rela-
tions? What about housing? Might this be under-
stood differently? Might this have been more
readily incorporated into the commodity form,
and if so, why? Moreover, thinking in terms of
how discursive power works through organiza-
tions – to connect with practice, or not – clearly
has potential in terms of enhancing understand-
ing/s of service provision and delivery. We
might envisage, for example, research which
brought together critical discourse analyses of
various forms of service provision and accounts
of how such services are consumed by particular
social groups – of the production and consump-
tion of health care, education and so on. This
means that inequalities would be understood not
as the product of structures and subject position/s
defined by structures, but as the critical effect of
a materialized discursive.SPECULATIONS ABOUT
‘FUTURE TALK’Given my primary intentions in this chapter, to
end on a concluding note would be a futile
gesture. Yet, the editors’ response to an earlier
draft ‘encourages’ me ‘to be more speculative
(about future orientations)’ here, where convention
decrees I conclude. This poses me significantRECLAIMING ‘THE SOCIAL’ 533029-ch01.qxd 03-10-02 10:25 AM Page 53