This paper uses Freud's theories of psychic economy to investigate Daniel Miller's notion of thrift in shopping. Miller, an anthropologist interested in consumption studies, studied grocery shoppers and noticed the pervasiveness of thrift in their activities. This paper tries to tie together psychological theory with anthropology and ethnographic study.
From the Paper:
"Daniel Miller's ethnography, A Theory of Shopping, highlights the routine shopping practices (primarily the acquisition of domestic foodstuffs) of seventy-six, North London households. Contrary to a more popular discourse of shopping, one connoted with self-directed recreational outings to malls and boutiques for gifts or non-essentials, Miller studies "rarely exciting and soon forgotten" quotidian provisioning, and produces a theory that posits shopping not as self-indulgence but as self-sacrifice?a ?devotional rite.? While his theory is but one of many possible accounts of a specific (and perhaps unique) focus in a specific region, he hopes that his argument, ?presented as a series of generalizations,? will "ring true" for the reader. Our concern, however, is not with the conclusions of his overall theory but with the centrality and interpretations of thrift. This thrift will be analyzed within a Freudian psychoanalytic apparatus, focussing on the connection between the shoppers? economic decisions and the economics of the psyche. Divided into three sections, this paper first reviews Miller's ethnographic accounts and his incorporation of thrift into his theoretical construct; then discusses pertinent Freudian conceptions of the psyche; and finally, engages specifics within Miller's theory to evince a Freudian psychoanalytic understanding of thrift within the context of shopping."
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