THE THEME OF THIS PAPER IS CONSUMPTION AS A FORM OF SYMBOLIC

ACTION.

(importance of “consumption rituals” in the mediation of social life.)

As per the author, countless ethnographies prove how social relations are expressed
or produced. And this happens in a structured manner. For example, eating together,
drinking bouts and so on, during an occasion. These are considered to be
recognizable forms of consumption, ones that perhaps may mislead us into making
the false equation that is “consumption equals destruction” because on these
occasions meat, liquor, and other valued substances are made to vanish by
consuming them. But consumption as a general phenomenon has nothing to do with
the destruction of goods and wealth. Instead, consumption makes goods and wealth
a part of the social system once more maybe in the same or different form from what
had already been produced and consumed in the same social network. According to
sociological analysis, all goods are indestructible. They lack the im-partibility and
permanent identifiability most of the times as historically remembered objects. For
instance, the food and drinks served at a feast, live on in the form of the social
relations they produce, and which are in turn responsible for reproducing the food
and drinks.

The author thinks of consumption as the appropriation of objects as part of one’s life
like food eaten at a feast, and clothes are worn, houses lived in.
Along with consumption, there’s production and exchange. All 3 of these are
believed to be the distinct phases of the cyclical process of social reproduction, in
which consumption is never terminal.
What distinguishes consumption from an exchange is not that consumption has a
physiological dimension that exchange lacks, but that consumption involves the
incorporation of the consumed item into the personal and social identity of the
consumer.

Misers are often assumed as greedy, but sometimes it’s not the availability of money
that defines consumption rather the inability to synchronize with the society we live
in. The author highlights two contrasting examples one of the Muari tribe in Bastar
district who do not care about the material goods and are content with their lifestyle.
However, there are certain societies who do not hesitate to delve into consumerism.

The author has taken an example provided by Jock Stirratt during a seminar on the
anthropology of money, in which he graphically outlined the model of how individual
Sri Lankan fishermen have prospered in recent times. They were perennially poor.
However, the availability of local ice enabled them to export fishes to distance further
generating more money. Their houses were in remote areas and had no electricity,
piped water, or roads. Despite this setback, they spent the extra income on
purchasing a television, constructing garages, and installing rooftop water cistern
which cannot be utilized in the foreseeable future. All these because they were keen
to imitate the upper-middle-class Sri Lankans. They cannot use these spending
because of the lack of the essentials to use it. The necessity to maintain an
individual status alongside mainstream society might be a key reason for such
expenditure. They also tried new fields of untried consumption. The Fisherman, in
buying such an item of the centrepiece of personal collections is upholding his
legacy, efforts and social status via this television set and it shield him from the
actual hardship associated in earning it. To him what matters, is the leap of
imagination required for a man to acquire such properties and identify along with it
not only because of middle-class aspirations but to showcase his achievement as a
fisherman. This television set will remain as a showpiece to remind everyone how he
has toiled on rough tides on a creaky boat for days to achieve this.

In complete contrast to the Sri Lankan fishermen, the Muari tribe of Bastar district,
keeps itself aloof from the world of materialism and consumerism and the rich in its
community has little options to do with its wealth.