1 IntroductionShopping, like its close associate fashion, is one of those activities which has had a hardtime breaking in to certain academic fields, including human geography; a situationwhich probably says rather more about the subjectivities of most academic knowledgeproducers than it does about the significance of shopping per se, which, as well as beinga routine part of household reproduction now constitutes a major `leisure' activity(Bloch et al, 1991; Butler, 1991). Where shopping has been considered, prevailingaccounts tend to coalesce around the shopper-classification typologies characteristicof the retail and marketing literatures (Gutman and Mills, 1982; Lunt and Livingstone,1992), oröparticularly within human geographyöthose that see shopping as a trope, asa sign for the Zeitgeist [see, for example, Chaney (1990), Goss (1993; 1999), Hopkins(1991), Shields (1992)öa literature inspired for the most part by Baudrillard (1983; 1988)and Bauman (1993)]. Although vastly differentöit is indeed hard to imagine two moredivergent approaches than the empiricism of the one and the semiotics of the otheröthey share a point of contact, and a paradoxical one at that, a reticence about shoppingitself. Witness, for example, how shopping within these literatures has been eitherreduced to specific (categories of ) purchases or expanded to signify modernity and/orpostmodernity. By contrast, two recent `linked' textsöShopping, Place, and Identity(Miller et al, 1998) and A Theory of Shopping (Miller, 1998)öprovide a welcomecountertendency. Emphasising `shopping as practised',öwhat people do when they

Shopping, space, and practice

Nicky GregsonDepartment of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, England;e-mail: n.gregson@shef.ac.uk

Louise CreweSchool of Geography, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, England;e-mail: louise.crewe@nottingham.ac.uk

Kate BrooksDepartment of Geography, University of Sheffield S10 2TN, England;e-mail: kate@mare.demon.co.ukReceived 23 July 2001; in revised form 20 November 2001

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2002, volume 20, pages 597 ^ 617

Abstract. In this paper we address questions of `shopping as practised' and its relation to shoppingspace. We argue that modes of shopping, which comprise distinctive sets of shopping practicesinvolving relations to goods (purchases), relations of looking (and seeing), the place of shopping inthe rhythms of everyday life, and the socialities of shopping, are used to invest meaning in particulartypes of shopping space and to produce individual, accumulated, personalised shopping geographiesthat weave together particular locations and generic spaces. Furthermore, modes of shopping areshown to require specific sets of knowledge to practise and to relate to specific subject positions,namely necessity and choice. These arguments are developed in relation to charity shops and charityshopping. However, they are shown to have broader implications: specifically they show the relation-ality of modes of shopping and shopping spaces, and the distinctions between shopping geographiesand retail geographies. Theoretically, they suggest that accounts of shopping need to locate meaningin practice; that the meanings of shopping (and the meanings invested in particular shopping spaces)are therefore potentially unstable; and that accounts of the constituting subjects of shopping need totake seriously the spatialities of subjectivities.

DOI:10.1068/d270t

shop and how they talk about shoppingöthese texts centre the act(s) of shopping andtheir social and cultural significance (see also, Lehtonen, 1999; Lehtonen and Ma« enpe« e« ,1997).(1)

Included amongst the core premises of these texts is the idea that accounts ofshopping need to work from those routine acts of shopping which have a distinctpurpose, particularly from those acts which are about mundane, ordinary householdprovisioningönotably, the typical supermarket and/or shopping centre trip. Deliber-ately emphasised to provide an appropriate corrective to hedonistic, pleasure-centredaccounts (Campbell, 1987), this emphasis turns out to have a number of criticaleffects when conjoined with Miller's previous arguments about objectificationönot-ably in Shopping, Place, and Identity, where shopping is represented as expressive of,constitutive of, and a manifestation of key social relations, of family, class, ethnicity,and gender. More than this, it is claimed that ``objects (which we take to meanpurchases) are social relations made durable'' (Miller et al, 1998, page 19). Althoughclearly aimed at avoiding the problem of fetishisation, this not only reifies these keysocial relations, but focuses attention rather more on the connections between thepurchase and its translation through consumption than on shopping per se.

To a degree, these tendencies are readdressed in Miller's solo take, A Theory ofShopping. Here Miller goes well beyond Shopping, Place, and Identity to present atheory of shopping as sacrifice, which in its more muted form argues that shoppingas practised is a means of constituting, and not simply reflecting, relations of love andcaring; that its purpose is to (try to) create desiring subjects. So, although clearlycentring shopping (as act), the emphasis here is to argue that the act of shopping isactually about something else entirely; in its strong form, a ` devotional ritual thatconstantly reaffirms some transcendent force [the infant] and thereby becomes aprimary means by which the transcendent is constituted'' (Miller, 1998, page 78).Consequently, although ostensibly about and grounded in the everyday activities ofshopping, Miller's text takes us to a space where shopping is understood as sacrifice,and not through sacrifice; where commodities are the material culture of love; andwhere expenditure is the devotional ritual constituting subjects and objects of devotion.

In this paper we want to get back to shopping as practised and as talked about.More specifically, we want to begin to explore how space makes a difference here:particularly, we want to examine how shopping spaces are constituted by shoppersömade sense oföthrough their shopping practices and shopping talk, and we wantto argue that frequently these practices (and talk) are relationally constituted; thatthey depend on the coexistence of distinctive spaces associated with contrasting shop-ping practices. In part, this is an argument about the need to see beyond accountsthat locate the importance of shopping exclusively in questions of identity, and thatconnect shopping primarily to consumption (Jackson and Holbrook, 1995). Indeed,we would regard such issues as well researched of late. Instead, the paper is con-cerned to explore further the constitution of spaces of shopping through shoppers'practices. Immediately, then, this is an argument for seeing shopping space ascomprised notöas so much of the literature on shopping assumesösimply in termsof pregiven retail locations (specific centres, key malls, certain named departmentstores). Rather, we see shopping space as a tapestry of particularity and generality,comprising specific places (for example, within England: Brent Cross, MetroCentre,Meadowhall, the Trafford Centre, to name just a few) and generic types of shops(department stores, supermarkets, discount shops, charity shops), woven together

(1) For psychologically inspired readings of shopping see: Baker (2000), Bowlby (1993; 2000), andRichards (1996).

598 N Gregson, L Crewe, K Brooks

through practice.(2) So, rather than reinscribe pregiven retail geographies, we wantto focus in this paper on exploring how what people actually routinely do in actsof shopping (and how they talk about this) works to produce an understanding ofshopping space and shopping geographies. Our concern then is with identifyingpractices of shopping that are intimately connected to specific shopping spaces,particular and generic. We develop this position through one specific example, thatof charity shopping,(3) and use this to demonstrate how what might at first sightappear to be singular (charity) shopping practices associated with a generic type ofshop are relational constructions that depend on the identification and enactmentof other shopping practices in other sorts of shopping spaces.

We begin the paper in section 2 by expanding on practices of charity shopping, anduse as the basis for our discussion five case-study women. These case studies allow usto open up two distinctive modes of charity shopping, associated with `necessity'and choice', respectively. As critical here though is the identification of specificcharity-shopping practices, which we show to be not simply confined to relations totransactions (purchase) or so broad as to encompass all the activities occurring incharity shops. Instead, these (charity-shopping) practices are shown to be routinisedand to entail, specifically: relations to goods; relations of looking at (and seeing)goods; the place of charity shopping in the rhythms of everyday life; and the socialrelations of shopping. In sections 3 and 4 of the paper we go on to explore how thesetwo sets of practices are used to invest particular meanings in the generic space ofcharity shops: to understand these as spaces that ought to be about a moral economyof redistribution, and to constitute charity shops as spaces of `difference', where thepractices of being in charity shops is construed as `a treat'. Both sets of meanings reston making a radical distinction between the practices of charity shopping and shop-ping elsewhere. Following on from this, in section 5, we make some more generalobservations about shopping, space, and practice, and expand on some of the implica-tions of these findings for theoretical representations of shopping, arguing that: (a) themeaning of shopping is not just about objects and their connections with socialrelations, nor is it solely about constituting desiring subjects, but that its meaning(s)are constituted through shopping practicesömodes of shoppingöwhich are them-selves constitutive of shopping spaces; (b) the meanings invested in shopping space(s)are potentially unstable, and that these are constituted only through practice; and(c) theoretical accounts of shopping need to take seriously not just the importance ofthe constituting subject, but also the spatialities of subjectivities.

(2) The emphasis on particular locations within the retail geography landscape is a characteristic ofa wide range of work in human geography (see, for example, Bromley and Thomas, 1993; Dawsonand Lord, 1985; Domosh, 1996; Dowling, 1993; Holbrook and Jackson, 1996; McGoldrick andThompson, 1992; Taylor et al, 1996; Williams et al, 2001). By comparison, the literature outsidegeography errs towards discussing generic retail environmentsöclassically department stores andmalls, because of their identification with modernity and (post)modernity, respectively (see, forinstance, Abelson, 1989; Benjamin, 1978; du Gay, 1996; Fiske, 1989; Lancaster, 1995; Morris, 1988;Nava, 1996; Porter Benson, 1986; Reekie, 1993; Williams, 1982; Willis, 1990). With very few excep-tions, however, this work remains predominantly textualöwith the exception of du Gay andMorris, whilst Miller et al's (1998) study of the cheapjack' and John Lewis moves some way tobringing together generality, specificity, and relational shopping practices.(3) Our use of charity shops and shopping to address questions of shopping space and practice hereis indicative not just of research project foci, but of the ways in which secondhand spaces ofexchange and consumption immediately foreground issues of shopping practice and space (see,for example, Clarke, 1998; Crewe and Gregson, 1998; Gregson and Crewe, 1997). This is not to saythat such matters are unimportant in first-cycle spaces, far from it. It is to say, rather, thatfamiliarity means that it is easier to assume retail space to be pregiven and to take practice forgranted when researching such spaces.

Shopping, space, and practice 599

2 Charity shopping as talk and as practiceIn this section we draw, to begin with, on just five case-study charity shoppers'. All `highinvestors', in that they define themselves as regular charity shoppers and see charityshopping as a key part of their shopping activities, they are drawn from eighty interviewswith people who charity shop.(4) Importantly, they are also all women. This choice isdeliberate, and was made for two reasons. First, because it points to differences betweenmen and women in terms of self-adoption of the label charity shopper': although weencountered and talked with a number of men who use charity shops in the course of ourresearch, few of them identified themselves as charity shoppers. In itself this is sugges-tiveöof distancing from both the label (shopping) and its associations (women?).Furthermore, mostöalthough not allöof these men were twenty to thirty somethingand art school or university educated, and were using charity shops either purely in afun or play manner (typically to purchase one-off party wear) or to conjoin theirpleasures in kitsch and nostalgia (Gregson et al, 2001; Hunt, 1998; Sconce, 1995;Tannock, 1995).(5) Consequently, their talk tended to highlight the object, rather thanthe practice, in charity shopping. Second, though, our focus on five women is indica-tive of the primarily feminised world of charity-shop space. As twelve months ofparticipant observation working in and shopping in charity shops in diverse and variedgeographical locations showed, these shops are feminised; staffed primarily by femalevolunteers, they are also characterised overwhelmingly by female shoppers. This pre-dominance of female shoppers is something we consider to reflect the material cultureof charity shops. Dominated by secondhand clothing, particularly women's and child-ren's, these shopsösimply by virtue of their stock profileöare ones that might beanticipated to be frequented primarily by women.(6) And certainly the identificationof women with secondhand clothing is resonant with some of our earlier findingson car-boot sales (Gregson and Crewe, 1998) and Clarke's work on nearly-newsales (2000). But more than this, buying individual items of secondhand clothing forconsumption is something that, as we argued previously, puts a strong premium onparticular stocks of knowledge. Here knowledge works to minimise risköto guardagainst mistakes, to ward against wasting moneyöand, at the same time, enablescapturing value through the identification of `the bargain'. So, in relation to particular(4) Interviews were conducted by Kate Brooks and Nicky Gregson through 1998 ^ 99, as part of awider project with Louise Crewe on secondhand exchange and consumption, spanning car-bootsales, charity shops, and retro shops. The interviews took place in a range of locations includingSheffield, Weston-Super-Mare, Bristol, Taunton, Derby, and London. Shoppers were contactedthrough various recruitment strategies: personal contacts and friendship networks, through work-ing (as volunteers) in particular charity shops, and through mail shotsöin shops and in localnewspapers. Individuals were asked about how they got into charity shopping; what they dowhen they charity shop; whether (and how) they might donate goods to charity shops; and, moregenerally, about how they see the relationship between charity shops and `other' shops. All inter-views were transcribed and analysed individually, in terms of their key orientations, investments,and dispositions towards charity shopping, as well as for their characteristic patterns of talk (keyphrases, particular discursive markers). Subsequently, individuals were grouped together to identifybroader tendencies across our respondent group. For further illustration of this method see: Barkerand Brooks (1998), Gregson et al (2001), Jackson et al (2001).(5) The exceptions included a few shopping through necessity, but we would emphasise that theseare very much the exception to general tendencies.(6) The relative dearth of secondhand men's clothing is something that both charity retailers andshoppers commented on, with many making the observation that this was indicative of different,gendered, practices of consumption. So, for example, many of our `shoppers' argued that whereaswomen routinely donate items of clothing öusually items that they no longer wear but that havewear left in themömen were considered to wear clothing until it was no longer `fit' to be donated.What this points to is an issue that we do not have the space to consider hereöhow socialrespectability is maintained through donating practices.

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categories of clothing then, it is women whom we might anticipate as having the skillsand knowledge to mobilise those particular facets of material culture that prevail incharity shops. It is their practices of charity shopping then that we are most interestedin here.

The five women we highlight below have been selected for two further reasons.First, and empirically, because they are diverse socially: their experiences span age,degrees of economic and cultural capital, relationships to significant othersöpartic-ularly the presence or absence of children and partners, geography (London, Sheffield,Weston-Super-Mare, and Taunton), and spaceöin the sense that some are relativelymobile whilst others lead everyday lives that are extremely spatially constrained.(7)

Second though, and theoretically, this degree of social diversity enables us to openup the range of subject positions constituted through and in relation to charity shop-ping and how these connect to the practices of charity shopping. As we show here,particular subject positions are intrinsically connected with practice in four main ways:through relations of purchasing, relations of looking (and seeing), in terms of howcharity shopping fits into the rhythms of everyday life, and the social relations ofshopping. To begin with, we concentrate on the five women, their ways of talkingabout charity shopping, and particularly the key discursive markers and orientationsthat characterise their talk.

Christina is in her early thirties and is a single parent who lives on a large councilestate in Sheffield with her young, preschool-age son, whose father is no longer `on thescene'. Although previously a nurse and degree educated, she has been on incomesupport since the birth of her son. Her talk is quiet, muted even, and is explicitly aboutcharity shopping as a necessary facet of poverty; it is something that she quite literallyhas to do to clothe her son and herselföa survival strategy that enables her to `get by'.The following is indicative of how she chooses to express this:

` ... I've now actually got to a stage where I can't actually afford to go into propershops to shop and I arrived at that about a year and a half ago, and it then dawnedon me that when I had an inadequate number of clothes that I'd actually have tomake a point of doing shopping trips round all the charity shops that were suita-ble for trousers and things, and so I've actually been out going on tours of particularcharity shops to find clothes that I can use ... most of the people I see in [area ofSheffield] are people with children who are shopping in them because they have toand not because they have the choice. You know it's not just a fun thing to do.''Christina's talk then is explicitly of poverty, of `being poor' as she terms it, and of

its effects on household provisioningöin her case, exclusion from `proper shops' (bywhich she means first-cycle spaces of exchange and consumption) and increasingreliance on secondhand goods. But it is also about the work of charity shopping. So,for example, she makes explicit reference to the time and effort she has, of necessity, toput into clothing acquisitionöwhich is not just about `traipsing' from shop to shop butabout sifting, assessing, and evaluating the respectability, wear, and price of clothing.

` ... they have to be in reasonable condition ... most of the things I buy in charityshops, I tend to, I think they have a certain amount of quality about them. They'renot things that I would have thrown away in that state ... I've noticed that whereasbefore if I wasn't quite sure about an item of clothingöwhether I really needed itö

(7) The one significant gap here is raceöand this is important. Throughout our research, charityshopping was an activity that appeared to be being engaged in primarily by (White) women. For usthis is about several things simultaneously, but critically it is about the ways in which charity' asdiscourse connects to social identities of gender, class, and race. In this case the general absence ofBlack, Asian, and other minority groups from charity shopsöbut not, intriguingly, from othersecondhand spaces of exchangeöhas affinities with the ways in which the White `working classes'donate but do not charity shop.

Shopping, space, and practice 601

I'd have probably bought it and thought about it later, whereas now I don't. Iactually will only buy something if I, I'll actually go away and think about it beforeI buy it, even if it's only »3 or »4 for a pair of trousersöwhen you're living on »40 aweek and that's your budget for food and everything, transport, you don't want tomake mistakes ... I always look at children's clothes, because he's growing all thetime and he obviously gets through more and more clothes you know. Even ifthings are too big for him I can buy them and put them by ... you can buy thingsin advance for a child ... .''Christina's talk then is littered with markers that point to how hard she works in

her practices of charity shopping to counter the effects of poverty. In always thinkingabout the specifics of clothing quality, thinking ahead and not making mistakes, she iscontinually using charity shops in ways that are about drawing on the full extent ofher consumption knowledges and skills, but, importantly, rather than celebrating herknowledges and skills, there is a weariness, a tiredness in her talk, something whichcontrasts markedly with others below. Moreover, this pattern of talk is itself revealingof other desiresöto be able to do things differently, to be able to shop easily in `propershops'.

Barbara, though like Christina in that she is on income support, is a very differentindividual. She is 55, divorced with no children, and has had a long history of mentaland physical illness that she is trying to `move on' from. She describes herself as ` livingon benefits: I suppose I'm part of what they call the underclass now''. For her, charityshopping isölike for Christinaönecessary, in that she sees herself as increasinglyexcluded from `ordinary shops' (her phrase). But it is also difficult, confidence sapping;something that she actively dislikes having to do and that she sees as indicative of howmuch her life has changed (for the worse)öfrom being a married woman in full-timemanagerial employment in the London labour market to a divorcee struggling to makeends meet and experiencing the sharp end of social exclusion in a small seaside town inthe West Country. She still harks back (romantically and nostalgically) to shoppingin what she refers to as `nice shops' and buying smart, new clothes and, consequently,her talk about charity shopping is littered with markers of resentment, snobbery even.The following is indicative of how she first talked about charity shopping with us:

` ... I'm on income support, I can't afford to buy things elsewhere, but also I thinkthat I tend to buy certain things at the moment to make me feel better ... every nowand again I'll go round, I have a look round, really just the ones in the town centre.If there's something specific I want I'll go round looking but usually it's sort ofbrowsing.''Immediately there are critical differences with Christina's pattern of talk. Barbara's

talk makes absolutely no reference to the work of charity shopping; for her, `browsing'rather than acquisition is of primary significanceösomething that reflects her differentsocial circumstances (a single woman, rather than a mother of a young child). More-over, and again unlike Christina, she only goes in a few charity shops, rather thanengaging in routine `tours'. Yet, she is also clearly having to use charity shops to satisfyher desires, to `feel better' about herselföand it is this that causes her problems:

` ... I've got this feeling [of] always making doöand sort of, buying things in charityshops, you might be lucky and find something that really does fit well and looksnice, and is good quality, but to get all of those, you know, is very difficult ... Ithink actually shopping in charity shops doesn't do anything for your confidenceand self worth you knowöit's somebody else's cast offs, whatever their reasons forgiving it and so on it's Second Hand Rose, so it's not the same ... .''What Barbara's talk is pointing to, and something that we will come back to later,

are the difficulties (impossibilities?) of constituting self-worth through charity shopping

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when one is constituted within particular subject positions, and that to be positivelyoriented towards charity shopping requires particular, other subject positions. Corre-spondingly, and again in contrast to Christina, Barbara's talk is littered with examplesof what we regard as distancing devices. Indeed, she talks at length about charity shopsin the abstract (as negative influences) and about the sorts of people whom sheobserves in them:

` ... as soon as a shop becomes empty it seems like a charity shop springs up there ...and all the nice shops shut up. I mean ... where the AFBP is now, it used to be alovely leather shop there, it was lovely going in and smelling the leather. And itreally was a lovely shop, I suppose quite an exclusive shop really. But all of thosenice shops, they've gone and it seems to be just tat now I think. If it isn't a charityshop it's a `pound' shop ... all the old ducks who come round on their coaches(laughs)öI was in one the other day and I thought `Oh, I've got to get out of here!'You know, all these old ladies, and one picked up this dressöit was about »8 but ayoung person's dress and I'd wondered whether I was too old to get it [describesdress] ... this old lady, an elderly lady, was hovering and as soon as I put it downshe picked it up and she bought it! And her friends said `Oh that's far too long'.And she said `Oh I'll chop the bottom off '. And I thought `That'll completely ruin it!Completely ruin it!!' She was far too old and you know it would have been a realnice young person's dress ... .''For Barbara, then, charity shops are markers of the decline of retail environ-

ments. Notwithstanding the fact that she has to shop in them through necessity,she regards them as `tat'öinterestingly defined in opposition to previous, nostalgiccitations of exclusivityöand readily engages in observations that utilise distinctionand discernment to mock the purchases (and taste) of others.

At the other end of the spectrum to both Barbara and Christina is Lily. Lily is 25, afashion student in London, and a part-time model. Her social life is varied anddemands a wide range of fashion competences, encompassing everything from AscotLadies' Day and the Ritz through to student bars and lectures. Shopping is somethingthat she takes to an art form, and her repertoire encompasses dress agencies, charityshops, out-of-town warehouses selling cut-price quality high-street goods, and theoccasional high-street purchase. This is how she talks about charity shopping:

` ... I can't pass a charity shop without going in ... because there might be abargain ... but I'm not usually inspired by charity shops now, though somethingmight catch my eye ... the secret of secondhand clothes is to wear one piece withnew clothes. I'd never wear the whole lot secondhand, I just wouldn't do that. I justdon't want to look like a tramp ... . I've got a really nice outfit, a suit I got fromOxfam about two years ago, no three. And I can't part with it. It looks like Chanelbut it's not Chanel. It looks like it. It's a pink and yellow hound-tooth check inwool, and it's really warm and lovely. And that's my favourite thing.''There are several things going on here. First, Lily's motivations for charity shop-

ping are not those of necessity, but those of what she might findöspecifically thepotential for `the bargain'. Second, and again unlike Christina in particular, charityshopping is an impulse practiceöprompted by passing and popping in rather than byeveryday routines. It clearly is not hard work. Beyond this though, and third, Lilyclearly uses her expert fashion knowledges to shape her charity-shop purchasingöboth to produce `the look' and to purchase the indistinguishable (to others) copy'.Lily then is working with and practising `knowing chic', and it is clear that she takesobvious delight in talking about this, literally telling usödisplaying to us (whom sheevidently reads as `unknowing'!)öher knowledges, and `how to dress Lily-style'. Butwhat her talk also signifies is the limits to the clever dressing', that is, knowing chic:

Shopping, space, and practice 603

that secondhand clothing constructs symbolic value only through its juxtapositionswith the new; and that to wear exclusively secondhandöas some mustörisks socialcensure. Indeed, the term Lily uses hereö`a tramp'öis telling; with its connections todirt, smell, and matter out of place, it is indicative of just how difficult negotiatingsecondhand clothing is for thoseölike Christina and Barbaraöwho are trying to useit to constitute social respectability.

Karen, by contrast, is in her late thirties, single, degree educated, a technician in afashion school in London, and someone with a long personal involvement in second-hand shopping. Her talk about charity shopping displays both overlaps and criticaldifferences with Lily's:

Karen: ``It really becomes an obsession; the income side of things is irrelevant.It's the thrill of the chase and are you going to find something good? So itbecomes very compulsive ... . You just look along the rack and you see whichfabrics attract your eye, because I think that immediately disqualifies a lot ofthingsöbecause a lot of the fabrics are just disgusting! [laughs].''Kate: ` So what kind of fabrics would you be looking for?''Karen: ``Oh well, I suppose always hopeful! Nice 50s cotton things, urm and yeah,I've given up looking for things like crepe de chine dresses which you don't seem tosee any more. So yeah, it tends to be the pattern or the fabricsöyou'd be able to dateit roughly ... . It's partly the element of the chaseöand the individuality I guess,which is why it's terribly sad if a garment dies. I had a lovely pair of Marks andSpenceröthey must have been from the 60s, they were narrow trousers, and theywere a really nice fabric, they were slightly stretchy and they were made to feel likethey were silk, but they went through. It was really sad ... .''For Karen, then, charity shopping is about what might be found, rather than what

has to be found, just as with Lily, but hereöunlike Lilyöit is the activity, `the chase'itself, that matters most. Moreover, as Karen says, incomeöor in Lily's terms, `thebargain'öfails to signify, another critical difference between the two. Beyond this,Karen's talk is marked with taste indicators, which rather than being style markersare primarily about the comparative materialities of fabricsö`nice cotton, crepe dechine, silk'. And, even more intriguingly, she talksöstraight out of Appadurai (1986)öin terms of the biography of clothes, of garments literally `dying'. Karen then constitutescharity shops as places of potential, as spaces which enable her to use her specialistknowledges, literally to capture (for herself ) specific facets of clothing or fabric history.It is the uniqueness and individuality of items which might potentially be there then thatmatter to her above all other things.Worlds away from routine necessity this is `pleasuretalk', where charity shopping is transformed from being hard work and/or risky to apractice that affirms, indeed celebrates in its practice, specialist elite knowledges yetwhich does not require the purchase for its affirmation. The pleasure is literally thepractice.

Finally, we move to Judy. Judy is in her early sixties, married with two grownchildren, and is a grandmother, and a full-time `housewife' (her term) living in Taunton,a small town in theWest Country. She started charity shopping (for herself, interestingly,and not for her children) when her children were young:

` I think it was when the children were young ... and having no money. But I didn'tbuy [their] stuff in charity shops, only stuff for myself ... somehow it didn't seemright to buy other children's clothes, but it was alright for me I suppose.''It is interesting to compare this talk to that of Christina earlier. Here, although

money was tight, Judy is describing financial circumstances that enabled her to drawdistinctions; to make sacrifices around her own clothing (her reflective ` I suppose''is critical here) and not her children's. And in this she is, once more, reiterating

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the importance of working-class respectability (Skeggs, 1997) and the difficultiessecondhand clothing pose in this respect (Gregson et al, 2000). Yet, what is perhapsmost interesting about Judy's practices is that she continues to shop in charity shops,avidly, as part of her weekly shopping routine; that charity shopping is stillöthirty-fiveyears onöan integral part of her leisure activities; and that her talk in relation to charityshopping is full of pleasure markers. From necessity has come a pleasure in difference,resistance even. Here then is how she talks about her current charity shopping practices:

` I first of all do tops, which is what I'm usually looking for, like jumpers or skirts.Then I usually look at trousers, then jackets of course. Jackets are my weakness Ithink. Occasionally I find a really good Windsmoor. I've got upstairs a pure linenWindsmoor. It's really nice for weddingsö»1.50 on the sale rail! So excited aboutthat! ... . When he's [her husband] doing his work [that is, working away fromhome] I go round the charity shops, Sidmouth as well. There's lots of wealthypeople in Sidmouth and Save the Children there is very good. ... University towns,they're scoured throughöcleaned out.''Again, as with our other illustrative cases, there are several things going on simulta-

neously here. First, Judyölike Christinaöis thorough in her practice; she talks aboutdoing' categories of clothing methodically, rather than using elite knowledges to pick outdifference (like Karen and Lily). Clearly, she does not want to miss anythingöa practicethat betrays the former imperatives of not making mistakes and of careful purchasing.Second, the method is about discerning quality, but this is a quality that is about thecertainties conferred by `the label' rather than those of `style' (compare Lily) or of wear(Christina). Third, we can see how, as with Lily, `the bargain' is criticalöeven to her talk,which, as here, is marked by the `bargain boast' (compare Karen). Fourth, and finally, wecan see how she uses the act of charity shopping to accrue (and enhance) stocks ofpractical, accumulated geographical knowledgeöwhich shops, which types of places aregood for shopping. And this, of course, is a pattern of talk that displays how purchas-ingösuccessful purchasingöis critical to the practice. Judy then is the converse ofKaren: for her, although she enjoys the practice, it is the realisation of her knowledgesin the capture of `the bargain'öideally `the label'öthat matters.

Beyond the level of individuals, the patterns of talk and practice displayed by thesefive women constitute some of the primary orientations towards charity shopping,(8)

associated with necessity and choice, respectively. Furthermore, these orientationsconnect to distinctive sets of related practices of charity shopping. These are summar-ised in table 1 (see over), and entail major differences in: relations to purchasing,relations to looking (and seeing), the location of charity shopping in everyday life,and socialities of charity shopping.(9) Each set of practices displays strong interconnec-tions. So, for example, whilst all practices of charity shopping in some senses involve`just looking', looking (and seeing) is practised in distinctive ways that connect withdifferent practices of purchasing, as well as to differences in where charity shopping fitsinto everyday lives, and in the socialities of shopping. The first of these ways oflooking, then, is about being thorough and methodical. Exemplified by both Christinaand Judy, this is a routinised practice ordered by clothing categories and groundedin not missing anything. It is, then, a way of looking that is time and labour intensive;(8) Another would be the fun, laughter, and play associated with many of our student respondents(see Gregson et al, 2001).(9) It is important to note that these sets of practices are general, therefore they will not necessarilybe demonstrated in their entirety by any one individual, although this can be the caseöas, forexample, with Christina, who is illustrative of one, and Karen and Lily, who exemplify the other.Both Judy and Barbara demonstrate a degree of crossover between practices, a situation thatdemonstrates the importance of personal biographies and the situated character of individual'sshopping practices.

Shopping, space, and practice 605

one that reveals the work of consumption and that connectsöparticularly in the caseof Christinaöwith the material necessity of making purchases, and with regular (atleast weekly) looking. Clearly, too, the imperatives of purchasing in this case areintrinsically social: they are about providing for families (and particularly children) ina socially respectable manner, which to accomplish requires significant time invest-ments. By comparison, the second way of looking connects with a way of charityshopping that is either about `popping in'/`just passing' or about dedicated `time-out'.It is therefore a long way from work and indicative more of everyday lives that enableeither or both flexible daily routines and leisure time. In both cases, though, this wayof looking is connected to ways of seeing that are about distancing from the mass ofgoods available and that rely on the rapid identification of cultural `difference';they are encoded, then, in the possession of expert, elite, aesthetic knowledge ratherthan a form of knowledge grounded in, for example, the practicalities of relativevalueöof which the bargain is the prime instance. This way of looking, then, isabout being able to `see' differences in fabric, design, style and so on, soöratherthan being methodical (literally evaluating each garment for wear, price, label)öitrelies on standing back, on dislocated looking, and results in more occasional butmemorable (patterns of ) purchasingöusually for oneself (witness the `Chanel' suitand the trousers that eventually died).

Given the interconnections between these practices, we maintain that together theyconstitute distinctive modes of charity shopping that relate, in turn, to particularsubject positionsönecessity and choice. More than this, though, these modes of shop-ping themselves comprise stocks of knowledge, about how to charity shop effectively.And clearly, too, this is something that is actively worked at by charity shoppers, and isworked out geographically. So, for example, both Judy and Karen talked about goingcharity shopping as part of going to a new place; effectively as a way in which theymade sense of `new places', as well as a way of extending their personal knowledge of`good' charity shops. This mode of charity shopping then is frequently about constitut-ing geographiesöpersonalised, accumulated geographiesöthrough being in charityshops, about knowing place literally through these shops. And this is often used todraw key distinctions between placesöas, for example, in Judy's case, where she refersto university towns being cleaned out' and where her ideal location is a combination of

Table 1. Modes of charity shopping as related sets of shopping practice (source: original fieldresearch, 1998 ^ 99).

Necessity Choice

Practices of purchasing RoutinisedRegularNecessary itemsMainly clothing

SporadicSpontaneous impulseBy definition, not essential

Relations to looking MethodicalThorough workingthrough categories(Practical knowledge:wear; value; respectability)

DislocatedGlancing over(Expert knowledge:differentiation)

Location in everyday life Weekly `shop'`Traipsing'Work

`Popping in'`Time-out' from daily routine

Social relations Largely familial (children)Self

Largely selfOccasionally others

606 N Gregson, L Crewe, K Brooks

`backwater' and middle-class prosperity. In contrast to these extensive geographicalknowledges, Christina's mode of charity shopping is one that realises that effectivepractice relies on routine practice. Much more spatially intensive, it necessitates thepossession of detailed practical, localized knowledges, specifically about particularshops and their relation to each other in terms of pricing, clothing quality, andchoiceöit is, then, a form of knowledge that necessitates routine practice.

We can see from the foregoing that modes of charity shopping are not just con-stituted through related sets of charity shopping practice which connect to specificsubject positions, but that they require specific sets of knowledge to practice and thatthey themselves shape practice, in ways that are intrinsically about making sense ofplace through practices of charity shopping. Where this begins to take us is to a moregeneral argument about space, shopping, and practice; that shopping geographies arenot pregiven, but are constituted by weaving together the particular (in this caseknowledge about specific charity shops) and the general (how to charity shop) throughsituated practices (modes of charity shopping that are always `located')öand that thesepractices themselves invest particular meanings in generic types of retail environment.As we go on to show in the following two sections the two modes of charity shoppingidentified here are used to constitute radically different readings of the generic spaceof charity shops: as a space that ought to be shaped through a moral economy ofredistribution (section 3) and as a space that is `a treat' (section 4).

3 Shopping with(out) `charity'Our purpose in this section is to show how charity shops as generic retail spaces cometo be invested with meanings that seek to locate them within a moral economy; asspaces that ought to be about recognising and alleviating inequality through redistribu-tion. To do this however requires that we address, to begin with, the connections drawnby charity shoppers to charity' as discourse. As we show here, investing charity shopswith notions of a moral economy relies on a particular citation of charity'öone thatcentres the responsibilities of charities in redistribution. Moreover, we show too that tocite charity' thus, is itself associated primarily with the subject position of necessity.But more than this, we argue that it is the practices of shopping associated withnecessity that enable this reading.

Returning to the talk of Lily, Karen, and Judyöour representatives of charityshopping through choiceöone of its key markers is an absence, a silence that we foundinitially puzzling. This absence concerns the connections between charity shops andparticular charitable causes. As we progressed with the research, we began to probethis issue explicitly, eventually posing direct questions that required equally directanswers. Judy's response is typical of this group of shoppers:

Kate: ` Is it important to you what the actual charity is?''Judy: ` To be honest no, it doesn't really. I do like Save the Children but I'm, youknow, if there's any bargains, any really. `Cos they're all quite good really.''

This `to be honest no' response was one we encountered repeatedly when we asked thisquestion, and it figures as one of the key phrases in the transcripts of those charityshopping through choice. And there is little doubt that it is highly significant. Part ofits importance lies in the way the phrase acknowledges that things might be expectedto be different; in the way it recognises that charity' might be expected to be a primarymotivation. Yet another facet of its importance though lies in its appeal to beinghonest. Indicative perhaps of how the presence of charity' might be affecting talk, itconveys a strong sense that talking honestly about what is actually going on is anappropriate way of talking about individual charity-shopping practices. More specifi-cally, Judy's response is interesting for what it has to say about the shops of specific

Shopping, space, and practice 607

charities, in this case Save the Children. For Judy, then, Save the Children gets singledout, but she slips rapidly to blurring the charity with the attractions of the goodsavailable (note how the bargain appears again), and ends by repeating the primaryimportance of the bargain and by characterising all charity shops as `quite good really'.In the space of a short while, then, she demonstrates the insignificance of individualcharities to her practices and how the bargain works to write out these specificities.

Others display similar tendencies in their talk. For example, going back to Lily wecan see from the previous extract how she connects her `Chanel copy' with Oxfam.This is illustrative of the primary way in which those charity shopping through choicetalk about specific charitiesöas the source of key `finds', good `bargains', and so on,and not as charities. Moreover, rather than citing particular charities, as Lily does, it isfrequently particular charity shops that are remembered in talköagain as the source ofkey purchases. Judy again:

Kate: ` What's been your best buy ever then?''Judy: ` My brown cord jacket that I've just worn and worn that's nearly fallingapart now. I still like it. I bought it ... in that Red Cross shop ... and about fiveyears after I'm still looking for something wonderful in there.''Contrast this however with another key pattern in the talk of this group of

shoppers: the repeated use of phrases such as `the heart one', `the cancer shop', `thesomething-to-do-with-animals shop', andöeven more intriguinglyö`the one next toSomerfields opposite the new town hall'. Indicative of the degree to which specificcharities' shops fail to register in shoppers' imaginaries without the trigger of keypurchases, this again is suggestive of a general tendency. For this group of charityshoppers, charityöin the sense of specific shops identified with particular charitablecausesöactually matters very little.

And yet, beyond this we can identify three ways in which charity' generally, asdiscourse, figures in the talk of those shopping through choice. Although none of themprimary, in the sense that they figured only as tack-on, secondary observations inspeech, they all draw on the notion of acting charitably. Two of these ways make aconnection between charitable acts and `the gift'. So, for example, we find commentsabout indirect donation (`I always leave the penny [change]') and about direct donation(of goods), in which case charity shops are identified as spaces where unwantedgoods can be sold on to `others' whose needs are constituted as greater. In box 1 thereare examples of such talk. Intriguingly, a third way uses charity' as legitimation toargue that buying in charity shops is made acceptable by being ` all in a good cause,I suppose''. Though, once more, the `I suppose' is an important add on.

Taken together these patterns of talk begin to point to some of the effects ofcharity' as discourse in charity shopping, and particularly to how this connects tothe subject position of choice. So, when charity' is cited here it is done so in waysthat are about acting charitably; that is, in ways that constitute the charity shopper asthe charitable giver and which require others to be constituted as needing and as needy.But what we can also see from the secondary placing of this talk is that giving isneither talked up nor seen as a celebration of the philanthropic tradition (Prochaska,1980). Indeed, the giving of goods is more commonly talked about as giving away, asan effect of practices of `good housekeeping' and of consumption cyclesötypically,making room for more by clearing out that which is not being used or worn (seebox 2). `Giving the penny' is seldom represented as a positive act of donation, moreas a normative practice shaped by the apparent pecuniary of keeping the penny in acharity shop.What this suggests, in turn, is that charity' here exists in a relation that isless than powerful and thatöeven when charity' is citedöit is the practices of con-sumption that are the primary constitutive forces shaping shoppers' talk and practice.

608 N Gregson, L Crewe, K Brooks

Box 1. Charitable giving.

Kate: ` So do you have a particular charity that you give to?''Judy: ` Well quite often it's who's just happened to leave the bag outside ... well usuallyI've started clearing any rate, sometime or another upstairs, so I've got it all ready, and ifI haven't worn it then I can just put it in and they get more money for it, so it's a goodway of [adopts pious voice] of giving to charity.''Claire: ` I think it's harder going round the high street.''Nicky: ` What makes it harder do you think?''Claire: ` Just the clothes are so expensive and I feel guilty buying, say that pair of trousersthat were »25, and you think what you can get with that. Maybe when I get to be quiteold, but in the foreseeable future definitely, and 'cos some of the money's going to a goodcause.''Beth: ` ...I think it's probably coming from like when I was very young, whenömy familyare Quakers, and I don't think, it's very much, I've never had this like pumped into me,it's always been very much down to me, but I know that I've always been aware ofcharities and giving to charities, and giving to people who have less than meöevenwhen my parents didn't have a lot of money, they still gave to charity. And I think it'sall relative, however much you think `Oh I haven't got money', you've still got more thana lot of other people. And that's why I think I feel bad about buying from big shops,because however much I'm a poor student I've still got more money than a lot of otherpeople, and urmöI think it's, it works for me in two ways. 'Cos I don't feel guilty aboutitöI'm still getting something out of it myself but I'm still giving something back, andyeah that's a really important part of it for me.''

Box 2 `Giving away'öa form of `good housekeeping'.

Nicky: ` So when you're deciding to chuck stuff out, how often would you be doing thatand what criteria would be being used?''Chris: ` Probably I'd do it about three times a year let's say. It's more than that probably,but big sweep outs. And the criteria would probably be that they'd got holes in.''Nicky: ` Would that go to the recycling bank then?''Chris: ` Yes, and sometimes things that have, well they've `gone-off '. Some things that Ithink `Oh I've never worn it'.''Nicky: `And do you have any preferences as to the charities that you take them back to?''Chris: ` No. X [partner] takes them down to [area of Sheffield] and there are four of themdown there so we alternate amongst them.''Val: ` When the seasons change, when winter starts I change my wardrobe, get the thingsout, and put other things away, and in spring vice versa. And then I'll have a critical lookat thingsöam I going to wear this? And I'm very, because a lot of the stuff I haven't paida great deal for, it's not a great loss to me to bin it because I can go and get somethingelse. So, particularly in the spring and autumn I'll have a big clear out and I usually, wellI'll always now, take it to the cats' home [charity shop].''Nicky: ` So how long would clothes stay with you do you think?''Val: ` [laughs] Well probably a couple of years at the most I suppose.''Nicky: ` That's the routine stuff?''Val: ` Routine stuff that I've paid »2 ^ 3 for, yesömaybe I'd keep that a couple of years.''Kate: ` ... I'm hanging on to hoping that I may get slimmer in due course, and can goback to wearing, though I'm not sure whether I'll admit defeat and pass them on to acharity shop in their turn.''Kate (Interviewer): `Is that what you normally do?''Kate: ` Oh yes, I normally take things ... [to] the nearest. When my parents were lastdown we went, a whole load of stufföwe got shot of a load of things, lots of clothes.''

Shopping, space, and practice 609

By comparison, in the case of those shopping through necessity, charity' was neverfar away. Here, for example, are Christina and Barbara's views on the charity shops:

Christina: ` ... pricing wise there seems to be a big difference ... between charityshops. Some of them seem to have started pricing their children's clothes more thanothers ... . Some of them though tend to keep their children's clothes much lowerthan others ... . Save the Children seem to keep their children's clothes low, I thinkthey realise that because they're a children's charity they must sort of support peopleon lower incomes clothe their children but ... they're sort of pushing up, they'reselectively pricing up some things higher, but some things are ridiculously priced.You can certainly get them new from cheaper shops. They [meaning charity shops]have a certain responsibility to the poorer people in this country who have alwaysrelied on things like jumble sales and whether they like it or not charity shops haveactually taken away those goods from jumble salesökind of taking away a resourcefor people who are poor, and although I think it's good that charity shops are raisingmoney you know, and I'm all for recycling clothes, I also think that they ought tobear in mind that most people I see in [area of Sheffield] are people with childrenwho are shopping in them because they have to and not because they have choice ...I think they don't actually care who the charity is ... .''Barbara: ` Charity shops are far too expensive for what they are ... they've becomebig business ... they've got too greedy ... there are people who really are singleparents or whatever, short of money, they could do with things like that cheap.And I think, urm, that the more big business they become the more they'reaiming at a different clientele ... I'd like to see charity shops aimed at, really atpeople who can't afford anything else.''In the case of Christina we can see again how specific charities are highlighted

in talk as examples that accord with the primary motivations of particular charityshoppers, rather than in terms of the charity per seöwith Save the Children beingsingled out tellingly for its practices around pricing children's clothing. And, again inChristina's talk, we can see how, in general, the causes of specific charities' are seen asnot mattering, although it is interesting to compare how voluntarily explicit Christinais about this compared with our previous examples. But, what is even more interestingabout both these women's talk, and what marks them out as different from ourprevious instances, is the way in which charity' as discourse is being cited. Two pointsstand out in particular.

First, in both cases, charity' is associated explicitly and primarily with `the needy'(Christina's `poorer people', Barbara's `single parents or whatever'). Beyond this thoughwe need to note that both Christina and Barbara are reticent about identifyingthemselves explicitly in these terms, as charitable casesöeven though, clearly, bothcould be construed as such. Their talk then is important for the way in which it remainsat the level of generic charitable cases'. For us this is significant. It suggests that toconstitute oneself as a charitable case is both problematic and inappropriate; indeed,that to define charitable cases is the prerogative of a dislocated `knower' who has thepower to act charitably. Furthermore, and unlike our previous examples, neitherChristina nor Barbara is in a subject position where it is possible to act charitably inrelation to charity shopsöfor example, by giving away unwanted, unused clothing.Instead, they are constituted as the recipients of such goods andöas suchöare unableto represent themselves as acting charitably and, in so doing, cite charity' as giving.

Second though, and critically, unlike any of our previous instances both Christinaand Barbara display a strong sense of normativity in their talk. Both play up the moralobligations of charity' and link this to a strong critique of current tendencies withincharity retailingöspecifically, price rises, defined by charity retailers as `fundraising'.

610 N Gregson, L Crewe, K Brooks

Charity shops in both these instances, then, are talked about in moral and resourcetermsöas shops (that ought to be) for `poor people', a view legitimated by drawing onthe responsibilities of charities to act charitably towards such individuals. There is adesire here for these to be seen as distinctive, discrete types of shopping space; as spacesthat ought to be distinctively different spaces of exchange, based on the moraleconomy of redistribution. These spaces, then, are being seen as retail environmentsthat ought to be expressly for people on low incomes, that is, as resources forparticular individuals living in specific geographical neighbourhoods, and notöasthey increasingly areöas spaces where specific charities act as intermediaries andarbiters in redistribution, typically on a national scale.

Significantly, though, these meanings are ones that are themselves intricately boundup with a specific mode of charity shopping. Constituted as recipients of charity' byvirtue of their subject position andösimilarlyöhaving the imperative to purchase whencharity shopping, those charity shopping through necessity are experiencing increasingdifficulties in realising purchases. Faced by a combination of rising prices and theincreasing segmentation of the sector [into specialist, mid-range, and bargain or valueshops (Gregson et al, 2002)], this group of shoppers is effectively being excluded fromcertain charity-shop spacesömuch as they are excluded from the majority of first-cyclespaces of exchange.(10) Moreover, this exclusion is having critical effects on shoppingpractices, particularly on purchases and on the work of looking. So, quality and choicehave become harder to find at a certain affordable price (with obvious effects in terms ofsocial respectability), and looking itself has become even more labour intensive. Ininvesting charity shops with meanings that locate them within a moral economy, then,those charity shopping through necessity are drawing on practice to cite charity' in a waythat acts as a critique of the project of charity retail.

4 `It's a bit of a treat'Margi: ` I go to Help the Aged probably twice a week and I go into the Red Crossprobably once a week, or once every two weeks ... normally I keep them as a bitof a treat ... there's this one in [village in Derbyshire] and it's like somebody's justshoved it all in ... you walk in and there's a two by five area where you can standand then there's the counter and there's just stuff up to the roof and it's justbrilliant. It's only ever open between one and four-thirty on Tuesdaysöone of thosefunny onesöbut I've only done what I'd call a small graze into it, but to me itwould be a solid two hours to do that shop.''

The extract above is possibly one of the most telling and insightful examples of talkabout the choice mode of charity shopping. Here charity shopping is identified explic-itly as `a bit of a treat', as something special, out of the ordinary. It is clear too that theinvestment of charity shopping with these meanings is itself a reflection of the practicesassociated with shopping through choice. So, this `treat' is about time-out, dedicated timethat has been specifically set aside. Moreover, we need to note the connections betweenthe treat and shopping alone; for it to be a treat', it is important that the time spentcharity shopping is time for oneself. And it is evident too that, for Margi, a small charityshop off the beaten track, crammed full of goods is her idea of the perfect charity shop.(10) The exception here would be first-cycle `discount shops'. Intriguingly, although many of ourrespondents used these shops, particularly those shopping through necessity, they were clearlymarked as distinct from `proper shops'. Indicative primarily of quality issues this signals thatalthough in general first-cycle goods carry greater symbolic value for those shopping throughnecessity, there are zones of ambiguityöas here, where it is acknowledged that better quality canbe found secondhand. It is this that provides the context to understanding shoppers' critiques:restructuring the charity-shop sector has meant that this group of shoppers is increasingly beingconfined to the `discount' end of both first-cycle and second-cycle retail spaces.

Shopping, space, and practice 611

Not only would spending time thoroughly doing' that shop be a treat, but this type ofcharity shop, in itself, constitutes a treat.

These themesöconnecting both the practice of charity shopping and the shopsthemselves to the notion of the treatöresonate through the talk of most of our shopperswho are shopping through choice. For example, both Karen and Judy talk abouttreating themselves to `doing' the charity shops when visiting new places, and bothwould identify with Margi's depiction of the ideal charity shop. Moreover, both thesewomen regard it as important to practice charity shopping aloneöin Karen's case, toremove the threat of competition (` ... your friend is not going to say `Oh lovely, look'[laughter] then you have to fight over it!''), in Judy's, so that she can take her time(` I mostly go on my own really ... 'cos you're not boring other people and you can takeages ...''). Box 3 provides further instances of this type of `treat talk'.

The argument that we want to develop in this section, though, goes beyond seeingcharity shopping as the treat, and is twofold. First, we show how the themes identifiedabove are indicative not just of a particular mode of charity shopping, but invite us todraw comparisons between charity shopping and other shopping practices. Second, weexplore the significance of this `ideal' charity shop, arguing that it is suggestive of theworkings of an oppositional imaginary, located in representational space and notöasin the previous sectionöin spaces of exchange.

As is clear from the above, what defines this mode of charity shopping as a treat isnot the act of purchase per se, but the actual practice of shopping itselföbeing incharity shopsöeither on a whim or as leisure, looking, sifting, `doing' the shop, goingthrough things; a set of actions that may result in purchasing but which equally maynot. Immediately, this begins to open up notions of relationality and difference. So, forexample, this treat is not the same as a treat within first-cycle consumption, where it iscommonly talked about as accessed through the act of purchase and in terms of theconsumption of a particular object (Miller, 1998). Furthermore, in that this treat is alsoabout time, we can see that it is being thought about and talked about in terms moreusually reserved for leisure. This is highly significant: it means that charity shopping isbeing seen as different to other forms of shopping practice, presumably those whereshopping is work, and where acquisition has to occur. Moreover, in that this practice isabout treating the self, we can see that its constituting subject is one that is usuallyshopping for others, for the most part women. Taken together, then, these findingssuggest that to constitute charity shopping as a treat depends on the coexistence ofother modes of shoppingöones which the majority of women continue to perform forothersöand that to constitute charity shopping thus requires a feminine subject. But,more than this, our inclination is to read this mode of charity shopping not just as atreat, but as a limited, partial form of resistanceöwhere the work of ordinary shop-ping (purchasing, mostly for others) is temporarily subverted by a form of shoppingthat is about taking pleasure in looking (mostly for oneself ). That this is practised in avery different type of shopping space, then, matters.

Box 3. `Treat' as practice

Claire: ` Last summer it got really dire. Then it was like every day and I'd be coming in andit'd be `Look what I've got; look what I've got!!' But I realised that it had got to be a bit ofan obsession; so when I came back to uni I had a restrained phase. So now I'll go, say I'vedone an essay and handed it in, I'll go and treat myself, or when I get exam results back.''Lynn: ` Well sometimes I'll say that I'm going to have an afternoon out, and then I'll goin all of them ... if I'm a bit fed up and bored, and I think `Well, I'll just have a littletrawl about'. Not particularly if I'm looking for something, just as a little look about.''

612 N Gregson, L Crewe, K Brooks

To constitute charity shopping as a treat, then, requires that it be performed in ashopping space that can be differentiated from conventional, ordinary, everyday shop-ping spaces, a point that takes us back to Margi's `ideal' charity shop. The importanceof this depiction lies in what it reveals about her understandings of the key compo-nents of a `good' charity shop. Looking back at Margi's description, we can see that thisis a space that contests all the conventions of standard retail practice. It is pokey(not spacious); it is crammed full and disordered (not spaciously laid out accordingto categorical principles); the customer' has to do all the work of looking (rather thanbe regulated by the ordering principles of conventional retail display); and the openinghours are minimal and need to be known about (they are neither standardised norcan they be assumed). Furthermore, all of this is construed positively; it is preciselythe difference from convention that is the attraction. To practise this mode ofcharity shopping requires that charity shops be ordered differently, not sanitised intoa seamless regime of representation with conventional' shops (see Nixon, 1996).

When we begin to excavate the practices of those charity shopping through choice,then, we find practices that depend on an oppositional imaginary, grounded in differ-entiated shopping practices. Moreover, we can see that the pleasures of this modeof charity shopping are located in its distinctions from, indeed subversions of, therepresentational conventions of standard retail space (displays of goods, positions oflooking, etc). But more than this, we can see why many of those charity shoppingthrough choice are deeply critical of charity-retail makeoversöa practice they see asblurring representational distinctions that matter for them. Again, we can see how aparticular subject position draws on particular modes of shopping to invest meaning incharity-shop spaceöas spaces that (again) ought to be distinctive, different. This timehowever, and as befits its constituting subject, distinction is drawn around the interiorsof charity shops, with difference being understood in terms of display and presentation.Located in the politics of identity, rather than in a politics of need, the meaningsinvested in charity shops here are about pleasure and play, and certainly not aboutspaces of exchange and their (potential) connection to questions of redistribution andthe alleviation of poverty.

5 ConclusionsHaving identified how the generic space of charity shops is itself invested with radicallydifferent meanings, which themselves are located in the practices associated with twodivergent modes of charity shopping, we move in the final section of the paper toconsider some of the broader implications of these findings for issues of shopping,space, and practice, and theoretical accounts of shopping.

We begin with shopping space and its connections with practice. There are twopoints we want to highlight here to do with the relational nature of shopping space andmodes of shopping, respectively. First, we acknowledged earlier (in section 1), much ofthe literature on shopping both within human geography and beyond, confines itself toshopping spaces in the singular, that is, to discrete, bounded retail environments, bethese specific locations in the retail landscape or generic types (shopping centres,malls, car-boot sales, nearly-new sales, or, as here, charity shops). By comparison,and again as we have shown here, accounts that focus on shopping as practiseddemonstrate that shopping space is more appropriately conceptualised as a tapestryof differentiated spaces, woven together to comprise personal, accumulated shoppinggeographies that are routinely reproduced, and extended, through practice. Moreover,these geographies are used to differentiate shopping space, to make distinctionsbetween both particular retail locations and generic types of shopping space. For usit is this differentiation that is of particular interest, not least because this shows

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understandings of shopping spaceöand shopping geographiesöto be relationallyproduced, and sometimes even oppositional. So, for example, charity-shop space hasbeen shown here to be marked as a shopping space that ought to be distinctivelydifferent, in at least two ways: in terms of exchange relations (section 3) and in termsof regimes of representation (section 4). But what these readings rest on, depend oneven, is the existence of different sets of shopping practices in different retail spaces,as evident in the continual comparative reference to `proper shops', `ordinary shops',and `normal shops', in charity shoppers' talk. Resonant in many ways with our findingsin relation to car-boot sales (Gregson and Crewe, 1997) and retro retailing (Crewe et al,2002), this points once more to how secondhand spaces of exchange are understoodby shoppers through an oppositional imaginary: one that seeks to locate them in adifferent shopping space to first-cycle exchange. As before, though, there are limitshere: ones that in this case are about the power of `ordinary shops'öor, in our terms,retail capitalöto influence the reconstitution of charity shops as charity retail. So,whilst shoppers are seeking to constitute spaces of difference through secondhandgoods, many charity retailers are working to erase difference, indeed to question thedistinction between firsthand and secondhand. There is then a marked, critical gaphere between shopping practice and the constitution of this particular generic retailspace by charity retailers; a gap signaled by the critiques highlighted previously, andthat has at its core radically different understandings of the difference that secondhandmakes, to value and to regimes of representation.

A second point concerns how we conceptualise shopping as practised. The argu-ment that we have forwarded here is one that foregrounds the notion of modesof shopping, constituted through related sets of practices that are not just about trans-actions (purchases) but include, too, relations of looking (and seeing), the place ofshopping in everyday life, and the social relations of shopping. Although developedexpressly in relation to charity shopping, we would suggest that this way of thinking ismore broadly applicable, and that this might enable further exploration of how shop-pers make sense oföindeed, differentiate betweenögeneric retail spaces. Compare,for example, the mode of shopping associated with the regular supermarket trip withthat of shopping for clothes: the first is frequently largely list driven, primarily aboutrestocking routinely, a repetitive event that is mostly about provisioning for the house-hold, about purchasing (even though it can encompass the treat as purchase) (Miller,1998). Moreover, the relations of looking here are primarily ordered, sanitised, anddislocated; shopping is regulated by the categorical ordering of goods, selection isabout choosing a particularöusually wrapped and/or packagedöitem from manysuch items, and looking certainly does not involve either rummaging or the methodical`working through'. By comparison, shopping for clothes places a high premium onrelations of looking. Frequently highly methodical, careful, and comparative, it involveslengthy amounts of `just looking' and trying on, but it is also about the framing of anembodied self and negotiations of `fashion'. Now, what this begins to open up to us ishow modes of shopping connect with within-store spatialitiesöthat particular generictypes of shop work with very different regimes of representation constituted arounddifferent types of goods, which in turn work to position shoppers differently and tosuggest different modes of shopping practice. Hinted at in much of the earlier work onshopping, seduction, and desire, as well as in more recent work on men and shopping(Mort, 1996; Nixon, 1996), such issues are worthy of more intensive study, and for usconstitute key components in understanding retail geographies, shopping geographies,and their differences.

Finally, we reiterate the importance of these findings for theoretical representationsof shopping. There are three points that we find critical here. First, as we have argued

614 N Gregson, L Crewe, K Brooks

here, the meanings of shopping cannot be reduced to the transaction (the purchase),neither can they be extended to encompass the full gamut of activities that take placein shopping space. Instead, they are produced in and through practice, throughmodes of shopping that bring together goods, looking, socialities and the rhythms ofeveryday life, as well as through the purchase. And, as we have shown, what this is alsoabout is the production of shopping space through practice. Consequently, shoppingspace cannot be assumed simply to equate with assemblages of retail capitalöthat is,particular concentrations of shops, specific store hierarchies, and their constituent geog-raphiesöbut needs to be seen too as a product of particular shopping geographies. Thesegeographies may be ones that coincide completely with the landscape constituted by retailcapital, but they mayöas hereöbe more complex. For us, separating out, clarifying, thedistinctions and the connections between geographies of retail and of shopping is a keyrequirement for future work. And starting from shopping as practicedöfrom what shop-pers routinely do in particular retail locations and generic spacesöwould seem to be agood place to start in making differences transparent.

Second, one of our key findings with respect to charity-shop space concerns itsinvestment with two radically different meanings and their divergence from the mean-ings of the charity-retail project. More generally what this suggests is: the way in whichthe meanings invested in particular retail spaces can never be presumed but are alwayslocated in practice, and consequently potentially unstable; and thatöas with othersecondhand spacesöthere is a juxtaposition of meanings copresent here that aresimultaneously about both constituting relational shopping spaces and critique. Whatwe find here then is considerable evidence for a reflexivity about shopping thatprovides a welcome countertendency to accounts that either celebrate or pathologiseshopping. Correspondingly, we would hope that more work on shopping at least beganfrom a position where reflexivity (however limited and partial) was at least admitted asa possibilityöand not simply rejected from the outset.

Our third point takes us back to arguments about the constituting subject. As wehave argued here, for certain women charity shopping can be a form of resistance; a wayof working with and extending a set of spatialised knowledges and practices in away that suspends conventional modes of shopping (for others) and inserts a (necessary)time for self. By contrast, shopping in the very same spaces is something that otherwomen, who are confined to shopping in these types of spaces, find hard work andconstantly undermining of their attempts to constitute social respectability. This secondgroup of women is shopping in these spaces primarily for othersöusually childrenöand not for themselves. Not only is this indicative of maternal sacrifice, it points to thelimits that certain types of retail space place around constituting the desiring subject forcertain subject positions. Indeed, in this case, for those in poverty and shopping throughnecessity, alienable goods recast through charity can be problematic forms of materialculture through which to constitute the infant. More generally, then, we would arguethat constituting subjectivities through shopping needs to be seen as inherentlyspatialised, with space both limiting and enabling possibilities for particular subjects.Rather than work aspatially, theoretical accounts of shopping subjects need to besensitive to the difference that space makes; they need, in short, to acknowledge thespatialities of shopping subjectivities.

Acknowledgements. The empirical research on which this paper draws was funded by ESRC(R000222182). A preliminary version was first aired in the Material Culture seminar series atUCL in March 2001. Thanks to all the participants there, and particularly to Danny Miller andAlison Clarke for helping clarify what we were really trying to say, even if they might not agree.

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