In this chapter I analyse my ethnographic findings based on contemporary literature about values and valuations in material culture to address the question of how value is created in second-hand markets. Reaching back through the
anthropological literature on commodities and gift economies, I build a framework around David Graeber’s formulation of a social, relational concept of value that puts human action at the centre. In order to structure the analysis, I take Mary Douglas’s seminal work on categorization as a starting point and argue that practices of valuation constitute a process of transformation. To support the analysis, I introduce theoretical concepts from ethnographic literature on values, second-hand markets and valuations. In some instances I compare my
observations with related studies to address empirical as well as theoretical points.
The Value of Things: Gifts and Commodities
Values, as a set of guiding beliefs as well as a measure of worth, are a complex subject to study. The word itself describes a number of things: what is ultimately good; the degree of desirability in objects; and, in a linguistic sense,
‘meaningful difference’ (Graeber 2001). Even if one is more specifically interested in the value of things, different levels of values interact. There are symbolic, social, ethical and economic values—and even objects that are traded, i.e., commodities, carry more than one type of value. In classical economic theory,
Marx and others have argued that the exchange value of a commodity is measured by the labour spent on producing that commodity. Exchange value is not the only type of value a commodity has: as Marx notes, commodities ‘are only
commodities because they have a dual nature, because they are at the same time objects of utility and bearers of value’ (1976 [1867]: 138). Utility in itself
constitutes a type of value in objects or commodities, but other, cultural values are also at play. Brian Moeran has argued that values are never inherent and that it is human interactions which define what values are at stake and how they are
measured (2009). He identifies a number of different values and argues that together they constitute something that can be exchanged into economic value. It becomes evident that what in fact has the most influence on value, and ultimately the prizing of most things and commodities, are social, cultural values. For
example, it is the reputation of a designer that determines how their designs are prized (and valued for that matter).
Commodities continue to be valuable even after being exchanged, and through use they acquire new value as their initial economic value diminishes.
Through use, things are re-appropriated, which can also have an effect on their value. Moeran describes how things may have an intentional use or designated function but may in practice often be used for other purposes for shorter or longer periods of time. Putting a book under the leg of a table that is unstable or
arranging flowers in water pitchers both constitute diversions from the intended uses of the objects. In the use phase, the use value of an object is also a vital aspect of its value, since use or function can be many things. As Moeran (2009) points out, besides practical functions the function of an object can also be to be looked at. An object can have a variety of functions and uses and may have several functions at the same time. Some of these functions may even be
conflicting. A sock is not merely for putting on the foot or for hanging from the mantelpiece at Christmas; the function of a sock is also to express the stylistic choice of the owner, to give work to a number of people in factories and in retail.
Some of the functions of an object may be considered as types of value rather than as functions per se. The relationship between an object and the people who
produced it is not the first thing that springs to mind when you think about the use of an object; but disregarding this relationship as a use property of an object is too simplistic. For example, many socks never make it to the foot or the mantelpiece but are discarded, either by dissatisfied receivers of Christmas presents or in storage clear-outs. Even those instances do not remove all functions from the objects, since they may be picked up by second-hand dealers, donated to charity or sold to recyclers who shred them to stuff sofas. When objects move from first- to second-hand markets, their use affects their value in even more ways.
Historically, the relationship between used things and economic value has been described as devaluation as a result of age. Except within the budding trade in antique objects from the 19th century onwards, only recently have old things been considered valuable to an extent that the value of certain old objects surpasses that of new counterparts.9 In most cases, old things are reused for the same functions as they were intended. However, this is only true according to a limited understanding of function, for the stylistic function of the object has changed, and its lifestyle function is likely to have changed too. Although
Williams and Paddock remind us that compartmentalizing consumer motivation is simplistic, the social and emotional attachment to used goods can be very different for different users (2003). If economic constraints are the primary reason for
9 The most striking example of this is perhaps the exorbitant auction prices furniture by certain designers reach. In most cases vintage pieces become far more expensive than a similar piece of furniture produced today.
purchasing old things, the joy of acquiring may be reduced by a product’s being in less than mint condition. On the other hand, if purchasing old things represents a lifestyle choice, the used object may immediately be imbued with much more emotional value. These feelings will often differ from those of the first owner, giving the object a whole new function in the life of the new owner. The question is whether this constitutes a re-appropriation, since the function has changed, and therefore alters the functional value of the object even if it is used according to its original conception? Arguing whether stylistic or saleability constitutes a
functional value or an appreciative value may be a moot point. However, it points to the difficulty of distinguishing categories of values, emotions or motivations when dealing with things and cultures in motion. In second-hand markets use constitutes value both as utility, as an aesthetic expression and as a social distinction.
The Marxist Tradition
Although use value is not the same as the value of used things, use as a type of value in itself would seem an important starting point for an exploration of the value of second-hand objects. A theory of use value has been a major contribution of Marxist economics that has influenced anthropological value theory throughout the last century. In Ricardo’s understanding of value, which to a large extent underpins Marxian economics, the use value of a commodity is determined
separately from the exchange value (Milios & Economakis 2002). This distinction has to some degree persisted, but the specific circumstances in second-hand
markets question whether this relationship absolute. Are there no instances in which use value becomes a prominent component of exchange value? In a simple sense, use value may be the last option for people to realize some kind of
exchange value from a commodity. Even if the commodity is not of great quality,
or if it does not have great symbolic value in terms of branding or heritage, at least if it is useful it may be exchanged for a small amount of money. In other cases, use can become an aesthetic value, as with certain antiques, carpets, etc., and so feeds into the symbolic value of an object or commodity. McCracken has written
extensively, for example, on the value of patina (1988). In conventional
understanding, however, use is still more likely to have a negative effect on the value of an object.
In the Marxist understanding of value, labour provides the common property by which value can be measured (Milios & Economakis 2002: 8pp).
How, then, is the value of used goods valued? Is the value the same as in the first exchange? Does the value remain unaltered although the buyer has already
exchanged the labour value for money? Or is the value calculated on the basis of the labour expended in handling the goods in collection and sorting? In that case, the very sorting process itself creates the value of the object, not by assigning use, aesthetic and ethical values to the object but by the very act itself. The purpose of this chapter is not to present a Marxist analysis of second-hand exchange, and presenting the labour theory of value as a simple calculation of time spent would not do the theory justice. The point here is that many concepts of commodity value focus on production, and acquisition as the determining events. By doing so, the value of used and second-hand objects becomes difficult to assess. By defining value as inherent and determined by the amount of labour invested, the act of producing becomes fetishized. As an expression of wider cultural bias towards newness, production as the formative value-creating event may partly account for the widespread cultural resistance to used goods that is and has been predominant
in many parts of the world.10 Conceptually, however, it also encourages a view of the process of sorting as a value-creating event—even as an act of production.
From a Marxist perspective, there is an ethical commitment to human creative powers (Slater 1997: 3), and through the understanding of labour as the measure of exchange value, the value of used things materializes in front of our eyes. By picking up a certain object, scrutinizing it for flaws, determining colour, assessing size and condition and placing it in a certain category, the value ‘becomes’ in that moment. But the very act or labour of valuating lays bare the contextual nature of value. The labour itself would not exist if not to perform this determination.
Determining values, or at least how value is created in a social setting, requires a wider understanding of the different ways in which the values and practices involved in establishing that value function. Economic assessment is not the only practice that is involved in valuations, and the practices are embedded in a socio-cultural context. In order to understand this context, the social value of objects must be scrutinized as well.
Gifting Commodities
The study of values and exchange in material culture has historically described the object of value as either a commodity or as a gift. This distinction divides the properties of an object and its value between economic market-based exchanges on the one hand, and relational, social exchanges on the other.
Anthropologists have been occupied mainly with gift economies and have discussed the social value of highly unique objects drawing on Marcel Mauss’s accounts of Melanesian exchange relations (2000 [1990]). In anthropological
10 Although an extensive historical account is beyond the scope of this thesis, the distinction between old and new as a cultural construction adds depth to the conceptualization of the value of second-‐hand objects.
theory this distinction was traditionally part and parcel of a division between different types of societies, but with the development of contemporary
anthropology the rigidity of the division has been questioned by a number of scholars (e.g., Miller 2000, 2001; Myers 2001, Herrmann 1997). One of the most influential attempts to bridge this division is found in Appadurai’s introduction to The Social Life of Things (1986), where he describes how things can move
between different regimes of value along the trajectory of their social lives. In the same volume, Kopytoff (1986) describes how ‘biographies of things’ may help shed light on their transient nature. Miller (2000) criticizes the distinction from a slightly different angle, arguing that the dualism between the market and
contextualized exchange (gifting) is nonsensical. All exchanges are
contextualized; however, this does not only mean that markets are framed by culture but that markets also produce culture (2000: 78–79). Recently, David Graeber (2001) has offered a theory of values by reaching back through the
Maussian tradition and arguing that value, as a cultural, relational phenomenon, is utterly social in both market and gift economies. In an attempt to create a new path away from a widespread economic rationality, Graeber argues that what people value are social relations, not the objects themselves. In doing so he presents a concept of value that resists fetishizing the object, which may have great consequences for the study of valuation in cultural production.
Second-hand objects make visible the composite nature of objects as gift-commodities. Appadurai’s concept of the social life of things is sensitive to the instability of commodity states. Pursuing the complexity in the exchange of objects, Annette Wiener has expanded on the inalienable nature of certain objects (1992), while Fred Myers and Webb Keane have explored the complexity of the emotional and cultural attachments that determine the inalienability of all objects
(2001). The idea of something being inalienable, outside of exchange, is a pertinent consideration in the relationship between people and used things. In Wiener’s case, the inalienable character is derived from what the object has been imbued with through its attachment to the owner, while, as Valeri (1994) points out, in Mauss’s theory of the gift the identification is also with the receiver. In accordance with anthropology’s preoccupation with the social, the power to make objects inalienable lies in creating and maintaining social relations, not in the objects themselves. As I am particularly interested in the role of objects, figuring out where all this leaves the objects is of particular interest. Heirlooms, as a more everyday kind of inalienable possessions, share properties with objects that are exchanged in second-hand markets. David Graeber describes the value of
heirlooms as ‘always … an historical value, derived from acts of production, use, or appropriation that have involved the object in the past’ (2001: 105). Building on the Maussian tradition, Graeber makes very clear what role the object and its material presence has in this relation:
‘… in the case of heirlooms, the value that makes the illusion of agency possible derives from that very history, real or imagined. In any case, energies that went into creating the particular form of the object and made it desirable are displaced; they come to seem a ghostly agency that guides its present movements. The object of desire becomes an illusory mirror of the desirer’s own manipulated intentions.’ (Graeber 2001: 105)
This characterization of value is part of a larger theoretical project in which Graeber attempts to draw the concept of value away from economist
objectification and towards social practices.
Seeing the value of objects as created by social action establishes a common concept that is sensitive to the features of both gift and market economies. The study I present here is about organizational practices in second-hand markets, but the exchange of used objects is by no means limited to formalized, commercial systems of trade. Many objects are exchanged within families or groups of friends, some are swapped and others are sold privately through flea markets or websites.
Thrift stores run by charity organizations, which are the subject of this study, represent a middle ground between commercial and private exchange in what could be described as a mixed economy. Most of these organizations operate with donations and employ both paid and volunteer workers. Although the overall aim of these organizations is to generate money for their charity work, many of them consider other aspects of the operation as also being valuable. For some, helping people get access to cheap household products is a priority, for some the social aspects of volunteering are important, while for others the environmental benefits of reuse are valuable. These aims often go hand in hand with economic goals and make the valuation of donated objects a complex negotiation between different regimes of value. To consider the objects only as commodities would be to overlook important features of the valuation process. Establishing a concept of value in second-hand markets therefore requires a common denominator.
Graeber: Value as the Importance of Actions
In his book Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value (2001), Graeber presents a critical reading of the theories that have shaped the understanding of value in cultural theory over the last century. Building on this reading he presents a concept of value that places human actions at the centre, as a response to what he sees as a reductionist economist rationality that has spread to theories of value over a number of fields. At the centre of this rationality is the assumption that
value is established by people trying to minimize their effort and maximize their yield and therefore relies solely on self-interest. This approach is not only cynical but also a false assumption about human nature that does not hold sufficient explanatory power. As Graeber argues: ‘if you are sufficiently determined, you can always identify something that people are trying to maximize’ (2001: 8
(original emphasis)). In order to establish a theory of value that does not fall back on self-interested calculation, Graeber demonstrates that what is valuable is not the object but the social action around it. Building on the Maussian legacy around gift-economies, he argues that the value of objects is contextual—not in the
linguistic sense of ordering in systems of objects, but rather in their relationship with people. Marilyn Strathern (1988) is one of Graeber’s main references in the neo-Maussian tradition and provides the foundation for a concept that bridges gift and market economies.
Graeber’s aim is to shift the focus of value concepts away from fetishizing objects towards the relationality of value:
‘Commodities have to be produced (and yes, they also have to be moved around, exchanged, consumed…), social relations have to be created and maintained: all of this requires an investment of human time and energy, intelligence, concern. If one sees value as a matter of the relative distribution of that, then one has a common denominator.’
(Graeber 2001: 45 (original emphasis))
The common denominator Graeber talks of is between economic, market-driven exchanges and gift-like exchanges. In line with other critical readings of the separation of the two types of systems, he argues that only human actions and the relations they create establish a commonality
between the two. Against the fetishizing of objects by economists, he gives examples of how, in fact, what is being traded in markets is not so much the thing in itself but the right to use it.
In a mixed economic setting such as second-hand stores, bringing the two aspects of exchange together is important. As Graeber describes, value is
In a mixed economic setting such as second-hand stores, bringing the two aspects of exchange together is important. As Graeber describes, value is