Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets

• From having been associated with poverty and low status, the commerce with second-hand goods in retro shops, flea markets, vintage boutiques and trade via Internet is expanding in Sweden as in many countries in the Global North. This article argues that a significant aspect of the recent interest in second-hand and reuse concerns the meaningfulness of circulation in social life. Using classic an- thropological theory on how the circulation of material culture generates sociality, it focuses on how second-hand things are transformed by their circulation. Rather than merely having cultural biographies, second-hand things are reconfigured through their shifts between different social contexts in a process that here is un- derstood as a form of growing. Similar to that of an organism, this growth is con- tinuous, irreversible and dependent on forces both internal and external to it. What emerges is a category of things that combine elements of both commodities and gifts, as these have been theorized within anthropology. While first cycle com- modities are purified of their sociality, the hybrid second-hand thing derives its ontological status as well as social and commercial value precisely from retaining ‘gift qualities’, produced by its circulation.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialantropologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Anthropology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Second-hand

circulation

material culture

retro

vintage

growing

gifts

commodities

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)