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Culture and Consumption: A Theoretical Account of the Structure and Movement of the Cultural Meaning of Consumer Goods
GRANT McCRACKEN*
Cultural meaning in a consumer society moves ceaselessly from one location to another. In the usual trajectory, cultural meaning moves first from the culturally constituted v/oM to consumer goods and then from these goods to the individual consumer. Several instruments are responsible for this movement: advertising, the fashion system, and four consumption rituals. This article analyzes the movement of cultural meaning theoretically, showing both where cultural meaning is resident in the contemporary North American consumer system and the means by which this meaning is transfen-ed from one location in this system to another.

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onsumer goods have a significance that goes beyond their utilitarian character and commercial value. This significance rests largely in their ability to carry and communicate cultural meaning (Douglas and Isherwood 1978; Sahlins 1976). During the last decade, a diverse body of scholars has made the cultural significance of consumer goods the focus of renewed academic study (Belk 1982; Bronner 1983; Felson 1976; Furby 1978; Graumann 1974-1975; Hirschman 1980; Holman 1980; Leiss 1983; Levy 1978; McCracken 1985c; Prown 1982; Quimby 1978; Rodman and Philibert 1985; Schlereth 1982; Solomon 1983). These scholars have established a subfield extending across the social sciences that now devotes itself with increasing clarity and thoroughness to the study of "person-object" relations. In this article, I propose to contribute a theoretical perspective to this emerging subfield by showing that the meaning carried by goods has a mobile quality for which prevailing theories make no allowance. A great limitation of present approaches to the study of the cultural meaning of consumer goods is the failure to observe that this meaning is constantly in transit. Cultural meaning flows continually between its several