CONSUMERS, IDENTITIES, AND CONSUMPTION SPACES IN EARLY-MODERN ENGLAND

In this paper we consider practices of shopping in early modern (17th- and 18th-century) England, and various features of the spaces in whic h it occurred. We emphasise the density of retail shops in England; th e reflexive relationships among 'consumers', shopkeepers, and consumpt ion sites; and the inability of current theorisations based on the sem iotics of advertising to address questions about consumers' understand ings and identities in an age prior to widespread product advertising, department stores, and mass retail outlets. We contend that, then as now, peoples' interpretation of objects and identities involved practi cal, embodied knowledges rather than the sorts of explicit, intellectu alised understandings central to most contemporary accounts of consump tion. Such practical knowledges have been underresearched, and we poin t to some concepts in recent work which can assist in their theorising .