What does that shirt mean to you? Thrift-store consumption as cultural capital

Shelly Stewart, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, 410 Barrows Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

Email: stewartd@berkeley.edu

Angela and Rebecca are both customers at a thrift store. Each is holding a shirt, examining it, deciding whether or not to purchase it. The cost – just over a dollar – is not prohibitive for either, although the two women have very different incomes. For both, consumption is about more than cost. As these two women consume goods in the thrift store, they develop a strong symbolic meaning of their consumption, reflecting their motivations for entering the store and their perceived positions within it.

This article examines the development of contrasting symbolic understandings of consumption by two groups of thrift-store shoppers Portland, Oregon, and the deployment of those understandings as cultural capital, signifying cultural value to others. Some shoppers, like Angela, value the search for bargains and the economy of this market. Others, like Rebecca, value the distance of the market from other retailers and see their consumption as an act of creativity. These different understandings hold value to these consumers; they are a form of cultural capital. This examination of thrift-store shopping contributes to understandings of cultural capital in three ways. First, it confirms the increasingly embodied nature of cultural capital. Second, it illustrates the potential for groups to draw from one another in the process of defining valuable cultural capital. Third, and most significantly, it shows how cultural capital is defined through the interactive process of consumption in the space of the thrift store.

In order to examine how embodied cultural capital can be defined through interaction, we must locate sites of consumption in which members of different groups interact. As social arenas existing for the production and sale of goods or services (Fligstein, 2001), markets provide a space for different consumers to come together. Along with goods, the meanings of those goods are circulated and exchanged among consumers (Berta, 2013; Bestor, 2004; Velthuis, 2003). As these meanings circulate, consumers in a market are attuned to one another. They use economic transactions to negotiate and understand their place in relation to other people, engaging in relative positioning as they shop (Smith, 2007; Zelizer, 2005). The prevalence of meaning in markets together with the social experience of shopping suggests that markets hold great potential as sites to define embodied cultural capital. This project examines a particular market – thrift stores in Portland, Oregon – to examine that process.

Given the rising discussion about authenticity and creativity in cultural spheres (Michael, 2015; Peterson, 1997b; Zukin, 2008), thrift stores are a particularly apt market to address cultural definition. They are not typical markets. The products sold come from donations; profits are generally used for some type of charity and prices are usually very low. They tend to be widely accessible markets; location, education, or self-presentation tend not to prohibit customers from entering. Such accessibility facilitates multiple understandings of consumption in the same space, as Isla (2013) concluded in her international analysis of second-hand shopping. Given the wide approachability of these stores, the unreliability of goods and their quality, and the potential stigma against used clothing, it is likely that customers with the economic means to shop elsewhere may forgo thrift shopping. However, increasing references about thrift stores in popular culture and reports from the resale industry suggest an increasing appeal of these stores among privileged clientele (Amer and Vincent, 2013; The Economist, 2014). Furthermore, past studies have found customers with a range of backgrounds in these types of stores (Alexander et al., 2008; Miller, 1997). The interactive process of consumption, thrift stores' very low economic barrier to entry, and the universal necessity of many of the goods sold suggest a potential mingling of customers with diverging interests, likely to lead to different understandings.

Two primary and opposing symbolic understandings of thrift-store consumption emerged through my conversations and observations. These understandings were held by two groups of relatively frequent shoppers, whom I call the “thrift-seekers” and the “creativists.” Paralleling their different understandings, these two groups had different economic backgrounds.

The thrift-seekers defined their consumption positively as the search for bargains. They entered the thrift store with the goal of emulating more expensive consumption habits that were economically out of their reach. They tended to be less educated, averaging less than 2 years of college, and held jobs that were lower paying. They were more likely than the creativists to have children, although their average age was similar.

The second group, the creativists, initially defined their consumption negatively, as the rejection of alternative consumption options. They entered the thrift store in order to avoid more commercial retail establishments, usually department stores and boutique shops. They saw their consumption as a reflection of their creativity. Members of this group tended to be more educated, with most having 4-year college degrees and holding higher paying jobs. Almost half considered themselves cultural producers of some type, either professionally or as a hobby. Table 1 summarizes key descriptors of participants.

These groups do not represent the absolute bottom and top of the social structure; they are neither living in poverty nor super-rich. Members of both groups are generally employed, housed, and consider high-end luxury consumption out of reach. Given their different backgrounds, though, the thrift-seekers and creativists represent situational classes in the thrift store. The creativists have higher education and occupational prestige levels and are a relatively privileged group. The thrift-seekers, in contrast, have lower education and occupational prestige levels and are a relatively marginalized group. These relative positions are important to the ways in which these groups relate to each other and to what we can learn from them about how embodied cultural capital is defined.

The classification of thrift-seekers and creativists reflects a distinction observed in prior studies of thrift-store consumption, between customers motivated by thrift and those by hedonism (Alexander et al., 2008; Baker, 2011; Bardhi and Arnould, 2005; Mitchell and Montgomery, 2010). This project advances these prior schemas by considering the generation of these accounts, interactions between groups, and relation to wider social processes of distinction.

Not every customer in the thrift stores was a thrift-seeker or creativist. Other consumers included people searching for a specific item, parents shopping for toys and children’s clothing, and retired adults who rarely made purchases. I have excluded these customers from the analysis for two reasons. First, they did not articulate a sense of symbolic meaning to their consumption. Second, there were few enough of these consumers to make generalizations difficult and to suggest that any meaning-making was an individual rather than social process.

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EMT: emergency medical technician.

What were each group's motivations for entering the thrift stores, and how do these motivations relate to the articulated meaning of consumption? The thrift-seekers entered the stores seeking what they saw as bargains – items for purchase at a price much lower than they would find elsewhere and of a quality that they would find comparable. Although they generally did not frequent department stores, they held such establishments in high regard. When asked what brought her to the thrift store, Anna, a 24-year-old waitress, replied, "well, it's half looking at fashion magazines and thinking, 'well that's cool' and half looking at price tags and thinking, 'well, that's not cool'." Anna's explanation illustrates both the desire to replicate current fashion trends and the inaccessibility of many retailers. Many thrift-seekers reported reading advertisements for other stores and seeing their products in magazines and on television. Although thrift-seekers occasionally had their eye out for a particular type of garment – trousers, for example, or dresses – they tended to have more general goals when it came to the objects they were looking for. "I want the best stuff, whatever it is. Some days, that might end up being, like, jeans, and then another, something totally different," said one.

The creativists entered the thrift store to reject what they saw as the "mainstream" alternative – the same department stores that the thrift-seekers sought to emulate. They desired to distinguish themselves from other consumers with whom they interacted in their daily lives. Mary, a 32-year-old software engineer, described it this way:

It's not that I was initially drawn here as much as I was drawn away from other places. I spent so long going to [high-end department stores], and then I realized that's not who I want to be. I don't want to feed into that, to do the whole high-end shopping thing.

Most creativists had been in the stores they were rejecting, and some admitted occasionally, or even frequently, still visiting them.

At the thrift store, the creativists searched primarily for clothing. They rarely looked for any specific type of garment, and instead they talked about waiting to see what "struck" them. "I just wait for something to strike me," Mary said, in a comment echoed by several others in this group. She went on to explain that she had a very full closet; she did not see herself as "needing" anything. Few creativists described particular styles or trends they hoped to reproduce through their consumption. Given their desire to distinguish themselves from more conventional retail store shoppers, I asked interviewees whether they would reject items that had department store tags or that visibly resembled department store products. They overwhelmingly denied such decisions, reflecting an attitude that once they were in the space of the thrift store, they felt free to consume any articles. When I asked Ellen, a 29-year-old tech worker, about name-brand items at the thrift store, she replied,

Well, the fact that I got something here matters more than wherever it came from before that. So, I'd be careful when I'm shopping for new stuff, as to, like, where it came from and everything. But when you're reusing something, the fact that you're reusing it is what matters.

For Ellen, what mattered was the manner in which she consumed the item, rather than the item itself. The embodied mode of consumption mattered more than the object being consumed.

Once in the space of the thrift store, when talking about their consumption, both thrift-seekers and creativists talked little about their motivations for entering. Instead, they focused on positioning themselves within the space of the market. They constructed narratives about both their own shopping and that of fellow consumers in order to give their consumption meaning. This process parallels that observed by Bogdanova (2013) in her examination of consumption in antique markets in Russia. When trying to establish the economic value of goods, when lacking complete information, sellers and consumers contextualized an object within a social environment through processes of storytelling. Storytelling, Bogdanova found, led to the shared understandings necessary for the markets to function. In thrift stores, economic valuation is not contentious; the clothing is inexpensive. Instead, autobiographical storytelling creates cultural value, and particular narratives hold value for each group. These symbolically valuable narratives can be seen as embodied cultural capital. The accounts people give of their consumption carry more significance than the articles of clothing themselves.

The narratives of the thrift-seekers were most commonly of a game, in which they saw themselves as engaged in a hunt for the “best” goods, often in direct competition with consumers with different motivations. They talked about their relative lack of economic means and perceived “need” to find low prices. Katie, a 31-year-old phone operator, described the game and the role other consumers with other motivations play:

It's really like a game, which I think is what shopping here is for me. Like, a hunt for the best stuff. Which also means it's a social thing. There's people here who are searching for things, who maybe don't need to get such a good deal, or don't care about that deal, but are here anyway. And since they're here, it like, adds to the game... It makes it more of a win.

For Katie, consumers without economic constraints were seen not only as competition but also as adding meaning to her own consumption. Through the narrative of a game, the thrift-seekers described themselves in opposition to other consumers. Angela similarly commented on the role other consumers played in her own consumption. “It's just fun. It's like, recreational and economical. I'm out looking for

stuff; other people are too. So their search adds to my search," she explained. She went on to say that she enjoyed the physical act of sorting through clothes and seeking out what she wanted. To her, the physical act of it made shopping feel more like a game or a sport.

By positioning themselves in contrast to a different group of shoppers, the thrift-seekers came to understand themselves as winning against other consumers, claiming a sense of agency given their economically limited options. The comments of 27-year-old Alex illustrate this sense of agency:

I might not be able to, you know, walk into Macy's and buy the newest thing off the rack. That's just not something I can do. But here, it's like, I'm doing something, I'm actively doing something to find something cool. If I can't get something nice, and I just have to go to Walmart and buy something cheap, I just feel like I'm not doing much. But if I come here, it's like, I'm doing something.

Similarly, Penny explained that her options for consumption were relatively limited by her income, but once in the thrift store, she could purchase anything. This gave her a sense of choice and freedom. She felt like she was in control of her purchases and therefore her appearance. "Here, it's all about what I want and what I pick out, not what the price tags pick out for me," she said.

Brittany described her position in relation to other shoppers as key to this sense of agency. "Because I'm picking out of such a random pile, it matters when I, when I get something before somebody else, you know," she said. Thrift-seekers like Brittany implicated other consumers into their understanding of shopping as a game, an understanding that provided them a sense of agency in consuming clothing.

The creativists constructed narratives of creativity rather than a game. These consumers saw their interactions in the thrift stores as opportunities to exercise individuality and artistry. This creativity was established by comparison with economically motivated consumers: thrift-seekers. Jenny, who works in marketing – a job she called distinctly uncreative – described the meaning of her consumption like this:

I started shopping here because I was avoiding bigger stores. But once I started coming, it became something more. It became about, like, the creativity that happens here... There's other people shopping here, and shopping next to them makes me realize that I have this creativity, this choice... There's people here, searching for prices, and there's people here searching for items, searching for that creativity. And you have both here, I think you need both here, to have a sense of what's going on.

Isabelle, who works for a financial planning firm, presented a similar narrative:

Sometimes I have this moment where I'm like, oh my God, did I seriously just push someone out of the way over a skirt? And part of me is like, yeah, I'm a terrible

person. But another part is like, it's ok, it's part of what happens here, this process, there's other people searching, and I'm part of that searching, and without that whole process and everyone else here, it wouldn't be the same, and what it means wouldn't be the same. So it's not just about the skirt... It's the process of getting that skirt in this place, of like, seeking it out.

These creativists casted their consumption as an exercise in creativity. Although they could have come to this same conclusion by employing comparisons with the department store shoppers, they did not. They focused on comparisons with other consumers within the thrift store, integrating their impressions of thrift-seekers into their narratives of consumption.

As described by Dwyer (2009), there is an inherent yet sometimes unconscious comparative nature to consumption. People think about their consumption in relation to others. Both thrift-seekers and creativists depended on the other group in order to articulate a symbolic understanding of consumption. As they did so, a clear and coherent understanding of each group on behalf of the other emerged. Both groups' comments on the other were not isolated critiques, but were intricately woven into their own self-understanding.

The thrift-seekers contrasted themselves as deserving and hard-working with shoppers whom they saw as selfish. The thrift-seekers enjoyed finding what they saw as bargains – items that were originally sold at high prices or that originated from expensive brands or lines. To them, other consumers were seen as wealthy; they could afford more expensive markets for clothing, but chose the thrift store market. Alex, an administrative worker and thrift-seeker, explained to me,

I mean, there's a very real aspect of like, shopping here because it's affordable. I can go here and I can search and I can do that, and I sometimes feel like there's more and more people coming here who are like, this is just for the fun of it, we're here because it's cool.

She rolled her eyes as she spoke. Thrift-seekers used their relative economic disadvantage to claim a higher status in the game they understood themselves to be playing. Rather than talking about their limited economic means as a hindrance, they use it to establish a sense of deservingness in the store. Twila, a cook at a local diner, expressed it this way:

Lots of people come here, looking for lots of things. Some are just poking around; they could go anywhere. Others, and I think I'm one of them, it's like, this is where we're going to find good stuff, the stuff we want. I see sometimes other people, maybe grabbing whatever or just, you know they don't need to be here, and it sort of, it makes me feel better in way about being here.

Twila talks about positioning herself in relation to other consumers, presumably creativists. The assertion of moral superiority by less privileged groups is well documented (Lamont, 2002; Sayer, 2005; Sherman, 2009). Here, that same pattern of moral judgment takes place in a particular market to give consumption symbolic meaning.

The creativists also contrasted themselves with other shoppers. To them, other consumers were seen to have economic rather than expressive motivations. These shoppers, according to many creativists, were not exercising discernment in the way they understood themselves to, but rather were replicating behaviors common among mass consumers in other stores. Danielle, who works for an athletic company, articulated this criticism:

You can tell who's here because they're hunting, versus who's here just buying shit. I mean, everybody is welcome here, but I just don't relate to that other group. I'm here precisely because I don't want to just buy shit.

To her, many consumers did not replicate the creativity and selection she understood as central to her own thrift-store consumption. Yet, their shopping contributed to her own experience of creativity by giving her something to define herself against.

Each group drew on the other to establish itself as a superior group of consumers. Berta (2013) observed a similar pattern in a very different setting – among two groups of Romanian Roma. These two groups held different understandings of prestige objects – silver beakers and tankers – which allowed each to see itself as superior to the other. These groups established explicit negative stereotypes of one another on the basis of these different understandings. Similarly, in the thrift store, different groups established consumer moral superiority from perceptions of divergent understandings of consumption.

I asked people where their ideas about the other group had come from and whether they had conversations with other shoppers. Overwhelmingly, respondents from both groups struggled to identify the origins of their impressions. These judgments are informed by knowledge and assumptions carried in from outside the market. Markets are not isolated spaces, but embedded in and inextricable from their surrounding societies (Aspers, 2009; Granovetter, 1985). In the thrift store, both groups employed some ideas about class and economic background in their construction of meaning. Assumptions about other consumers' social class likely shape understandings of those consumers' intentions. The thrift-seekers saw the creativists as rich enough to shop elsewhere. The creativists saw the thrift-seekers as having economic rather than value-based motivations. In this way, the impressions of each group may rely on negative impressions each has of opposing classes outside the thrift stores. Determining the extent to which these beliefs emerged entirely within the space of the thrift store versus the extent to which they were preexisting attitudes requires further exploration. What is clear, though, is that each group implicates the other into its construction of meaning.

Where these beliefs originated is less important than their integration into narratives of consumption.

Both groups carried their beliefs about the other into their physical interactions and behaviors in the store, albeit subtly. Reflecting their understanding of consumption as a game, thrift-seekers sometimes followed other shoppers around the store and frequently looked into the baskets or collections of fellow customers. Alex, for example, whom I returned to the store with after our interview, looked at what other shoppers were holding, often quickly picking it up if they set it down. "Just seeing what I'm up against," she said when I asked her about this practice. Athena, another thrift-seeker, kept her eyes on other customers. If she saw another customer linger over an item, she would often give it a second look, even if she had passed it up before. The creativists' behavior in the store differed. They were less interested in what other customers might be picking up, and instead tended to select many items, and then carefully sort them, deciding which ones to purchase. This behavior reflects their narrative of creativity; they crafted outfits carefully and saw the process of selection as a venue for their expression. Inga, for example, selected many items of similar colors and then sorted through them to select those she wanted to purchase, leaving piles of each color behind her. Behaviors in the store contributed to the meanings consumers developed, and those meanings contributed back to the interactions they participated in.

In the space of the thrift store, members of both groups distinguished themselves as superior consumers through narratives about their consumption. Shopping became a process of distinction. As discussed above, these two groups represent situational classes in the context of the thrift store, with the creativists in a position of relative privilege. This group talked about carrying their narrative with them beyond the thrift store, drawing from it a sense of status and superiority across contexts. For Bourdieu (1984), fractions of a dominant class struggle for dominance, to define the criterion that defines their superiority. The processes I observed fit Bourdieu's model, but they also go further to suggest the potential for a privileged group to implicate a less privileged group into its criteria of distinction and the potential for markets to serve as a site of definition.

As educated consumers with relatively high incomes, the creativists were motivated by a desire to distinguish themselves from other economically privileged consumers – those who frequented department stores and boutique shops selling new clothing. Under Bourdieu's framework, the creativists are a fraction of the dominant class seeking distinction through their consumption patterns. They articulated their understanding of thrift-store consumption in relation to the other consumers in that space. Once articulated, they talked about carrying that

understanding with them into other realms of their life. Rebecca explained it this way:

When I walk out of the store, it's not the thing I bought that matters to me. It's, like, why I bought it, it's that process, or what I was thinking about . . . That's what mak[es] shopping here, like, important to me.

In a case of meanings generated through market interactions having implications outside the market (Smith, 2007), the meanings the creativists give their consumption become a form of cultural capital deployed outside the thrift store. Creativists talked about being motivated by a desire to distinguish themselves from peers who shopped at department stores. They then developed a particular understanding of thrift-store consumption, implicating the thrift-seekers, in order to articulate how their consumption was different. This understanding of consumption becomes a form of cultural capital, used to establish superiority in relation to other privileged consumers.

Any symbolic capital must be recognized as valuable (Bourdieu, 2000). For an understanding or narrative of consumption to act as cultural capital, then, it must be identified in its possessors. Potentially, the articulated understandings of the creativists are a particular subculture, not necessarily recognized outside of itself (Hebdige, 1979), rather than a form of cultural capital more widely recognized among their social class. According to the creativists, their thrift-store consumption patterns are recognized by peers outside the thrift store. When I asked Gaby, an attorney, how someone would see her consumption habits in daily interactions, she replied,

Well, it's like, we don't live in pictures. If someone just saw a picture of me, and I was wearing the skirt, then, yeah, who knows where it came from. But we don't live in pictures. I'm wearing the skirt, and I'm also avoiding certain other stores, and restaurants, and not buying my coffee at Starbucks, and that whole pattern reflects something about me. It reflects that I'm different. And buying the skirt, the whole aspect of creativity that went into buying the skirt, is brought into all those other things that I'm doing. So in that way, it does carry a lot of value. It's something people can pick up on.

In this quote, Gaby talks about her narrative of consumption being carried with the goods of consumption and combined with other choices to present a particular image, one she sees as valuable. Ellen, another creativist, more directly commented on what she sees as the symbolic value of her thrift-store finds. "Today, I think it really means something to be able to say, 'I chose to go somewhere else, to be a bit more of a, well, an individual, and still to look good. That gets respect,'" she said.

The creativists' symbolic valuation of their thrift store consumption is likely often invisible to outside observers, but this does not prohibit its value as cultural capital. Elliott (2013) found that consumption of "green" or environmentally

friendly products carries symbolic value to consumers even when invisible to outside observers, a case of status appearing “implicitly and subconsciously, rather than or as well as conspicuously and deliberately” (p. 312). For example, the use of recycled paper towels may not be evident to others but still functions as a status symbol to the consumer. Similarly, Michael (2015) found that young elite consumers of music and fashion considered the mindsets of consumption to be more valuable than specific products, even if unknown to outsiders. In both of these cases, items carry symbolic meaning to their holders, even if that meaning is invisible to outsiders. Similarly, thrift-store garments carry symbolic meaning to creativists whether or not outside observers know where they purchased them.

The thrift-seekers, in contrast to the creativists, did not talk about carrying their narrative of consumption into their interactions beyond the store. They described a sense of moral superiority as consumers within the thrift store, but the value of their narrative was contextually limited. Thrift-seekers do not use their narratives to position themselves in relation to anyone outside the thrift store. They are emulating precisely those consumption patterns from which the creativists are trying to distance themselves. Although they maintain a coherent narrative of consumption, it is limited to the experience of the thrift store rather than being carried with them in ongoing social interactions as a form of capital.

The narratives of the thrift-store shoppers illustrate and reinforce that the content of valuable cultural capital is becoming vaguer and more unspoken – that cultural capital is increasingly embodied rather than objectified (Holt, 1998; Lamont and Lareau, 1988; Zukin and Maguire, 2004). The creativists talked about the process of searching and their internal rejection of department stores as giving their consumption cultural value, regardless of the garments they walked away with. Embodied capital, encompassing attitudes and mindsets rather than tangible, definable goods, is difficult to acquire for the upwardly mobile. If a particular object – a certain style of shoe, for example – carries symbolic value, then its possession is enough to bring its owner that value. But when the meaning a consumer gives to an object carries value, ownership alone is not enough. One can transmit objectified cultural capital, but not always the understanding that underlies it; you can expose

someone to a particular cultural artifact, but not shape their personal reaction to it, which itself is shaped by their inextricable past experiences (Bourdieu, 2000). As cultural capital becomes increasingly embodied, social mobility through the acquisition of cultural capital becomes ever more opaque and therefore unlikely.

In addition to illustrating the embodied nature of contemporary cultural capital, this project is an example of how groups can draw from one another in defining it (Casey, 2010; Steward, 2015). Although the thrift-seekers did not employ their narratives of consumption as cultural capital outside the thrift store, they were implicated into the narratives of the creativists. Creativists' narratives arose through interactions with thrift-seekers in the stores. The creativists were driven to the thrift store out of their desire to distinguish themselves from other privileged consumers who shopped at department stores and boutiques, an act of Bourdieusian distinction. These motivations match Bourdieu's (1984) description of the efforts of members of the dominant class to distinguish themselves from one another. Once in the space of the thrift store, though, the creativists positioned themselves against the other shoppers there. Those other shoppers – the thrift-seekers – became embedded in the narratives of the creativists. The creativists then talked about carrying their narratives, into which the thrift-seekers were embedded, into their lives outside the market and their interactions with other relatively privileged consumers. According to Bourdieu, the process of definition unfolds as a struggle between fractions of the dominant class, with fractions positioning themselves in opposition to one another. The dominated class exists outside this struggle, subjected to it but silent in it. However, in the thrift store, the less privileged consumers, the thrift-seekers, are implicated directly into the process of definition of valuable cultural capital. They are not silent. The definition of embodied capital is an active and interactive process into which the relatively dominated class is implicated.

This project highlights the role of consumer markets, and specifically thrift stores, in defining new forms of cultural capital. The development of opposing narratives of thrift-store consumption constructs these stores as contentious spaces, in which the definition of cultural capital is reconstituted and potentially redefined. It casts new significance on these markets as sites where cultural definition and redefinition can happen, to be mobilized beyond the store. Creativity as a mode of consumption is developed within the market. It is the result of relative positioning in the space of the thrift store. Thrift stores, as a unique type of market, hold special importance. The products sold are separated from production, branding, or marketing efforts, leaving consumers to develop meaning relatively independently (Veenstra and Kuipers, 2013). Thrift stores are of unique interest, then, to examine how consumers come to understand and attach meaning to their consumption.

In neighborhoods across the country, an increasing focus on creativity and authenticity accompanies a rise in the cost of living and the displacement of established, usually marginalized populations, including working-class residents and communities of color (Smith, 1996; Zukin, 2008). The neighborhood of the thrift stores in this project is likely on this same path of gentrification – a path several other areas of Portland have already gone down, as their racial and economic make-up has shifted to reflect an increasingly privileged population and former residents are left to move further and further from the city center and the opportunities it may afford (Sullivan and Shaw, 2011). The city is in transition, and these thrift stores are but a small slice of a much larger and more complex process. In the course of observations for this project, little changed in the positions of the two groups or their relation to one another. Although the creativists' understanding of consumption, which they employ as cultural capital, is informed by thrift-seekers, they use it to distinguish themselves from other members of the dominant class. The thrift-seekers, although coming away from the thrift store with a narrative of having engaged in a game with the creativists, do not change their economic position. Each group retains its relative place in social space. It is possible – perhaps probable – that in the context of a changing neighborhood, the two groups do not coexist for long. The thrift-seekers may, like residents of other neighborhoods before them, get priced out in favor of the creativists and their ongoing pursuits of self-proclaimed authenticity.

However, this project demonstrates that the thrift stores are potential spaces of struggle, rather than tell-tale indicators of gentrification. Some markets, like artisanal cheese shops and local wine tasting rooms, may be the result of changing neighborhoods, their products economically and culturally out of reach for many. Other markets, though, such as thrift stores, are arenas in which residents from divergent backgrounds and with divergent interests come together. They are spaces in which creativity can be defined and exercised. The creativists are not simply replacing the thrift-seekers, but, at least for the time being, actively engaging with them and implicating them into narratives of consumption. The definition of cultural capital happening in the thrift stores ultimately reinforces boundaries between classes. The active process of definition happening in these spaces, though, offers the possibility to redefine the lines along which boundaries are drawn. As creativity and authenticity are heralded as valuable modes of consumption, spaces like thrift stores may be able to bring new entrants into the realm of cultural production. In a cultural climate of increasingly embodied cultural capital, spaces of interaction, negotiation, and reconstruction of culture – like thrift stores – take on new significance. They are sites in which changes can be negotiated and diverging interests could potentially be reconciled.