Dale Southerton,

Sociology Department, Lancaster University,

Lancaster, LA1 4HY, U.K.

E-mail: d.southerton@lancaster.ac.uk

Paper presented at the ESA Consumption workshop, Milan 16-19 September 1998.

Accepted for publication in Sociologisk Arbok.

This paper draws upon one aspect of research into consumption and the relationship between social identification and classification: kitchen consumption. Central to the research and the focus of this paper, are questions concerning identity in contemporary Western societies. Identity is a key concept of theories which suggest a shift from modern to late or post-modern conditions. Although consumption plays a critical role in both social conditions, theories of postmodernity tend to emphasise agency over structure in relation to identity formation. Drawing upon the concept of lifestyle (Featherstone 1991) it is claimed that individuals create and mould their identity or identities (Maffesoli 1988; Bauman 1988; Giddens 1991; Beck 1992) through the symbolic capacities of consumption (Lury 1996). According to this body of thought ‘we have no choice but to choose’ (Giddens 1991: 81), due to the weakening of traditional foundations of identity, such as class, the extended family and local settings, all consequences of increasing rates of geographical and social mobility and the ‘pluralisation of lifeworlds’. As Slater (1997: 85) describes, identities are no longer ‘unproblematically assigned to us’, but best understood through the image of consumption. We choose our self-identity from the ‘shop-window’, and are required to ‘produce and sell an identity to various social markets’ in order to negotiate passage through social contexts. Consumer goods are the major instruments for producing and sustaining these identities.

In contrast, other theories which argue the enduring significance of social structure, question the very bases of agency in relation to identity-formation. Consumption is viewed as a resource for social reproduction and as a battleground for social class distinction (Veblen 1925; Douglas & Isherwood 1979; Bourdieu 1984), rather than as a means of individualisation. Moreover as Warde (1994) argues, ‘class matters’ with regards to differential access and ‘ways of doing consumption’, monetary, social (i.e. social networks) and cultural resources (i.e. knowledge and information) being particularly important to structural differentiation.

Important to both theoretical endeavours is the role of taste and style, vehicles of self expression and individuation for theories of postmodernity, mechanisms of social distinction and class differentiation for structural expositions of consumption. It is the proposed theoretical relationships between taste and consumption which makes the kitchen an interesting space in which to explore this debate. The kitchen is a mass produced, standardised room but with potential for stylisation, forms of personalisation and appropriation, and varied usages (familial, convivial, sociable, functional). As a space of consumption, the kitchen also has potential for exploration into: the symbolic role of everyday material consumption, particularly if the kitchen is used as a space of sociability (Corrigan 1997); household objects as the sites in which culturally derived attitudes, values and meanings can enter the home (Corrigan 1997); and as a space of food consumption and the social construction of family life (Charles & Kerr 1988; Devault 1991). The polyvalency of kitchen consumption and its status as a room located in the realms of routine everyday life, makes this an interesting space in which to investigate orientations toward style and taste, the cultural meanings associated with its usage, and the implications for theories of consumption as a resource of identity-formation and social differentiation.

The research focuses on a suburban town located in the periphery of Bristol, South West England. A ‘quasi’ new town, Yate’s population has increased from 6,000 to 35,000 between 1961 and 1995 (Gloucestershire Development Plan 1966; South Gloucestershire Council 1996), many people moving to the town from regions beyond Bristol (external geographical mobility). The town developed in two distinct phases: first south Yate, consisting of homogeneous three bedroom terrace housing built in the early 1970s, then north Yate from the early 1980s consisting of heterogeneous semi/detached 3-6 bedroom houses. This north-south division in the housing stock has resulted in social distinction within the town, a potent local division exacerbated by high rates of internal geographical mobility from south to north Yate (Southerton 1995, 1997). The division is supported through socio-economic characteristics of the two areas (figure 1), north Yate being lower- and professional middle class, south Yate consisting of working and lower-middle class residents. As a whole, 88% of Yate’s housing is owner occupied and less than 1% of the population consists of ethnic minorities (1991 Census). The high rates of mobility, status division of the town, and strong similarity in interior housing styles amongst north Yate residents found in previous research (Southerton 1995), makes this town an interesting case for research into the role of consumption in identification and classification of an ‘ordinary’ group of suburban residents. It is the shared socio-economic and demographic characteristics of residents in south and north Yate, which provides a strong testing ground for theories which suggest the declining importance of structural constraints as determinant of consumption dispositions.

The research sample was drawn from the two areas of Yate. Fifteen volunteers from two streets in the south and twenty from three streets in the north of Yate took part in the interviews. They were conducted in respondents homes with women, men and couples. Interviews were unstructured but had guiding themes (brief life-history, perceptions of neighbourhood, spare time interests and kitchen consumption). They lasted between one to four and a half hours. The section focusing on kitchens asked respondents to describe their present kitchen style, with emphasis on change and the significance of style. Perceptions of ideal and unappealing kitchens were also discussed, along with judgments of good and bad taste. They were also asked how they used their kitchen.

The socio-economic characteristics of the sample correlate with those of the area within Yate that they live. Representative of the Yate population, all respondents were white, owner occupiers and all but two were married. The age of respondents varied from 23 to 68 years old for both areas, and all but three had experienced significant geographical mobility (figure 2). Figure 3 locates each respondent within social space according to levels of economic and cultural capital. Whilst rudimentary and a rather crude method of calculating individual positions within social space, the diagram at least helps to plot respondents in order to make internal sample comparisons. There are two clear groups, one with relatively high economic and cultural capital (HCC) - most of whom lived in two of the three north Yate streets (b in figure 3) - and one with low cultural capital (LCC). The LCC group can be further divided according to levels of economic capital (EC), LCC residents of north Yate (most of whom lived in the third north Yate street, a in figure 3) having slightly higher EC than their south Yate counterparts, a consequence of their larger and more expensive houses. For this research, economic capital is judged through material wealth and levels of income. Cultural capital is measured according to levels of educational achievement, although its conceptual meaning does not refer to education alone but also knowledge and embodied competence within a particular consumption field (Jenkins 1992).

Drawing from interview transcripts, the analytical strategy of this research organised data into prominent themes (actual and ideal kitchen styles, judgments of taste, utility, usage). From these themes, dimensions of taste were explored in order to develop an understanding of the similarities and differences in respondents orientations toward kitchen tastes and usage. This strategy was influenced by Holt’s (1997) ethnographic study of an American college town, in which he develops six systematic differences in taste and consumption practices between people with high and low cultural capital resources. A principle dimension was the relationship between taste and materiality, which in short suggests that those with LCC organise taste according to material constraints and the pragmatic solution of everyday needs. The HCC group, attempt to distance themselves from materialism in favour of formal aesthetics and the critical appreciation of taste as personal expression. A second dimension focuses on work and taste, the greater geographical mobility of the HCC group being of particular importance in removing their cultural horizons from local frames of reference. This is significant because whereas the LCC members viewed their consumption practices as subjective in relation to competence within local networks, the HCC group perceived consumer subjectivity in relation to senses of uniqueness, originality, authenticity and connoisseurship, qualities constructed through the consumption of objects which possess a more ‘cosmopolitan’ symbolic currency.

For the HCC respondents, whilst the kitchen still primarily orders household organisation (it must be functional and practical), this ordering was largely taken-for-granted, emphasis being instead upon stylistic order as forms of self expression (Holt 1997). Prominent examples were styles which expressed cooking as a personal enthusiasm, symbolised through a ‘working kitchen aesthetic’; and emphasis upon the kitchen table as a symbol of family centredness and at the heart of its aesthetic order. For this group, the material ordering of the kitchen needs to achieve a balance between practicality and personal expression:

"I’ve got a framed photo on the wall of a holiday cottage which we stayed in with friends... The boys brought us... a tiny mouse which has got scissors, glasses and string for a tongue... They are more to make it personal than for any sort of magazine type style... its our own personal style. I’ve also got shelves with glasses, but if you have too many it becomes a nightmare to clean. For me its like functionally aesthetic" (female, aged 37: 35).

In terms of ideals all HCC respondents preferred a farmhouse kitchen style which whilst being functional, also allows scope for greater stylistic and personal improvisation, such as vegetables, herbs and pans on display, and various personal ornaments strategically located. Such personal improvisations are made possible by small differences, and it is through the HCC respondents awareness of the stylistic possibilities available in the kitchen, that such small differences are perceived as providing for a sense of individuation. Despite this, the significance of small difference falls within shared orientations towards style as an ordering feature of kitchen consumption for this group.

Building upon orientations towards kitchen order, notions of what constitutes ‘unity’ in style, provides another strong indicator of the similarities and differences between respondents. Corrigan (1997) develops two principles of unity which can be applied to household furnishings: object and subject unity. The former refers to the matching of objects according to brand or range unity, whereas the latter is achieved through the imposition of personal biography onto stylistic order. The LCC group followed the principle of object unity in terms of matching colours and products from a particular range. Kitchen décor unified in this form results in little aesthetic meaning other than the combination of formally complementary objects: "We’ve got like the same colour bin and washing-up bowl, drying rack and that, all beige plastic. You know we don’t want it to look like mix and match" (male, aged 39: 13). Style is not something that these respondents invest in their kitchen, as a functionally ordered room their orientation towards aesthetics amounts to nothing more than avoiding colour clashes.

In contrast, the HCC group favoured subject unity. Matching colours were important, however less so than the imposition of their own biography on stylistic unity. One woman had no qualms about placing a pine table in her oak unit kitchen, pine tables being significant to her from childhood memories of the kitchen, even though; "It’s a bit of a botched farmhouse, because we’ve kept the original units…Of course this [the pine table] doesn’t really go with the units [oak], especially if you go by the magazines" (Female, aged 47: 26). The ‘working kitchen aesthetic’ is another example. In this case, objects are unified according to the user’s creative cooking capacities, pans being placed in strategic locations to maximise efficiency when cooking, but also serving to create an aesthetic impression of ‘serious’ cooking practices. The over-riding emphasis of these narratives was that kitchen style should be unified through individual and personal pre-requisites, or as one lady claims in reference to bad taste:

"I think white, sterile kitchens are naff… [they] have no imagination, no life to them... they are cold,… too manufactured and show no individual touch... as if just having blue matching plastic bowls and bins is enough to make it look nice" (aged 31: 28).

For this group, kitchen tastes are not straightforward. The importance of aesthetics as symbolic of the values and practices which their kitchen embodies, requires that narratives of personal style are well developed. As a consequence, it is not surprising that all members of the HCC group discussed both their actual and ideal kitchens in great detail. What was surprising was the confidence with which these narratives were delivered (a point returned to in section 4.3).

Issues of quality were another prominent theme of discussion for the HCC group, but conspicuous by their absence in the conversations with LCC residents. To analyse this thematic differentiation, Holt’s (1997) ‘critical versus referential appreciation’ as a dimension of taste is instructive. For those with LCC, the quality of materials used to produce the kitchen units and various utensils, was only mentioned through passing reference to utility. As a form of ‘referential appreciation’ quality was hinted at in terms of, for example, old and trustworthy pans which had proven their durability. The LCC respondents with HEC, also refered to quality as judged through exchange value, claiming that in their experience the more expensive the item the better quality in relation to durability. These cases of referential appreciation of material qualities, further underlines this groups low level of cognitive engagement with kitchen consumption.

Again, in sharp distinction, the HCC group discussed quality by drawing upon Holt’s critical appreciation faculty, quality being judged in terms of rarity and distinction. The retention of the ‘original kitchen units’ by all members of the HCC group serves as a good example. These original kitchens were a feature of their houses when first built, and as distinctive from the rest of Yate’s housing stock, they are regarded by their users as exclusive, expensive and unavailable on the mass market. One lady provides a brief description: "it has the dark oak cupboards and the wooden beams in the ceiling, with a white plastic work surface and heavy large, grey splash tiles, oh and the heavy red quarry tile flooring" (aged 31, 7N). It was the rarity of the oak, its French origins and its symbolism of their home’s superiority in terms of Yate’s housing stock, through which these kitchens were judged as being good quality. This example is one amongst many offered by these respondents, who in contrast to the LCC group, invest a relatively high level of energy and thought into kitchen consumption, whichin order to reach conclusions of exclusivity, included a consideration of the various stylistic properties of kitchens both on the market and within other homes.

2.4. Originality versus massification.

The uniformity associated with standardised production and mass consumption has been met with great ‘fear’ by the middle classes throughout the course of modernity (Warde 1997). Such fears were not a great concern for those with LCC, after all "a kitchen’s a kitchen" (female, aged 49: 15). They did not perceive mass manufactured products as infringing upon individual expression, precisely because they did not perceive the kitchen as a particularly significant room for expressing personal taste. Kitchens provide little scope for individuation. Moreover, mass produced goods mediated through material culture provided a form of guidance, rather than something to be avoided:

"in the brochures, it said something like ‘close equivalent to farmhouse pine’... and that is the sort of style we wanted... Of course its not real pine that would be too expensive, but its modern" (female aged 36: 23).

Given perceptions of the kitchen as having little if any potential for personal expression by this group, it is not surprising that massification did not form a major concern. Their orientation towards the kitchen in terms of utility only, confirmed the low symbolic role of this room, with style amounting to little more than object unity as a measure of bad taste avoidance (i.e. colour clashes).

The HCC group take a rather different stance towards massification, indicated through their narratives of kitchen style as personal expressions of taste, and symbolic of achieved status. For Holt (1997: 114) ‘personal style is expressed through consumption practice even if the object itself is widely consumed’. Subjectivity can therefore be maintained (at least in an illusory fashion) despite processes of massification, through the investment of cultural and personal meanings in the material order of the kitchen, for example the principle of subject unity allows HCC respondents to take mass produced items, and order them in a way which de-commodifies and re-appropriates them in relation to subjective meaning (Miller 1987, McCracken 1986). Despite this sense of subjectivity, the similarity of this group’s taste orientations, and their attempts to distance themselves from mass culture (through the faculty of critical appreciation), both indicate that their kitchen tastes are not as individual as they suggest. Finally, given their relatively heavy personal investment in kitchen style, it is surprising that this group did not feel anxiety in the adequacy of the narratives they were discussing. That they were not anxious may tentatively be explained through a sense that just making attempts at personalisation in response to the uniformifying threat of mass culture, is enough to alleviate anxiety. The problem with this explanation is that all these respondents were certain that their attempts at evading mass culture are both successful and legitimate; and yet, such certainty must require some form of external confirmation, otherwise it could only be partial (this issue is discussed in section 4.3).

The close similarities within the two groups in relation to taste orientations, raises important questions concerning theories of individualisation. Before addressing these questions, it is necessary to briefly consider the kitchen usages of respondents, in order to paint a more complete picture of its symbolic role in everyday life, and the consumption practices which it permits.

Devault’s (1991) research on the social construction of family, argues that different groups engage and understand discursive formations of family ideology in different ways. Her working class respondents ‘absorbed discourses from the margins’, family life was thought about in relation to familiar practices revolving around ‘patterned customs’. This relationship to family discourse is demonstrated by the LCC group in terms of the meanings they applied to their use of the kitchen. Whilst this group was well versed in long-established discourses of hygiene and the kitchen as a space of household organisation (Cowens 1985; Miller 1988; Corrigan 1997), in line with their utilitarian orientations toward taste, they did not engage with discourses concerning the role of kitchens in family relationships.

In contrast, vigorous narratives of the role of the kitchen as a family room were dominant for the HCC group. Here the kitchen table was of great importance, all HCC respondents placing great emphasis on its irreplacibility as a conduit of family sociability:

"they should have a table… you can sit as a family and eat as a family, very, very important. A kitchen should be seen as a central room to the house and the family, a place for all the family to sit and talk" (male, aged 50: 24).

This pre-occupation with the table and narratives of family co-participation, indicate this groups concern with contemporary discourses which emphasise a sense of ‘loss’ or decline in the ‘well-being’ of the family (Morgan 1991). This decline was mostly related to a perceived lack of time in daily life, in which the family can spend ‘quality time’, a discourse not dissimilar from Linder’s (1970) ‘harried leisure class’. These narratives of family relationships are important in relation to the taste orientations of the two groups, the HCC respondents emotionally investing in the kitchen as a space symbolic of family values, whereas the LCC group view it as merely a functional room with no emotional investment in its meaning.

In a similar sense to producing the family, emotional investment in the symbolic role of kitchen usage also encompasses the marital relationship. For the LCC group marital relationships did not enter discussions, except for passing references to the domestic division of labour. In contrast, the HCC group perceived the kitchen as an important space for generating and sustaining a ‘pure relationship’ in the form Giddens (1991: 88) describes. The pure relationship involves ‘the transformation of intimacy’ as based upon ‘authentic trust’ which can only be built through intimate everyday communications and commitment (rather than mutual dependency). Intimacy as developed through meaningful communication and practice was clear in the descriptions of kitchen use by HCC respondents:

The kitchen table was also significant in this regard, many couples using the table as the site of intimate evening meals once the children had gone to sleep.

In line with their monistic meanings associated with usage, the LCC group did not use the kitchen for sociable purposes. This is largely because being a highly privatised group the LEC respondents did not socialise in their home. Those with HEC did invite other couples (but not groups of couples) into their home for meals (Southerton 1997), however the kitchen was off-bounds to these visitors. In contrast, the HCC respondents, all of whom had circles of close friends and socialised with neighbours, used the kitchen as a social space, with the table again playing an important symbolic role in social practice. The room was perceived as an informal space in which visitors were welcome to enter and participate in food preparation for social events:

"when people come around we often or usually sit in here. We tend to socialise around the table rather than in the lounge" (female, aged 44: 26).

"when we have people around they tend to come and have a drink with me in the kitchen… there’s no sort of ceremony, they like to be in the thick of it and helping" (female, aged 31: 28)

"we always start off in the kitchen, like if we have people around for a meal we don’t usher them straight in here (lounge) they go straight to the kitchen and start opening wine and things" (female, aged 37: 35).

The kitchen as a space of sociability is important in respect of the visibility of the kitchen to others and indicates that for this group the kitchen has meaning at various levels: it is a room of intimacy for couples; a room in which ideal family relationships can be achieved and performed; and a highly visible space open to symbolic consumption by friends, acquaintances and neighbours. The distinction in social usage of the kitchen between the two groups is significant given the heightened awareness of HCC respondents to the rooms symbolic properties. This is because an object can only be symbolic if others have the opportunity to read the message, the lack of visitors to LCC homes thus reducing symbolic potential. Sociability may also play an important role in the confirmation of appropriate kitchen tastes and usage, particularly given that HCC respondents socialise in their friends homes in the same way that their friends visited their’s.

In order to address the relationship between consumption and identity through the empirical analysis of kitchen tastes and usage, it is necessary to ‘back-track’ to clarify the implications of theories which suggest a profound shift in identity-formation. De-traditionalisation is a process often used to describe the decline of ascribed structural influences upon identity (Beck, Giddens & Lash 1994; Beck & Beck-Gernsheim 1996). Whilst the specific implications vary according to theorist, all agree that consumption has become a realm of individualisation and a crucial resource in the process of identity formation. Giddens is perhaps the most prominent and rigorous theorist of this body of literature, arguing that confronted by ‘a complex diversity of choices’ (Giddens 1991: 80) individuals are required to construct a reflexive biographic project of self:

‘Self-identity… is not something that is just given… but something that has to be routinely created and sustained in the reflexive activities of the individual… It is the self as reflexively understood by the person in terms of her or his biography’ (Giddens 1991: 52-53).

For Giddens, in order to alleviate the impending anxieties of narrating and sustaining a consistent sense of self-identity, the concept of lifestyle is crucial:

‘A lifestyle can be defined as a more or less integrated set of practices which an individual embraces, not only because such practices fulfil utilitarian needs, but because they give material form to a particular narrative of self-identity’ (Giddens 1991: 81).

Lifestyle or the ordering of consumption into a unified style, can reduce anxiety by limiting the number of choices through ‘a cluster of habits and orientations’ (Giddens 1991: 82). Unlike the fixities of traditional cultures, lifestyle implies the adoption of choice rather than the ‘handing down’ of dispositions toward consumption. So, whilst lifestyles may allow for the expression of coherent identities by symbolically unifying an individual’s consumption practices, the lack of certainty and non-foundational meaning of lifestyle, necessitates continual self-reflexivity in order to obviate the potential anxieties of identity.

Theories of individualisation are difficult to operationalise (Warde 1997), but they would lead us to anticipate a degree of diversity with regards to both kitchen styles and the meanings applied to its usage. The only way to explain similarity within groups would be due to each individual reflexively selecting the same lifestyle. Otherwise, whilst material constraints, age and life history would provide for a degree of similarity, the multitude of possible lifestyle options would lead individuals in various directions, each being required to select a lifestyle from a range of possibilities, thus encouraging diversity rather than patterned dispositions toward consumption.

However, the two groups of this research, showed a high degree of similarity according to levels of cultural capital, in the form and degree of style and meaning they invested in their kitchen. One explanation could be that the range of options are reduced in this particular consumption field. Kitchens are mass manufactured and individuals are constrained by what already existed in the kitchen space before they moved to the house, and by the size of the room. However, whilst the object as a whole is standardised, there are considerable possibilities for stylisation. ‘Modern’ and ‘farmhouse’ kitchens were discussed with varying degrees of stylisation, such as kitchens with or without vegetables on display, modern kitchens with or without matching coffee jars. These may only be small differences, but they were differences which were significant in relation to the similarities and differentiation of taste orientations within and between the two groups. Moreover, these similarities are not randomly distributed but relate to respondents’ structural position within social space.

HCC respondents all preferred the farmhouse style kitchen in which stylistic ordering was a more immediate secondary concern after function. In this sense, whilst the utilitarian role of the kitchen was noted, kitchen styles and appreciation of its potential aesthetic qualities was emphasised. Moreover, all respondents from this group laid claims to the importance of ‘subject unity’, kitchen aesthetics being utilised to express the ‘personal style’ of its user(s). The quality of kitchen materials was of particular importance and judged through critical appreciation of the symbolic value of its style. As such, critical appreciation of kitchen tastes allowed this group to at least feel that they could avoid the threat to subjectivity that processes of massification can produce.

It was not only the frameworks of judgment drawn upon to discuss kitchen tastes which demonstrate the similarity within the HCC group. They all invested the kitchen with emotional meaning associated to ideal family relationships, marital intimacy, and as a space where visitors could informally relax. This was best illustrated by this groups pre-occupation with the kitchen table, an object which symbolised the social as well as familial orientation towards kitchen usage. For HCC respondents, the role of the kitchen spread far beyond a utilitarian, functional room used only for domestic organisation.

Similarity was even stronger for the LCC group. This is largely because the LCC respondents did not invest much symbolic or stylistic meaning in their kitchens. It is a room of utility, mass produced with little scope for personal stylisation other than the matching of colours and products from a particular brand range. As such, the role of the kitchen was only discussed in relation to its function as the efficient organisation of household chores, it is a "working room" (female, aged 49: 15).

The striking similarities within the two groups in relation to orientations of taste and style in kitchen consumption, and the role this room plays within the home, demonstrates that these people are not individualised to the extent suggested by proponents theories of individualisation. It is not only the coherence of tastes within the two groups, but also the consistent distance between them with regards to their consumption orientations, which suggest that levels of economic and particularly cultural resources have a significant effect upon frameworks of taste, even in the most ordinary of settings. Despite being a mass produced, standardised room, the consumption of kitchens both stylistically and in practice, can be sharply differentiated between groups, and yet is remarkably similar for those who broadly share the same locations within social space.

Analysis of kitchen tastes and usage may cast significant doubts over theories of individualisation, but patterned consumption orientations alone, does not cast much light upon the relationship between consumption and agents propensities to reflexively produce and re-produce their own identity(ies). To address this issue, it is useful to consider the dichotomy between self and social identity in contemporary theory. Jenkins (1996: 12-15) makes two critical observations. First, theories assume a distinction between individuals as concrete forms, and the social as an abstract form ‘standing over them’, a discourse which separates personal (body and mind) and social (tradition, values and community) identities. Secondly, whilst this distinction is not necessarily incorrect, treating the two categories of individual and society as axiomic can be problematic, particularly when one form of identity is taken as determinant of the other. For Jenkins self and social identity cannot be separated, they are inextricably bound:

"the ‘self’ as an ongoing and, in practice simultaneous, synthesis of (internal) self-definition and the (external) definitions of oneself offered by others. This offers a template… of the internal-external dialectic of identification as the process whereby all identities – individual and collective – are constituted" (Jenkins 1996: 20).

In discussing kitchens, particularly with regards to judgments of good and bad taste, notions of ‘I’, in Mead’s (1934) sense of the term, were bound with the ‘Me’ and particularly the ‘Us’. Senses of self could not be determined without reference to those who they perceived as having the same, and different tastes in kitchen style, and the meanings applied to practice. Here Bourdieu’s (1984) observation that ‘classification classifies the classifier’ is important, as such classifications by definition, are to some extent reflexive in relation to thinking ‘who am I?’. In this sense reflexivity of social identity maybe as much if not more significant than reflexivity of self-identity. If this is the case, then the opportunities for individuals to continually create and recreate their own self biography, will be constrained by their understandings of the social world (Becker 1984) with which they identify, and their perceptions of the social worlds of others whom they classify as different. There is a tension between individually determined reflexive self-identity and social identities as formed through identification and classification.

The ability of all respondents to discuss their kitchen consumption in a relatively lucid manner, suggests a degree of reflexivity in relation to questions of ‘who am I?’ Although it is difficult to measure reflexivity through the kitchen alone, what is interesting from the data presented are degrees of reflexivity. Moreover, given the relationship between self and social identity outlined above, the ‘Them’ and ‘Us’ distinction as terms of identification and classification, may provide further insights into the form and extent of self-reflexivity of those interviewed.

For the LCC group reflexivity was limited, identification came through the generic use of class as an organising category of dispositions. Statements such as: "people around here, they don’t go for the best china and that when they come around" (male, aged 39: 13), and "we’re all roughly speaking, working class around here, you know Joe average, no pretences" (male, aged 54: 2) indicate a broad identification according to class and residential location. Moreover, the emphasis of these respondents on the functional utilitarian importance of the kitchen largely came within the frameworks of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’, again associated to class:

"the kitchen’s for cooking in and making sandwiches in and that’s about all, and I think most people around here are the same. We see our kitchens as kitchens and not as a sort of lounge stroke kitchen." (male, aged 40: 5).

"It’s a middle class thing. There’s no point in getting too carried away like some people do. You hear of all the pretty kitchens in north Yate and that, Sue does cleaning for some of them, but you know, a kitchen has to be easy to use and clean, I mean what’s the point, it’s a functional thing. We’ll it is for most of the people around here, I’m sure of that" (female, aged 41: 14).

For this group the kitchen was not a space in which good taste could be judged. However, bad taste in the form of extravagance and pretension were strong themes of classification, dispositions which they associated with the middle class:

"I mean its not a showhouse, its a home its a working thing, I don’t believe in a showhouse, its too perfect, after all, when all’s said and done you have to cook in there, you don’t want to be scared to dirty a pan… there are people like that, you know the sort, professional people" (female, aged 57: 1)

The LCC group demonstrate limited reflexivity in terms of identification and classification, both being discussed in generic senses as related to stereotyped views of class. However, this undoubtedly led to a sense of self-identity in terms of personal traits, for example, being "down-to-earth" or "average". This characterisation of identity was in no way problematic for this group, largely because it was always discussed as the generic ‘Us’. As such, there is little sense of continual questioning or revision of lifestyle, and little discussion of agents ability to re-orientate their identity or re-consider their consumption orientations. This is best illustrated by their inability to imagine ideal kitchens beyond expansion and modification of what they already have, and their limited concern with the symbolic properties of aesthetics.

In contrast, the HCC group had elaborate ideals which not only included style but also ideal practice. The dominance of the rural idyllic image of farmhouse kitchens in which the family spend ‘quality time’, demonstrates a propensity towards reflexivity in terms of the ideal future. Moreover, a clear sense of the past was illustrated by this groups retention of the original fitted kitchen units. A narrative concerning a coherent past and future is being developed, marking social trajectory in terms of social and geographical mobility (i.e. their movement to the elite housing in Yate), indicating reflexivity of self-identity through life planning and as an attempt at narrating a coherent identity, the answer to the question ‘who am I?’ is partially answered in relation to ‘Where I have come from’, and ‘the direction in which I would like to go’.

To return to social identity however, the biographical narratives presented by this group makes little if any sense without identification and classification. Pride was an important expression of both self-identity and identification for the HCC group. The retention of original kitchens symbolised personal pride in their achieved social and geographical mobility, and the subsequent rise in EC, which (almost) facilitated their aspiration for the desired family and marital relations in Giddens sense of the ‘pure relationship’. Whilst this relates to notions of reflexive self-identity, it was again most clearly expressed in the ‘Us’, the sense of pride in the personal was a shared sense of pride emanating from the collective values and orientations of those who made up their social world. This social world comprised of friends and neighbours who they ‘know’ share their orientations toward kitchen consumption due to sociability; not only did they see each-others kitchens, but they also discussed them: "we all, and I know that all the people in this street have got or would like to have a proper wooden table in their kitchen. And that is for the same reason as us, because it’s a very positive thing to have for the family, not for show or anything" (male, aged 54: 24).

Classification came in the form of social distancing of ‘Us’ from ‘Them’. Such classifications were based upon two levels of differentiation, the first being knowledge of those within the their social world, who had rejected their orientations towards kitchen style and usage. This is illustrated through reference to those who had failed to retain their original kitchen:

"There is only one couple in this street which I have known who changed the existing cupboards... they took down their cupboards and went for MFI would you believe. We [the neighbours] thought how mad they was." (male, aged 45: 34).

"When these houses were built it was the quality of the kitchen which was emphasised. Although the people who first brought the house over there... they painted the units yellow." (Male, aged 50: 29). His wife replies: "They painted them, that’s sacrilege" (Female, aged 49: 29).

Second, on a more generic scale, ‘Them’ was associated with the presumed practices and tastes of those classified as outside of their social world. These were people who failed to appreciate the importance of the kitchen as a conduit for the ideal family relationship, and like the LCC respondents, such classifications had undertones of class distinction:

"I suppose the people in south Yate… don’t spend lots of time in the kitchen, cooking and things. You know, generally speaking, but because they have smaller kitchens they are likely to eat off trays, you know all sat in front of the Tele and not talking and that... I would say that people in this street, we’ll the ones I know, most use and see the kitchen in a very similar way to us. Its funny really, but we are very similar in that sense" (female, aged 37: 35).

Identification and classification are not straightforward for the HCC group. Whilst generic associations of class distinction in relation to social distance was an apparent mechanism of classification, identification came in the form of association with immediate others, particularly friends and neighbours who acted to confirm their dispositions toward the tastes and meanings they associated with their kitchens. Warde (1994) convincingly argues that the middle classes would ultimately be a very anxious set of individuals given theories of individual identity-formation. These middle class people were not, they discussed kitchen consumption and taste with a surprising degree of confidence, which is largely due to the confirmation that the social world in which they reside is actually as they think it is. They may be reflexive about social identification in which classification plays an important anchoring role, and as a consequence they appear more self-reflexive than the LCC group. However, they show few signs of continual reflexive re-definition of their lifestyle, due to reduction of contingency and the options available to them within their social world. Decisions about ‘how to act’ and ‘who to be’ are not problematic for this group, because these are confirmed in daily life by the coherence of shared dispositions toward taste and meaning within their social world. In short, limited reflexivity on the ‘external’ is enough to confirm ‘internal’ self-definitions, thus reducing anxiety and the prerequisite for continual reflexive monitoring of the self.

In their everyday consumption of kitchens, these broadly lower- and middle-class respondents – divided according to levels of EC and CC – demonstrated striking similarities within, and consistent distances between their orientations towards taste and kitchen usage. LCC respondents viewed their kitchen in purely functional terms, investing it with little personal or emotional meaning and style was only considered in relation to the matching of colours. In contrast, the most consistent feature of the HCC group was their orientation towards taste as personal expression, and as symbolic of their values and attitudes towards its usage (family, marital, social). The lack of diversity within the two groups, and the relationship between respondents levels of economic and cultural capital with their orientations towards taste and usage, demonstrates that these people are not individualised in the sense presented by theories of individualisation. This is because the association between levels of capital and social class, indicates that the consumption dispositions of this sample bear a strong correlation with their structural characteristics, rather than being selected autonomously from the range of lifestyle options available.

This research also raises tentative questions regarding the concept of reflexivity. Of the groups identified, only those with HCC demonstrated a degree of self-reflexivity. Not only were they more concerned with style as an expression of personal taste, their discussions of the kitchen were also wrapped in stories about ‘where they come from’ and the direction in which they ‘would like to go’; biographical narratives which considered the question ‘Who Am I?’. However, the degree of similarity, and confidence with which both groups discussed their kitchen tastes and usage as appropriate and legitimate, does not support a sense of lifestyle in which people continually re-adjust their biographic narrative. A consideration of the relationship between self and social identity as illuminated by processes of identification and classification, is instructive here. The least reflexive group are not anxious or unsure about identity, as both self and social identity are seen as ordered in relation to presumed class dispositions. Such ordering results in the question ‘Who Am I?’, being answered through their identification and classification with generic narratives of class, the answer to the question is: "we’re…[therefore I am]… working class". The more reflexive see themselves as individuals whose tastes and usage of the kitchen are shared and confirmed as legitimate through sociability, providing for a sense of knowing that ‘Us’ are the same and reducing any potential anxieties (and options) concerning the legitimacy of self-identity. This is due to confirmation from the ‘Us’ that the social world in which they live is actually as they think it is. The people interviewed for this research are neither individualised, nor particularly self-reflexive in their kitchen consumption, although the professional middle class HCC group demonstrate significant reflexivity with regards to social identity.

I would like to thank all the people who allowed me into their home to quiz them about their kitchen, amongst other issues. I would also like to thank Kerry Southerton for her patience and perceptions, Elizabeth Shove and Andrew Sayer for comments on various versions of this paper and my kitchens data. Special thanks are reserved for Alan Warde who has been crucial in all elements of this research, and in developing and cementing this particular paper.

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Figure 1: Socio-economic characteristics of south and north Yate heads of households (small area statistics, UK census 1991).

KEY:

1. Professional. 5. Semi-skilled manual.

2. Employers and managers. 6. Unskilled manual.

3. Intermediate and junior non-manual. 7. Economically inactive.

4. Skilled manual.

Figure 2: Geographical mobility of respondents from natal locality.

Key: South Yate North Yate a North Yate b

2. Bristol region. 6. N. England & Wales.

4. S.E. England.

Figure 3: Internal sample locations of respondents in social space.

Economic capital was calculated by weighting significant material possessions (house value and number of cars) with the occupational status of heads of households and secondary incomes (part-time work was afforded half the value of a full-time equivalent occupation). Education capital was calculated through qualifications of both partners (highest being post-graduate honours for both partners).