The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies

Symbolic Value

MICHELE BONAZZI

University of Bologna, Italy

DOI: 10.1002/9781118989463.wbeccs225

The symbolic value of an object refers to the semantic and cultural universe linked to it, which allows consumers to express their identity and social membership. Goods are symbolic as opposed to their supposed functionality; they are symbolic because they represent embodied symbols. The value of a good, therefore, is not only connected to its tangible aspects, that is, its structural characteristics and usefulness, but it is dematerialized and becomes sign, symbol, and communication. A commodity tells a story and at the same time becomes a form of identity expression, with a code and a language that are reflected in the system of meanings attributed to it. This process of signification is developed through a subjective reworking that, however, can be extended to the collective level, through rituals of exchange and sharing. Cultural anthropology has undoubtedly been a particularly fertile field for the study of consumption as a practice of signification.

In The Gift, Mauss (1990/1922) explains how the ritual exchange of goods, based on the principle of reciprocity, represents one of the most common and universal ways to create human relations. According to Mauss the gift exchange becomes a “total social fact,” that is, a specific aspect of a culture that is related to all the others, and therefore through its analysis it is possible to understand by extension the different components ...