These are the fragments of a half-finished PhD project about second-hand shopping, and why we love it. I have a lot of material, interview data from second hand shoppers, wholesalers, retailers… but in wanting to remain true to the emotive importance of second hand shopping the academic argument of the original piece just sort of fell apart. What do you do with all that information, if it can’t be shaken down, interrogated or otherwise knocked into a cogent shape? These are my thoughts, inspired as always by Walter Benjamin and the work he left, for much more seismic reasons, unfinished: The Arcades Project.
I’m Alix, sometime office bum, sometime postgraduate, and recent mum: I live in Leeds.
Second Hand Shopping 