Possession of Extended Self
To have is to be- Possession of extended self
Shopping is not merely the acquisition of things: it is the buying of Identity (Clammer, 1992).
Sartre (1998) maintains that ābeingā and āhavingā are intimately intertwined. Ontologically, without āhavingā, ābeingā cannot be realized. He asserts, āThe bond of possession is an internal bond of beingā. Basically, Sartre states we come to know who we are through what we possess. We acquire, create, sustain and present a sense of existential self by observing our possessions. The notion of āto have is to beā is also affirmed by Belk (1988) and Dittmar (1992). Exploring the formula, āI am = what I have and what I consume.ā Fromm, (1976) and Dittmar (1992) elaborates:
Material possessions have socially constituted meaningsā¦ this symbolic dimension of material objects plays an important role for the ownerās identity. ā¦This suggests that material social reality in an integral, pervasive aspect of everyday social life, of constructing others and ourselves.
Moreover, Belk (1988), examines the relationship between āhaving and ābeingā by approaching possessions as the extended self.
āA manās Me is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his physic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yachts and bank account.ā P:139
Conceivably, we put together whatever we perceive as āoursā into our selves. Sartre (1998), explains things and people become a part of our extended self if we hold a sense that we have created, controlled or known them. Indeed, to be able to do so, we need to invest our energy, power, effort, time, and attention in it; and the self has given this energy, as a result, the self symbolically extends into possessions