Carrick-on-Shannon  Car Boot Sale
 
The open bazaar & human relations

The bazaar is the hub of social and economic relations outside of consent and control. Value and worth operate on a different register. A fuller, more accurate reflection of the shifting composition of the social fabric is presented. Multiple layers of race, gender, age, spirituality, political view, education, family, desires and trajectories converge outside of their ghettoised existences.

The community assembles as a 'dis-unity' (a uni-diversity), manifesting a common arena, form and foundation for social, political and cultural survival. An economy of people, objects and their relations: a parallel public consciousness.

Through the principle of the bazaar, conceived of as a model through which the means and methods for producing a harmonious state of co-existence are constantly evolving, individuals and communities find their territorial limits, settle their differences and seal their bonds, in open and visible inter-relations.

By virtue of its openness and visibility the common space presents and challenges perceptions emanating from a society where public opinion ferments behind closed doors, informed by means of institutionally filtered broadcast techniques.

Entrenched beliefs are questioned through contact with the 'Other'. Cultural differences point to alternative possibilities and hybrid configurations: Evidence of life from beyond the screen of public pre- and mis- conception challenges media stereotyping and mis-information.

Punters

The 'transient' enter in and pass through, in contrast to the seemingly permanent and familiar for whom the sale is the weekly point of contact with distant neighbours.

Being on the side of the busy main road between the East and the West coasts of Ireland, there are passers-by on their way to other destinations but who stop to satisfy their curiosity. Attracted by the opportunity to pick up a bargain, find some interesting, useful or sought after object for a good price.

Some have an irresistible compulsion to buy something no matter what it is or whether it will lie idle in a shed long afterwards. One often hears a person say that they have no need for the thing they are buying but that they must come away with something to bring home. The desire is to engage in the search, discovery and price negotiation and leave as if having caught some game, or won a prize, reward or trophy. Some see their buying as a form of financial support, using their resources to maintain the economic flow of the community and perpetuate the car boot sale's existence.

Dealers scour the stalls looking for objects to lift out of the boot sale level of trade and transfer to shop or auction house level, where higher prices can be realised. They are the gatekeepers to a market that is inaccessible directly to marginal communities. Their advantage is knowledge and network connections. 


Studies