Consumption and Identity: An Anthropographical Study of Market Youth of Baneh City

Border trade in Kurdish regions has had a considerable growth due to the border situation and expansion of global markets. Due to the considerable and increasing growth of the commercial spaces in the field under study over the past twenty years, the City of Baneh has become known as the City of malls and shopping tourism has found a considerable place in it. The present paper within framework of ethnography method is an attempt to study local people’s identity due to their consumption of international goods. In this regard, besides participative observation, interviews were conducted with 19 active youth in the market environment. On the basis of the narratives of the interviewees, market has been turned into the dominant culture of the current city and the engine and main incentive of the public for work and activity. The findings of the research indicate that the establishment of the market has brought about such trends as anti-social individualism, single-dimensional man, ritualization of the public habit, emergence of fragmented identity, moderation of justice, metamorphosis of values, popular capitalism, reactive management and a mindset of the uncertainty about tomorrow.