Challenging consumerism

In a perfect world, people would give and take from each other freely, according to Bosque Lights co-organizer Cameron James.

So James helped organize a gift market, which is similar to a flea market or barter exchange — except that people give and take with no expectation of return.

James said items at the market have included vintage bikes, working typewriters, a brand new Yamaha keyboard, a book from the 1880s and old Nintendos.

“Most of the time, you can tell people aren’t just giving away junk stuff,” he said. “It’s things they have that are valuable, but that they don’t have any use for and that they know somebody else will.”

The market isn’t just for material possessions — it’s for services as well. Massage therapists, yogis, herbalists, button makers and slackline walkers have all offered their services.

“We’re trying to build up less of the goods and more of the services,” he said. “It makes it more dynamic and less materialistic.”

James said an herbalist helped them harvest herbs from the area around the market.

“The herbalist really blew my mind,” James said. “She said she was doing an herb walk, and I was like ‘Well then we’re going to walk all far.’ She did it right where we were and started picking stuff out and it was amazing.”

He said everyone tries to be as unselfish as possible, and that the market hasn’t had any problems with maintaining that mentality. James said he gave away more than half of his material possessions there. For the first gift market, he and others dumpster-dove around the UNM dorms when everyone was moving out.

They found a brand new printer, a George Foreman grill and a keyboard.

“When people move out of the dorms, they throw away all of this really valuable stuff,” he said. “I can’t help but think that they’re just spoiled brats.”

James said he learned about the gift economy from writer/philosopher/activist Charles Eisenstein.

“Something that he said that really hit me hard was ‘Community happens through intimacy, and intimacy can’t happen through joint consumerism. It can only happen through joint creativity and gift giving,’” he said. “That’s basically what we’re doing.”