Consumption Flashcards
What does consumption mean?
can be understood as the complex sphere of social relations and discourses which centre on the sale, purchase and use of commodities. for many individuals, consumption is both a visible and pervasive part of everyday life. a trip tote market a store may be a taken-for-granted aspect of everyday life for many but these actions play a crucial role in the creation and expression of place. (mansvelt 2005:1)
Gross(2011[2005]) consumption is
a recent addition to geographical thinking on the economy. where economy and culture meet. consumption is symbolic. says something about society, and how we live.
Why beyond need
we don’t just buy the things we need, we buy the things we want to. consumption plays a large part in our lives, but also in our cultural lives
Bauman 1990 view on consumption
consumer attitude is relation to buying unnecessary items to help ‘cope’ with the everyday demands of life.
Hines 2002 view on consumption
we are ‘dupes we are all shoppers now.
Consumption isn’t simple
we don’t just buy anything- you can’t create markets, but you can read them. react to them and speak to them . we appropriate objects: take them, rework them, make them mean something more. Daniel miller (1998,2008 2009): consumers aren’t dupes. we are increasingly savvy.
commodities are
good or services. specifically, commodities are good which are at least partially fungible. often, it doesn’t matter where commodities are from, or who produced them-what matters is what it is or what it represents.
what is the context of the commodity (sack (1992))
advertising lies to us, yet we accept it. why? adverts evoke different spaces and times. we conflate material and symbolic worlds.we know that products can’t possible do all of the things adverts promise.
the commodity fetish
failure to recognize and interrogate the social relations that produce objects. we imbue objects with magical properties. hence why we fall in love with certain brands
consumption and identity
displaying our identity through the things we buy and own. Consumption is about creatively appropriating products to construct lifestyles expressive of individual and collective identity (gross 2011 [2005].
Consumption spaces
i.e. shopping malls. Goss (1993): manipulation of shoppers (music, bright lights, exits. hard to find, smells and sounds tightly controlled often made to look like outside streetscapes. Erkip (2003): shopping is a social activity for many
Erkip (2003)
the mall in Turkey is a heterogeneous democratic space. Fulfills an important leisure function community, sociability. Consumption-scapes are historically geographically, politically, socially contingent.
Alternative spaces of consumption
charity shops accordingto Horne and Maddrell (2002, 1994). are marginal economically, and often spatially
Gregson and Crewe (2003) alternative spaces of consumption
second hand shopping emphasis’s that many objects have a use value long after they are first purchased.point of purchase just one stage in the process of consumption
Undoing fetishism
we may chose to try and make visible the relations of production that result in the things we buy. call to recognise the links between the spheres of production and consumption. can we reject or undo commodity fetishism.
consumption is political
Klein (2000): consumers need to be aware of how their goods are produced. Corporations aspire to ‘hide’ the realities of sweatshops from the buying public klein’s book.
What is fairtrade
example of how consumers might question patterns of consumption. making link between products that are consumed and people that produce them
what about Apple’s foxconn plants
apple treatment of workers at foxconn plants. poor working/ conditions. in 2010, 14 people jumped to theirdeath from the tower blocks. boycott apple campaign.they also embody the social relations of productions.
Adopt a sheep.
schemes have the ability to bring home distanced food production.enabled the creation of particular sets of ethical relations.
Consumption and activism
Barnett et all (2005) ‘ caring ata distance. fairtrade, green consumerism, anti sweatshop movement. consumers understand their actions as part of a chain of production/ consumption. consumption might be about resistance. or just another way of claiming an identity.
Ethical consumption
is criticised for being just another marketing tool. Consumption as citizenship: what about those who can’t afford to consume ‘ethically?
Globalising consumption
Mcdonaldisation, disneyisation. Appadurai 1996:32: as rapidly as forces from various metropolises are brought into new societies they tend to be indigenised in one way or another. local does not entirely ‘disappear in the face of the global. eg. MacDonald in India will not serve beef or pork.
In conclusion
consumption closely linked to production. consumers make meaning from things . we display our identity through the things we buy and own. places given meaning by consumption . globalisation does not not equal homogenisation. commodities produce differences
