Lecture 1 a

Question 1

What is consumption?

Answer 1

Hasn’t always been that way- consumer mentality- people used to think collectively

Construction of capitalists

Consumption shapes all our lives

Globalisation of capitalism throughout the world- everyday effects our lives- our identity of everyday
environment- to consume- to indirectly - direct use the environment
interconnectedness of the world- linked to consumption

Singapore- consumption parking lot- huge ships

Question 2

Key thinkers- Karl marx

Answer 2

• commodity fetishism- curtain separates us the consumers from the production process

Question 3

Two implications - consumption

Answer 3

simultaneously exploitation of poorly paid workers and the environment
socio nature- linked inevitable- cant be separated- what kind of social natures do we want- we are making a toxic one now

Question 4

Walter Benjamin

Answer 4

kind of different to marx - cultural process- multiple meanings

how we understand the shopping experiences

Implications- consumption- shapes how we experience the world

research implications- assumption

Question 5

Is consumption a political process?

Answer 5

neoliberalism - thatcher and reagan - has an agenda- stress on the individual on the market- individual choice in the capitalist market

Fair trade- raise the prices- how fair is fair trade- how do you operationalise the word fair?- is it the lowest coffee growers on the intermediate ones?

What is anti- consumption?- Soviet union

Britain- neoliberalism heart of capitalism???

Question 6

What is consumer choice?

Answer 6

advertising- tricks of it- we perceive it as natural- idea of sales

Agency- what is helping with agency of choice- celebrities now?- bottled water- to pay for water- construction of identity- what next bottled air? rainforest air
part of our lives in our consciousness- scientists are higher hands?
links to business- business agendas affecting the consumer agenda

Question 7

How fair is consumption about geography?

Answer 7

space issues
Place- emotive sense of home- affected perception of place
human- environmental
all point to consumption as theme

Question 8

Brands and Branding

Answer 8

Brand- from the norse brandr-to burn
used to confirm ownership - often based on violence- not just slavery- violence to areas- land is privatised and exploited
development of commerce- capitalism

Question 9

Government- after Foucault

Answer 9

government- not the normal one- our discipline- what happens in the heads- ‘natural’ that we pay taxes- take it as a given
there is a right way to behave- can be also communism- power is weakest at the barrel of the gun- more power into letting people surrender- i.e. self discipline ourselves

Question 10

Modern Branding

Answer 10

distances us from nature- the marx curtain
is it ‘modern’ branding? - consumer mind- colonialising your mind is that what branding is?
selling a lifestyle a normalised way- an abstraction