Consumer Culture

This unit aims at providing a theoretically informed sociological understanding of contemporary consumer cultures and practices. While adopting an interdisciplinary outlook, it mainly deals with the sociology of consumption, concentrating on contemporary social phenomena of global relevance. The unit starts by discussing the historical development of so-called consumer capitalism, highlighting the relevance of urbanization, colonialism, changes in social stratification (class, gender) and international commerce. It then focuses on the most important theories of consumer action, considering how economics, sociology and anthropology have provided a number of distinctive perspectives on the functions, meanings and mechanisms of consumption. It finally considers the politics of consumer culture. It thus addresses: cultural industries as a vehicle for hegemonic views of the "consumer"; commercially mediated spaces as institutional contexts for a variety of dominant or alternative and critical consumer practices and identities; the process of globalization/localization as realized through the global standardization of commodity chains and alternative, locally grounded market circuits; consumer identities with particular attention to gender codes in consumer culture, media and emotional scripts; consumer places and institutions with attention to the coding of emotions and social relations; food practices and rituals as examples of consumption.