Liquid Consumption

Italian Sociological Review, 2016

This paper aims to offer a reflection on the latest developments concerning the study of consumption in the field of sociology in order to outline a conceptual, albeit not comprehensive, map. Specifically, the intention of this paper is to map a precise point of departure for the approaches which are currently better able to interpret the processes of consumption that characterise modern societies. The literature review has clearly shown a convergence of interests on consumption practices that focuses on material and tangible issues. Approaches that refer to the theories of practice, material culture and studies on science and technology (STS) inspired by the actor network theory (ANT) share an interest in this aspect by offering viewpoints which, although specific, are definitely complementary. The sociology of consumption, through an approach that is both multifaceted and focused, has a major opportunity to provide interpretative frameworks which are increasingly articulate and p...

Journal of Consumer Research, 2012

This study investigates consumers' relationship to possessions in the condition of contemporary global nomadism. Prior research argues that consumers form enduring and strong attachments to possessions because of their centrality to identity projects. This role is heightened in life transitions including cross-border movements as possessions anchor consumer's identities either to their homeland or to the host country. This study reexamines this claim via in-depth interviews with elite global nomads, deterritorialized consumers who engage in serial relocation and frequent short-term international mobility. An alternative relationship to possessions characterized by detachment and flexibility emerges, which is termed "liquid." Three characteristics of a liquid relationship to possessions are identified: temporary situational value, use-value, and immateriality. The study outlines a logic of nomadic consumption, that of instrumentality, where possessions and practices are strategic resources in managing mobility. A liquid perspective on possessions expands current understandings of materiality, acculturation, and globalization. How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack.. .. I want you to feel the straps on your shoulders.. .. You feel them? Now, I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life. Start with the little things. The stuff in drawers and on shelves. The collectibles and knick-knacks. Feel the weight as it adds up. Now, start adding the larger stuff. Your clothes, table top appliances, lamps, linens, your TV. That backpack should be getting really heavy at this point-go bigger. Your couch, your bed, your kitchen table.

2015

2019

As a cultural phenomenon, consumption is one of the key concepts forunderstanding modern societies, because modern man’s lifestyle, aesthetic tasteand desires are strongly dependent on his/her cultural consumption. A literaturereview in the tradition of consumption studies demonstrates that at least threeparadigm shifts in consumption theories have taken place: Consumption as apassive act, consumption as a communicative act, and consumption as an act ofresistance. As a consequence of these paradigm shifts, the practice of consumingcultural commodities has become the focus of attention in Cultural Studies withan emphasis on the discussion of this practice. With this epistemology at hand, thepresent paper situated itself within the context of consumption studies paradigmsto explain contemporary Iranians’ consumption behavior within the cyberspaceknown as “virtual consumption”, which is of cultural and ideological significancefor cultural analysts. Accordingly, the three waves of virtu...

Consumption and Society

We are delighted to present the inaugural issue of Consumption and Society. Our ambition for the journal is to invigorate and innovate the field of consumption studies and to renew the relevance of the study of consumption for the global social challenges of the 21st century. Consumption and Society will contribute to debates on contested aspects of consumption, such as environmental impacts, digitalisation, the shifting balance of collective versus private consumption, commodification and inequalities. Moreover, the journal aims to bring the distinctive lens of consumption studies to key contemporary debates, around issues such as the Anthropocene, care, decolonisation, surveillance capitalism, platform economies and political populism. This reflects an understanding of consumption as embedded in wider socioeconomic, political and cultural configurations, and intrinsically related to issues of social and environmental justice, as well as other normative notions such as prosperity, wellbeing and the good life. Journals are often launched in response to a particular historical moment and to scholarly reflection on those new times. This was certainly true of the two major journals of our field, Consumption, Markets and Culture, founded in 1997, and The Journal of Consumer Culture, founded in 2001. In the editorial introduction to the first issue of Consumption, Markets and Culture, Fuat Firat (1997: 1) reflected that the journal would address these three phenomena through which 'understanding of the critical issues of the end of the twentieth century' were commonly conceived. The title of The Journal of Consumer Culture is equally instructive of the core concerns of consumption scholarship at the time of its launch. The field of consumption studies was an early touchstone for major debates on macro-social change, especially around the issues of globalisation, the rise of cultural pluralism, aestheticisation and the decline of traditional

Annual Review of Sociology, 2004

Consumption is a social, cultural, and economic process of choosing goods, and this process reflects the opportunities and constraints of modernity. Viewing consumption as an “institutional field,” the review suggests how consumption bridges economic and cultural institutions, large-scale changes in social structure, and discourses of the self. New technologies, ideologies, and delivery systems create consumption spaces in an institutional framework shaped by key social groups, while individual men and women experience consumption as a project of forming, and expressing, identity. Studying the institutional field requires research on consumer products, industries, and sites; on the role of consumption in constructing both the consuming subject and collective identity; and on historical transitions to a consumer society. Ethnography, interviews, and historical analysis show a global consumer culture fostered by media and marketing professionals yet subject to different local interpre...

International journal of advanced research, 2022

Advances in Consumer Research, 2005

In this paper, we propose an analytical framework for the investigation of consumers’ lived experience of identity related consumption in stable and transitional phases. The framework integrates the ideas (1) that objects can support the consumer’s identity construction because of their ’signal’ value-or because of their potential to provide the consumer with a certain ’experience’ of self, (2) that these meanings can reside in a ’common’ domainor in a more ’private’ domain, and (3) that these meanings can be vehicles for the ongoing ‘maintenance’ as well as ‘acquisition’ or ‘disposition’ of important life roles.

2006

The working papers are produced by the Bradford University School of Management and are to be circulated for discussion purposes only. Their contents should be considered to be preliminary. The papers are expected to be published in due course, in a revised form and should not be quoted without the author’s permission.

The affordances introduced by digital technologies are reshaping consumption practices. Individuals are now engaging in networks rather than markets, and ownership-based consumption is giving way to the previously unattractive access-based, collaborative consumption. Such consumption practices produce different relationships between objects and personal identity, on which there is limited research. By means of an ethnographic study, we analyze the nature of consumer-object relationships in the context of Airbnb – a technology-mediated consumption model based on accessing private possessions. Our findings suggest that the consumption experience is meaningful and self-enriching if consumers identify with the accessed consumption object. However, identification is compromised when there is a perceived mismatch, diminishing the consumption experience. Nevertheless, access-based consumption is sometimes a reflexive strategy used to signal anti-consumption ideologies. We thus propose that technology-mediated, access-based consumption is challenging the normative power of ownership in the construction of identity, changing the symbolic repertoire of the contemporary consumer.