Understanding Consumption: Key Themes in Consumerism and Its Impact on Society

1. What is consumption?A quick 15mins overview Anthony Rafferty ESDS Government Centre for Census and Survey Research (CCSR) University of Manchester

2. Consumption: Of Major importance • Immense topic +multi-disciplinary. So will focus on ‘consumerism’ and several key consumption themes. Consumption describes: • Our relation to the economy • What we do to the environment • What we do to our bodies • Our cultures and identities

3. 1 Emergence of (contemporary) Consumerism • Early Sociological interest: Durkheim • C18/19 diversification and differentiation; the rise of the flaneur • C20 ‘Fordism’?: Mass Production requires mass consumerism; post-ford (+China)? • Needs and Desire: Mass production needs mass desire? • Individualisation: Cause and Consequence of consumerism? (e.g. Giddens) • C20 technology advances; mass media; advertising; market research..Commodification of culture

4. Stearns (1997) “Consumerism describes a society in which many people formulate their goals in life partly through acquiring goods that they clearly do not need for subsistence of for traditional display” (p.102-117)

5. 2 Economics of consumption • Economics concerned more with rational choice of consumers rather than ‘cultural’ aspects of consumption • Consumption as driver of economic growth • Rapid increases in living standards / consumer choice • Consumption data for monitoring the economy and assessing performance. • Retail spending/ Consumer confidence/ inflation indices • Current Example research issues: • Consumption and the ‘the debt crisis’

6. Mention the wider economics… • Inequalities in consumption • Globally, the 20% of the world’s people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures — the poorest 20% = 1.3%. The richest fifth consume: • 45% of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5% • 58% of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4% • Have 74% of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth 1.5% • 84% of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1% • Own 87% of the world’s vehicle fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1% (Human Development Report 1998 Overview)

7. 3 What we do to the environment • The consequences of consumerism (and inequality) • Environmental impact • Resource degradation • The ‘Carbon footprint’ • Eco-consumerism • Re-thinking ‘efficiency’ • Example current research topics: Car and public transportation usage; Estimating carbon footprints; Household Waste

8. 4 What we do to our bodies • Abundance: the hunter/gatherer at the supermarket. • Convenience food: Modern life fit for internal consumption? • Ill health and diet (obesity and cancer) • Alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs • Example research topics: Diet, exercise and obesity; consumption of public health services

9. 5 Consumption, Culture and Identity • Commodification of culture; consumer as identity seeker: e.g. music; fashion • Research on Cultural Consumption • E.g. Bourdieu cultural capital, critique of pure taste; • For UK research see Bennet and Savage: www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/cultural-capital-and-social-exclusion/ • Taste classifies the classifier? • Can we escape? Yet when all the individuals stand together, why do they look the same? Example research topics: Cultural consumption and social stratification

10. Conclusions • Consumption important topic, part of modern historical narrative • Cross-cuts disciplines • Also as a concept, interpreted in varying ways in different research fields • Data on consumption thus has a wide variety of research applications…… • ..the next two presentations…………….