What is consumption? A quick 15mins overview

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…………….