Consumerism

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2295396
AutoresA Meneley (0000-0002-5627-6124, Trent University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen47
Número1
Páginas117-132
Fecha de publicación2018-10-21
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAnnual Review of Anthropology (BOOK_SERIES)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0084-6570 • E-ISSN: 1545-4290
EditorialAnnual Reviews (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1146/annurev-anthro-102116-041518
OpenAlexW4254978735
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas109

The article investigates how consumerism is perceived as an unremarkable part of quotidian existence, as a patriotic duty at various moments, as an indicator of social class, and as a means of semiotic self-fashioning. In consumerism, the tension between the sumptuary restraint on conspicuous consumption, which characterized the early Protestant ethic, and the dependence of capitalism itself on boundless commodity circulation, emerges again and again. I investigate how certain forms of consumerism, relating to excess and improper storage, are reclassified in medical terms. I also investigate modes of strategic consumerism, which try to bridge the gap between producer and consumer, and how certain forms of performative labor are themselves consumed. I close with a few reflections on sites for future study: shopping as a form of underrecognized labor, and an auto-ethnographic turn for academics, inspecting the reach of consumerism into academic practices and universities themselves

Aesthetics · Capitalism · Commodity · Consumerism · Consumption (sociology · Duty · Economics · Epistemology · Ethnography · Market economy · Performative utterance · Political science · Semiotics · Social science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Law · Philosophy