Full Description
This Research Handbook explores the role of consumption in shaping the ways in which we live, work and relate to each other. It brings together sociological research from around the globe to investigate how, where and why we buy and use things, and what daily consumer choices and practices reveal about society.
Expert authors interrogate the concepts and methods surrounding the sociological imagination of consumption, establishing how our choices and practices can reinforce or challenge wider historical, cultural and economic forces. They combine foundational and contemporary theory with cutting-edge empirical work, spanning domains such as food, fashion, housing, leisure, technology, and sustainability. The Research Handbook showcases a diverse range of methodological approaches, including ethnography, interviews, longitudinal studies, creative and visual methods and comparative approaches. It also addresses urgent contemporary challenges including the climate crisis and the moral and political dimensions of consumption, presenting possibilities for a more sustainable and just future.
This Research Handbook is a fundamental resource for scholars and students of sociology, cultural economics, human geography, consumer behaviour and related social sciences. Policy analysts and professionals in sustainability, circular economies and food systems will also benefit from its valuable insights on the social dynamics that shape consumption patterns.
Contents
Contents
1 Towards a sociological imagination of consumption 1
Jennifer Smith Maguire
PART I CORE CONCEPTUAL LENSES
2 Consumers and consumption 21
Daniel Welch
3 Consumer culture 46
Terhi-Anna Wilska
4 Consumer markets: the affluent economy and the social stratification of consumption 60
Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier
PART II RESEARCH CASES
Section 2.1 Arts and Culture
5 Sociology of consumption: the case of cultural non-participation 76
Riie Heikkilä
6 The role of parental cultural capital on children's participation in arts and culture: a multimethod quantitative approach 86
Adrian Leguina, Irmak Karademir and Francisco Azpitarte
7 New forms of distinction: cultural elites and the problem of 'good' taste 96
Dave O'Brien
8 Cultural hierarchies they are a-changin': music in quality newspapers' culture sections 106
Semi Purhonen
Section 2.2 Fashion and Style
9 New frontiers of cultural intermediation: how social media practitioners (re)intermediate the relationship between production and consumption 117
Mariachiara Colucci and Marco Pedron
10 "How I shop without sight": intermediation and inclusion in the fashion mediascape 128
Jordan Foster
11 Cuteness will bring you joy: kawaii consumption in Japan 139
Shiri Lieber-Milo
12 Authentic style-fashion-dress consumption of lesbian married couples on their wedding day 148
Kelly L. Reddy-Best, Jennifer Paff, Karen Hyllegard, and Courtney Morgan
Section 2.3 Food and Drink
13 Class, feeding practices, and distinction: an ethnographic and longitudinal exploration 163
Irmak Karademir
14 Revisiting Masters of Craft: theory, design, and findings 174
Richard E. Ocejo
15 Market transformation in the French coffee scene: an actor-network theory perspective 183
Anissa Pomiès
Section 2.4 Sport and Leisure
16 The consumption of violence through sport and physical culture 194
Michael Atkinson
17 Fandom in the branded playground: experiences of adult LEGO fans worldwide 205
Vlada Botorić
18 Production, consumption, and prosumption in the masculine health and fitness industry 219
Nick Gibbs
19 Application of the theory of planned behaviour for predicting sponsorship outcomes in esports 229
Olga Polyakova, Anthony D. Pizzo, Thomas Karagiorgos, and Kostas Alexandris
Section 2.5 House and Home
20 Housing and consumption: existing tensions and future directions in understanding housing search and selection 240
Max Besbris
21 The erosion of community, work and everyday life: private housing advertisements in global Hong Kong (1961-2011) 250
Kimburley Wing Yee Choi Anita Kit Wa Chan, and Annie Hau Nung Chan
22 Shrinking the American Dream? Tiny housing, freedom and crisis in Austin, Texas 263
Mel Nowicki, Tim White and Ella Harris
23 What is in your drawers? Everyday objects in the home 276
Sophie Woodward
Section 2.6 Ordinary and Mundane
24 Taking care of resources and stuff: exploring environmental change through mundane domestic consumption in Latin America 286
Tomas Ariztia
25 How do the ordinary and mundane transform over time? The potential of a biographic-practice approach for sociological research on consumption 296
Mary Greene
26 A case in practice theory: mortgage debt as ordinary consumption 309
Léna Pellandini-Simányi and Zsuzsanna Vargha
27 Putting emotions to work: challenging the normativity of practices through research methods 320
Marlyne Sahakian and Laurence Godin
Section 2.7 Sites and Spaces
28 Single origin coffee and dual distinction: coffee shops in contemporary South Korea 331
Nate Ming Curran and Michael Chesnut
29 Malls, modernity and consumption: Accra's malls' new consumption culture and the Ghanaian middle class as consumers of 'glocal' modernity 340
Alexander Kofi Eduful
30 Coming out of the geek cellar: the un-domestication of board gaming 353
Alexandra Kviat
31 Consuming the public house as social space 363
Thomas Thurnell-Read and Robert Deakin
Section 2.8 Shopping Experiences and Texts
32 Shopping in the bargain basement: re-imagining pleasure and pride on the UK high street 374
Alison Hulme
33 Addicted to shopping? A critical look at the cultural narrative of retail therapy 383
Keeley Megan Buehler Hunter
34 Shopping secondhand online as a contribution to the circular economy: a textual analysis of Gumtree Australia 393
Aneta Podkalicka
Section 2.9 Ethics and Morals
35 From the ethics of eating to the ethics of waste: navigating food consumption in the era of abundance 406
Anna Sofia Salonen
36 Cultural narratives and family practices: examining pro-environmental behaviour in India 416
Pallavi Singh, Caroline J. Oates, Panayiota Alevizou, and Sunil Sahadev
37 Representations of nouveau riche consumption, class reproduction, and the discourse of civility 425
Jennifer Smith Maguire
38 Dialogues with the artefacts: a case study of manners and morals in consumption in the historical context of modern Thailand 435
Juthamas Tangsantikul
Section 2.10 Vice and Stigma
39 Ethical consumerism and emerging, vice-stigmatized goods: the case of cannabis 448
Elizabeth A. Bennett
40 Canada's legal cannabis consumer: fifty years of cultivating the rational-utilitarian subject 465
James Cosgrave and Patricia Cormack
41 Bingo: lifestyle gambling, precarity and cultural resilience among Pacific migrants in Australia 475
John Cox, Kathleen Maltzahn, Sarah MacLean, Helen Lee, and Mary Whiteside
42 Headspace and hot yoga: crafting the 'good' (non)drinking self in sobriety 486
Emily Nicholl
