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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Consumption, Sociology of

subject

description

The sociology of consumption is as old as sociology itself. Its methodological roots lie in the first surveys, which focused on food consumption and were conducted in the middle of the nineteenth century. The aim was to define the level of minimum wage that was high enough to sustain the reproduction of the labor force. However, the prevailing, genuinely sociological approach to consumption is related strongly to the classical period of sociology, when Marx formulated his theory of commodities and commodity fetishism, when Simmel presented his theories of money, style, and fashion, and when Veblen formulated his trickle-down theory. All of these trains of thought were also present in the middle of the twentieth century, during the second wave of the sociology of consumption. The third wave and at the same time the subfield of the sociology of consumption started to take form in the late 1970s, when Bourdieu presented his seminal work on consumption in France based on his theory of fields, habituses, and cultural capital. It is precisely culture, and the meanings of goods and their relation to social identities, that have been in the center of sociological interest since then. Stability and change of consumption patterns in the context of globalization have also attracted a lot of attention in this time period. Food consumption, especially, has been in the focus of consumption studies. Yet another research orientation has been rooted in the Maussian tradition dealing with the circulation of commodities, especially with the institution of gift-giving and collecting. The fourth line of research has dealt with need theories and especially unsatisfiable desires as well as their role in the creation of the consumer society. In the 1990s sociologists have become increasingly dissatisfied with the strict meaning- and thus agency-centricity of the discipline that overlooks the personal intentions of consumers, and it is, for time being, hard to say, whether there exists anymore a coherent subfield of the sociology of consumption or not. The nonreflexive side of consumption, such as consumption routines and the emotional aspects of consumption, now attracts more attention than before. Naturally, the reflexive aspect of consumption continues to be studied, but it is now connected not only with identity questions as such but also with themes like risks of consumption and new kind(s) of virtual sociability based on the information technology, virtual shopping, and all kinds of virtual tribe or fan activities. Attention is also focused on the end results of consumption: wastes, waste management, and the recycling of used products. The research on consumer society is thus being complemented with research on ‘rubbish society.’