EBOOK: Radical Consumption: Shopping for Change in Contemporary Culture

EBOOK: Radical Consumption: Shopping for Change in Contemporary Culture
Author: Jo Littler
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2008-11-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0335236839

Ethical consumption, fair trade, consumer protests, brand backlashes, green goods, boycotts and downshifting: these are all now familiar consumer activities - and in some cases, are almost mainstream. They are part of the expanding field of 'radical consumption' in a world where we are encouraged to shop for change. But just how radical are these forms of consumption? This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to examining contemporary radical consumption, analyzing its possibilities and problems, moralities, methods of mediation and its connections to wider cultural formations of production and politics. Jo Littler argues that we require a more expansive vocabulary and to open up new approaches of enquiry in order to understand the area's many contradictions, strengths and weaknesses. Drawing on a number of contemporary theories, terms and debates in media and cultural studies, she uses a range of specific case studies to bring theory to life. By analysing practices of radical consumption, the book explores a number of key questions: Is ethical consumption merely a sop for the middle classes? What are the contradictions of green consumption? Should we understand corporate social responsibility as a form of consumer-oriented greenwash? Who benefits from the new forms of cosmopolitan caring consumption? Can such forms of consumption ever move beyond their niche market status to become an effective political force? Can we really buy our way to a better, more equitable or sustainable future? Radical Consumption is important reading for cultural, media and sociology students.

Radical Consumption in Contemporary Culture

Radical Consumption in Contemporary Culture
Author: Jo Littler
Publisher: Open University Press
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2008-11-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780335221530

Ethical consumption, fair trade, consumer protests, brand backlashes, green goods, boycotts and downshifting: these are all now familiar consumer activities – and in some cases, are almost mainstream. They are part of the expanding field of 'radical consumption' in a world where we are encouraged to shop for change. But just how radical are these forms of consumption? This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to examining contemporary radical consumption, analyzing its possibilities and problems, moralities, methods of mediation and its connections to wider cultural formations of production and politics. Jo Littler argues that we require a more expansive vocabulary and to open up new approaches of enquiry in order to understand the area's many contradictions, strengths and weaknesses. Drawing on a number of contemporary theories, terms and debates in media and cultural studies, she uses a range of specific case studies to bring theory to life. By analysing practices of radical consumption, the book explores a number of key questions: Is ethical consumption merely a sop for the middle classes? What are the contradictions of green consumption? Should we understand corporate social responsibility as a form of consumer-oriented greenwash? Who benefits from the new forms of cosmopolitan caring consumption? Can such forms of consumption ever move beyond their niche market status to become an effective political force? Can we really buy our way to a better, more equitable or sustainable future? Radical Consumption is important reading for cultural, media and sociology students.

Radical Consumption: Shopping For Change In Contemporary Culture

Radical Consumption: Shopping For Change In Contemporary Culture
Author: Littler, Jo
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2008-11-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0335221521

"This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to examining contemporary radical consumption, analyzing its possibilities and problems, moralities, methods of mediation and its connections to wider cultural formations of production and politics." "Jo Littler argues that we require a more expansive vocabulary and need to open up new approaches of enquiry in order to understand the area's many contradictions, strengths and weaknesses. Drawing on a number of contemporary theories, terms and debates in media and cultural studies, she uses a range of specific case studies to bring theory to life." "Radical Consumption is important reading for cultural, media and sociology students." --Book Jacket.

Consumption and Violence

Consumption and Violence
Author: Alexander Sedlmaier
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2014-10-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 047203605X

Reveals the relationship between the rise of political violence in West Germany to the unprecedented growth of consumption

Consumer Culture and Modernity

Consumer Culture and Modernity
Author: Don Slater
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 240
Release: 1999-02-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780745603049

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the issues, concepts and theories through which people have tried to understand consumer culture throughout the modern period, and puts the current state of thinking into a broader context. Thematically organized, the book shows how the central aspects of consumer culture - such as needs, choice, identity, status, alienation, objects, culture - have been debated within modern theories, from those of earlier thinkers such as Marx and Simmel to contemporary forms of post-structuralism and postmodernism. This approach introduces consumer culture as a subject which - far from being of narrow or recent interest - is intimately tied to the central issues of modern times and modern social thought. With its reviews of major theorists set within a full account of the development of the subject, this book should be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students in the many disciplines which now study consumer culture, including communications and cultural studies, anthropology and history.

Nation of Rebels

Nation of Rebels
Author: Joseph Heath
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2004-12-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 006074586X

In this wide-ranging and perceptive work of cultural criticism, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter shatter the most important myth that dominates much of radical political, economic, and cultural thinking. The idea of a counterculture -- a world outside of the consumer-dominated world that encompasses us -- pervades everything from the antiglobalization movement to feminism and environmentalism. And the idea that mocking or simply hoping the "system" will collapse, the authors argue, is not only counterproductive but has helped to create the very consumer society radicals oppose. In a lively blend of pop culture, history, and philosophical analysis, Heath and Potter offer a startlingly clear picture of what a concern for social justice might look like without the confusion of the counterculture obsession with being different.

Cultural Studies and Anti-Consumerism

Cultural Studies and Anti-Consumerism
Author: Sam Binkley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2014-02-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317984986

Anti-consumerism has become a conspicuous part of contemporary activism and popular culture, from ‘culture jams’ and actions against Esso and Starbucks, through the downshifting and voluntary simplicity movements, the rise of ethical consumption and organic and the high profile of films and books like Supersize Me! and No Logo. A rising awareness of labor conditions in overseas plants, the environmental impact of intensified consumer lifestyles and the effects of neo-liberal privatization have all stimulated such popular cultural opposition. However, the subject of anti-consumerism has received relatively little theoretical attention – particularly from cultural studies, which is surprising given the discipline’s historical investments in extending radical politics and exploring the complexities of consumer desire. This book considers how the expanding resources of contemporary cultural theory might be drawn upon to understand anti-consumerist identifications and practices; how railing against the social and cultural effects of consumerism has a complex past as well as present; and it pays attention to the interplays between the different movements of anti-consumerism and the particular modes of consumer culture in which they exist. In addition, as well as ‘using’ cultural studies to analyse anti-consumerism, it also asks how such anti-consumerist practices and discourse challenges some of the presumptions and positions currently held in cultural studies. This book was previously published as a special issue of Cultural Studies.

Lifestyle Politics and Radical Activism

Lifestyle Politics and Radical Activism
Author: Laura Portwood-Stacer
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2013-08-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1441105123

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Attempts by people to enact their political beliefs in their daily lives have become commonplace in contemporary US culture, in spheres ranging from shopping habits to romantic attachments. This groundbreaking book examines how collective social movements have cultivated individual practices of "lifestyle politics" as part of their strategies of resistance, and the tensions they must navigate in doing so. Drawing on feminism and other movements that claim that “the personal is political,” the book explores how radical anarchist activists position their own lifestyles within projects of resistance. Various lifestyle practices, from consumption to personal style to sexual relationships, are studied to address how identity and cultural practices can be used as tools of political dissent. An accessible and provocative text, Lifestyle Politics and Radical Activism blends theory with empirical materials to highlight issues that are important not only to anarchists, but also to anyone struggling for social change. This unique analysis will contribute to the development of anarchist theory and practice and will appeal to anyone interested in political activism and social movements.

Work That Body

Work That Body
Author: Jamie Hakim
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2019-10-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1786604434

Work That Body: Male Bodies in Digital Culture explores the recent rise in different types of men using digital media to sexualise their bodies. It argues that the male body has become a key site in contemporary culture where neoliberalism’s hegemony has been both secured and contested since 2008. It does this by looking at four different case studies: the celebrity male nude leak; the rise of young men sharing images of their muscular bodies on social media; RuPaul's Drag Race body transformational tutorial, and the rise of chemsex. It finds that on the one hand digital media has enabled men to transform their bodies into tools of value-creation in economic contexts where the historical means they have relied on to create value have diminished. On the other it has also allowed them to use their bodies to form intimate collective bonds during a moment when competitive individualism continued to be the privileged mode of being in the world. It therefore offers a unique contribution not only to the field of digital cultural studies but also to the growing cultural studies literature attempting to map the historical contradictions of the austerity moment.

Fashion and the Consumer Revolution in Contemporary Russia

Fashion and the Consumer Revolution in Contemporary Russia
Author: Olga Gurova
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2014-10-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1135020302

This book explores how clothing consumption has changed in Russia in the past 20 years as capitalism has grown in a postsocialist state, bringing with it a "consumer revolution." It shows how there has been and continues to be a massive change in the fashion retail market and how ideal lifestyles portrayed in glossy magazines and other media have contributed to the consumer revolution, as have shifts in the social structure and everyday life. Overall, the book, which includes the findings of extensive original research, including in-depth interviews with consumers, relates changes in fashion and retail to changing outlooks, identities, and ideologies in Russia more generally. The mentioned changes are also linked to the theoretical concept of fashion formed in postsocialist society.