Pub Date : 2023-02-24DOI: 10.1177/14695405231160595
Maíra Magalhães Lopes
In the becoming of neoliberal cities, consumption can play an important role in the process of marking who is human, that is, fit for consumption, and who is not. This paper explores such processes as affective becomings and focuses on the workings of comfort and discomfort to highlight how some bodies are delegitimized in order for others to become legitimatized. Using an ethnographic approach with affective methodologies, I trace the process of erasing activism collectives that were resisting gentrification in São Paulo and advocating the ‘right to the city’. The contribution of this paper is threefold. Firstly, it highlights how the becoming of the neoliberal city follows a neoliberal normativity in tandem with a colonial one. By exploring how spaces, bodies, and norms are always related to one another in this process, I highlight how ‘the consumer’ has become the body who counts (i.e. the human). Secondly, this paper shows how activism work refracts the dynamics of the neoliberal-colonial normativity, as it (re)acts to its mechanisms for sorting out bodies. Thirdly, this paper highlights the political dimensions of (dis)comfort that mark the splitting of legitimate and illegitimatebodies in a social reproduction for consumption. Consequently, it explores how discomfort has been used as a political-affective tool of delegitimization, subjugation, and oppression.
{"title":"Marking humans for consumption, whilst erasing others: Affective becomings and the workings of (dis)comfort","authors":"Maíra Magalhães Lopes","doi":"10.1177/14695405231160595","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14695405231160595","url":null,"abstract":"In the becoming of neoliberal cities, consumption can play an important role in the process of marking who is human, that is, fit for consumption, and who is not. This paper explores such processes as affective becomings and focuses on the workings of comfort and discomfort to highlight how some bodies are delegitimized in order for others to become legitimatized. Using an ethnographic approach with affective methodologies, I trace the process of erasing activism collectives that were resisting gentrification in São Paulo and advocating the ‘right to the city’. The contribution of this paper is threefold. Firstly, it highlights how the becoming of the neoliberal city follows a neoliberal normativity in tandem with a colonial one. By exploring how spaces, bodies, and norms are always related to one another in this process, I highlight how ‘the consumer’ has become the body who counts (i.e. the human). Secondly, this paper shows how activism work refracts the dynamics of the neoliberal-colonial normativity, as it (re)acts to its mechanisms for sorting out bodies. Thirdly, this paper highlights the political dimensions of (dis)comfort that mark the splitting of legitimate and illegitimatebodies in a social reproduction for consumption. Consequently, it explores how discomfort has been used as a political-affective tool of delegitimization, subjugation, and oppression.","PeriodicalId":51461,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43354000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-13DOI: 10.1177/14695405231157498
Zizheng Yu
{"title":"Book Review: Digital playgrounds: The hidden politics of children’s online play spaces, virtual worlds, and connected games","authors":"Zizheng Yu","doi":"10.1177/14695405231157498","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14695405231157498","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51461,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Culture","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41595465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1177/14695405211066314
A. Byrne, Katie Milestone
Skincare products are well-established amongst female consumers. The market for male skincare products is far more recent and little research has been undertaken on this emerging sector. The practice of men using what was traditionally a product almost solely aimed at women poses some interesting questions about changing gendered identities and practices. Themes emerged from a series of interviews with respondents and key informants from industry about men’s use of skincare products. Based on our findings, we explore the importance of age as a factor in terms of men’s willingness to engage with this form of consumption. Our research showed that men are not comfortable talking with others about their grooming practices. We argue that men’s skincare consumption is an invisible form of consumption. As our findings show, men do not tend to speak openly about whether or not they use moisturiser and other facial skin care products. We concur with Hakim’s (2016) analysis about the pressure for men to continually improve their bodies in order to try to obtain market advantage in a cut-throat neoliberal context. However, with the case of skin care products, men may introspectively gaze in the mirror in contemplation of their improved appearance gained from using facial skincare products but they want this consumption to remain invisible to others. This invisible consumption could be viewed as an indication of wider uncertainty about masculinity in late modernity and the continuing trend for men to feel that there are certain aspects of their life that they feel they should keep to themselves.
{"title":"‘He wouldn’t be seen using it…’ Men’s use of male grooming products as a form of invisible consumption","authors":"A. Byrne, Katie Milestone","doi":"10.1177/14695405211066314","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14695405211066314","url":null,"abstract":"Skincare products are well-established amongst female consumers. The market for male skincare products is far more recent and little research has been undertaken on this emerging sector. The practice of men using what was traditionally a product almost solely aimed at women poses some interesting questions about changing gendered identities and practices. Themes emerged from a series of interviews with respondents and key informants from industry about men’s use of skincare products. Based on our findings, we explore the importance of age as a factor in terms of men’s willingness to engage with this form of consumption. Our research showed that men are not comfortable talking with others about their grooming practices. We argue that men’s skincare consumption is an invisible form of consumption. As our findings show, men do not tend to speak openly about whether or not they use moisturiser and other facial skin care products. We concur with Hakim’s (2016) analysis about the pressure for men to continually improve their bodies in order to try to obtain market advantage in a cut-throat neoliberal context. However, with the case of skin care products, men may introspectively gaze in the mirror in contemplation of their improved appearance gained from using facial skincare products but they want this consumption to remain invisible to others. This invisible consumption could be viewed as an indication of wider uncertainty about masculinity in late modernity and the continuing trend for men to feel that there are certain aspects of their life that they feel they should keep to themselves.","PeriodicalId":51461,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Culture","volume":"23 1","pages":"146 - 167"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41827350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-06DOI: 10.1177/14695405221149114
Vasco Ramos
In this article, I investigate the logic underlying household food consumption in Portugal and how it relates to class positioning, like other expressions of culture. Therefore, the paper examines the Bourdieusian hypothesis of homology between the field of food and the configuration of social positions in Portuguese society against the hypotheses that emphasise homogenisation and individualisation of consumption patterns. I start by remapping the Portuguese social space, using an approach inspired by the analysis pioneered by Bourdieu on Distinction and recently taken up by several streams of research. Drawing on the national Household Budget Survey, I then develop a Correspondence Analysis of expenditure on a wide range of foodstuffs. The analysis is supplemented by data from the Second Large Survey on Sustainability in Portugal, seeking to examine patterns in ethical dispositions concerning food and drink in contemporary Portugal and their homology with class. Concluding on a degree of similarity between the space of food consumption and the space of social positions engendered by differences in the overall volume and composition of capital, I close with reflections on the methodological challenges of this approach and on the broader significance of these results for our understanding of consumption in Portugal.
{"title":"Food consumption, social class and taste in contemporary Portugal","authors":"Vasco Ramos","doi":"10.1177/14695405221149114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14695405221149114","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I investigate the logic underlying household food consumption in Portugal and how it relates to class positioning, like other expressions of culture. Therefore, the paper examines the Bourdieusian hypothesis of homology between the field of food and the configuration of social positions in Portuguese society against the hypotheses that emphasise homogenisation and individualisation of consumption patterns. I start by remapping the Portuguese social space, using an approach inspired by the analysis pioneered by Bourdieu on Distinction and recently taken up by several streams of research. Drawing on the national Household Budget Survey, I then develop a Correspondence Analysis of expenditure on a wide range of foodstuffs. The analysis is supplemented by data from the Second Large Survey on Sustainability in Portugal, seeking to examine patterns in ethical dispositions concerning food and drink in contemporary Portugal and their homology with class. Concluding on a degree of similarity between the space of food consumption and the space of social positions engendered by differences in the overall volume and composition of capital, I close with reflections on the methodological challenges of this approach and on the broader significance of these results for our understanding of consumption in Portugal.","PeriodicalId":51461,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47775090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-05DOI: 10.1177/14695405221149117
W. Atkinson, Piotr Marzec
This paper charts the space of lifestyles in Germany in order to assess whether its structure resembles that famously uncovered in France by Bourdieu. Mobilising multiple correspondence analysis and using data from a bespoke national survey of tastes and lifestyles fielded in 2017–18 ( n = 2244), it unveils a two-dimensional system defined by tastes for the culturally exclusive and the economically exclusive. These dimensions are strongly associated with indicators of cultural capital and economic capital, and reveal differences by both capital volume and capital composition, but they are also structured by age and ethnic origin. While age is indicative of Bourdieu’s concept of trajectory, the effects of ethnicity underscore the relative autonomy of the space of lifestyles and suggest its determination by more than one structural force.
{"title":"The German space of lifestyles: A multidetermined structure","authors":"W. Atkinson, Piotr Marzec","doi":"10.1177/14695405221149117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14695405221149117","url":null,"abstract":"This paper charts the space of lifestyles in Germany in order to assess whether its structure resembles that famously uncovered in France by Bourdieu. Mobilising multiple correspondence analysis and using data from a bespoke national survey of tastes and lifestyles fielded in 2017–18 ( n = 2244), it unveils a two-dimensional system defined by tastes for the culturally exclusive and the economically exclusive. These dimensions are strongly associated with indicators of cultural capital and economic capital, and reveal differences by both capital volume and capital composition, but they are also structured by age and ethnic origin. While age is indicative of Bourdieu’s concept of trajectory, the effects of ethnicity underscore the relative autonomy of the space of lifestyles and suggest its determination by more than one structural force.","PeriodicalId":51461,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43895493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-04DOI: 10.1177/14695405221149098
T. Tse, Johanna von Pezold
Previous research on fashion, clothing and accessorising practices typically stressed either the symbolic and identity-creating or practical and habitual functions of fashion, often neglecting its affective, emotive and mnemonic aspects. Drawing on affective theory and the agency of things, we theorise how the affects, feelings and emotions attached to active and inactive fashion objects evoke and are evoked by the consumer’s ongoing reminiscence, reconciliation, and renewal of memories. Remapping the intricate relationship among consumers, memory, affect, and fashion objects, this article employs wardrobe study interviews to reconceptualise the clothing consumption, storage and disposal practices of male fashion consumers in Hong Kong and their trans-temporal self-memory-object relationships. Interviewing 21 gay male participants while physically going through their wardrobes together reveals the mnemonic abilities of clothes and accessories to bring up the past, their functioning as emotive devices, and the process of how affective, unpatterned feelings and sensations are reminisced, reconciled and renewed through fashion. These unique theoretical and methodological approaches make it possible to delve deeper into consumers’ intimate material and sensual relationships with clothing and accessory items, which are often used to make sense of incongruent memories and future fantasies, also enabling their ongoing mediation of unresolved affective experiences and curation of a linear cultural script of personal development.
{"title":"Memories reminisced, reconciled, renewed: Hong Kong male consumers’ wardrobes and their search for a congruent self","authors":"T. Tse, Johanna von Pezold","doi":"10.1177/14695405221149098","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14695405221149098","url":null,"abstract":"Previous research on fashion, clothing and accessorising practices typically stressed either the symbolic and identity-creating or practical and habitual functions of fashion, often neglecting its affective, emotive and mnemonic aspects. Drawing on affective theory and the agency of things, we theorise how the affects, feelings and emotions attached to active and inactive fashion objects evoke and are evoked by the consumer’s ongoing reminiscence, reconciliation, and renewal of memories. Remapping the intricate relationship among consumers, memory, affect, and fashion objects, this article employs wardrobe study interviews to reconceptualise the clothing consumption, storage and disposal practices of male fashion consumers in Hong Kong and their trans-temporal self-memory-object relationships. Interviewing 21 gay male participants while physically going through their wardrobes together reveals the mnemonic abilities of clothes and accessories to bring up the past, their functioning as emotive devices, and the process of how affective, unpatterned feelings and sensations are reminisced, reconciled and renewed through fashion. These unique theoretical and methodological approaches make it possible to delve deeper into consumers’ intimate material and sensual relationships with clothing and accessory items, which are often used to make sense of incongruent memories and future fantasies, also enabling their ongoing mediation of unresolved affective experiences and curation of a linear cultural script of personal development.","PeriodicalId":51461,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49483217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-04DOI: 10.1177/14695405221149095
Benjamin Duester, A. Bennett
Despite its status as an analogue sound carrier, the cassette has shown remarkable resilience in the digital era. Drawing on qualitative data gathered in three significant markets for cassettes, Japan, Australia and the USA, during 2018 and 2019, this article explores how the cassette tape’s material significance in the 21st century manifests itself in a complex network of interrelated local, translocal and virtual practices of music creation, distribution and consumption. The article draws on Magaudda’s ‘circuit of practice’ concept and Peterson and Bennett’s three tier model of scenes (local, trans-local and virtual). Taking the cassette’s hybrid occurrence and usage throughout a plethora of highly distinctive music scenes in Japan, Australia and the United States as a basis, we argue that Magaudda’s ‘circuit of practice’ theory needs to be structurally extended to grasp the multifaceted circuits of music in the digital age. This requires that the occurrence of a single audio format such as the cassette is recurringly analysed within different cultural contexts in order to map and delineate the format’s overall significance for contemporary music practices.
{"title":"How does materiality ‘bite back’? Investigating cassette tapes in local, translocal and virtual music scenes","authors":"Benjamin Duester, A. Bennett","doi":"10.1177/14695405221149095","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14695405221149095","url":null,"abstract":"Despite its status as an analogue sound carrier, the cassette has shown remarkable resilience in the digital era. Drawing on qualitative data gathered in three significant markets for cassettes, Japan, Australia and the USA, during 2018 and 2019, this article explores how the cassette tape’s material significance in the 21st century manifests itself in a complex network of interrelated local, translocal and virtual practices of music creation, distribution and consumption. The article draws on Magaudda’s ‘circuit of practice’ concept and Peterson and Bennett’s three tier model of scenes (local, trans-local and virtual). Taking the cassette’s hybrid occurrence and usage throughout a plethora of highly distinctive music scenes in Japan, Australia and the United States as a basis, we argue that Magaudda’s ‘circuit of practice’ theory needs to be structurally extended to grasp the multifaceted circuits of music in the digital age. This requires that the occurrence of a single audio format such as the cassette is recurringly analysed within different cultural contexts in order to map and delineate the format’s overall significance for contemporary music practices.","PeriodicalId":51461,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48290241","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1177/14695405221149103
Y. Bokek-Cohen
Donor eggs have become commercialized and egg agencies mediate between egg consumers and donors. Despite the rapid growth of this industry, there is a paucity of research focusing on the imaginary aspects of the marketing strategies employed in the egg donation commerce. This article is based on a content analysis of American egg donor profiles. Inspired by Baudrillardian theory, I analyze the marketing strategy and show how egg donors are perfectionized using cultural notions of hegemonic femininity, in order to attract egg consumers by tacitly encouraging them to create an imagined hyperreal ideal self. This marketing strategy aims to de-commodify genetic substance in order to facilitate the exploitation of consumers’ self-concept for business goals. The identity of the donor is imbued with greater meaning for consumers than merely her genetic material, hence offers possibilities for the imaginary actualization of consumers’ ideal selves. Consumers are invited to exercise their agency and form a simulacrum of their desired self and materialize their utmost psychological identity aspirations.
{"title":"Marketing of donor eggs by offering possibilities for imaginary actualization of recipients’ ideal self","authors":"Y. Bokek-Cohen","doi":"10.1177/14695405221149103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14695405221149103","url":null,"abstract":"Donor eggs have become commercialized and egg agencies mediate between egg consumers and donors. Despite the rapid growth of this industry, there is a paucity of research focusing on the imaginary aspects of the marketing strategies employed in the egg donation commerce. This article is based on a content analysis of American egg donor profiles. Inspired by Baudrillardian theory, I analyze the marketing strategy and show how egg donors are perfectionized using cultural notions of hegemonic femininity, in order to attract egg consumers by tacitly encouraging them to create an imagined hyperreal ideal self. This marketing strategy aims to de-commodify genetic substance in order to facilitate the exploitation of consumers’ self-concept for business goals. The identity of the donor is imbued with greater meaning for consumers than merely her genetic material, hence offers possibilities for the imaginary actualization of consumers’ ideal selves. Consumers are invited to exercise their agency and form a simulacrum of their desired self and materialize their utmost psychological identity aspirations.","PeriodicalId":51461,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47838664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.1177/14695405221141951
T. Tse, I. Gheorghiu
Practice theoretical approaches in consumption studies centre practices over practitioners, the material and mundane over the symbolic and embodied skill over individual choice. Pointing to practice theory’s neglect of the role of intersubjectivity and the deeply interactional character of performances in practice formation, this article relies on interviews with young urban consumers in China and Romania to explore dress practices in the two postsocialist locales in consumers’ pursuit of ‘the good life’. We reflect on the intertwining of consumption with this moral project grounded in both the materiality and sociality of dress. By centring performances, we rearticulate the relationship between normativity and accountability in materialising the everyday consumption norms. We tease out the meaningful role of interaction in maintaining and altering the boundaries of dress practices, and subjecting postsocialist consumers to processes of self- and mutual-monitoring on the way to attaining ‘the good life’. This comprehensive approach fruitfully complements the oft-criticised epistemological monism and theoretical imprecision of practice theory.
{"title":"The good life as accountable: Moralities of dress consumption in China and Romania","authors":"T. Tse, I. Gheorghiu","doi":"10.1177/14695405221141951","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14695405221141951","url":null,"abstract":"Practice theoretical approaches in consumption studies centre practices over practitioners, the material and mundane over the symbolic and embodied skill over individual choice. Pointing to practice theory’s neglect of the role of intersubjectivity and the deeply interactional character of performances in practice formation, this article relies on interviews with young urban consumers in China and Romania to explore dress practices in the two postsocialist locales in consumers’ pursuit of ‘the good life’. We reflect on the intertwining of consumption with this moral project grounded in both the materiality and sociality of dress. By centring performances, we rearticulate the relationship between normativity and accountability in materialising the everyday consumption norms. We tease out the meaningful role of interaction in maintaining and altering the boundaries of dress practices, and subjecting postsocialist consumers to processes of self- and mutual-monitoring on the way to attaining ‘the good life’. This comprehensive approach fruitfully complements the oft-criticised epistemological monism and theoretical imprecision of practice theory.","PeriodicalId":51461,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Culture","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42324863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-25DOI: 10.1177/14695405221140545
Meghann Lucy
The accumulation, display, and use of objects have long been recognized as a means through which individuals construct social position and the self. Consumption can thus be thought of as investment, with seemingly infinite payoff as more status items are consumed. However, in the context of overaccumulation, privileged individuals with “cluttered” homes are disposing of their still-valuable possessions. This article uses narrative and content analyses of a critical case, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, a Netflix program designed to help families with cluttered homes sort through their things, to explore the meanings associated with accumulating “too much”: namely, uncontrolled, unactualized selves; class transgression; and failed gender and parental roles. Discarding items, regardless of their value, reduces the clutter, which eliminates the problems symbolized by having too much. Thus, divestment is framed as a means through which individuals can invest in the self, particularly in class position, gender and parental roles, and agency.
{"title":"Divestment as investment: “Kondo-Ing” selves in the context of over accumulation","authors":"Meghann Lucy","doi":"10.1177/14695405221140545","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14695405221140545","url":null,"abstract":"The accumulation, display, and use of objects have long been recognized as a means through which individuals construct social position and the self. Consumption can thus be thought of as investment, with seemingly infinite payoff as more status items are consumed. However, in the context of overaccumulation, privileged individuals with “cluttered” homes are disposing of their still-valuable possessions. This article uses narrative and content analyses of a critical case, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, a Netflix program designed to help families with cluttered homes sort through their things, to explore the meanings associated with accumulating “too much”: namely, uncontrolled, unactualized selves; class transgression; and failed gender and parental roles. Discarding items, regardless of their value, reduces the clutter, which eliminates the problems symbolized by having too much. Thus, divestment is framed as a means through which individuals can invest in the self, particularly in class position, gender and parental roles, and agency.","PeriodicalId":51461,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48069932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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