Lifestyles and Consumption

Consumers are often treated as individual decision makers, however their choices are in fact embedded in all sorts of social, political and material contexts. In this course consumption practices are placed in such contexts, at the level of the household, at the level of lifestyles and at the level of societal change. The household is an important context for consumption as this is where most consumption occurs, consumer decisions are made, routines are lived and the everyday takes place. At a larger scale lifestyles, shared by people who do not know each other, form an important context for consumption. Such lifestyles can empirically be assessed as socio-cultural patterning of consumption, but they also have a socially binding effect and structure consumption choices. People and households who share the same lifestyle tend to interact with each other and make similar choices when confronted with new consumption options. At a societal level, consumption and lifestyles are affected by economic and political transformations, including modernization, sustainable development, economic (de-)growth and crisis, and welfare arrangements. The course will connect concrete empirical examples of specific lifestyles, e.g. related to food and sustainable development with more abstract theoretical perspectives on consumer society.

After successful completion of this course students are expected to be able to:

• Explain socio-ecological theories on consumption and consumer society
• Distinguish relevant social, political and material contexts of consumption
• Apply theories on lifestyles and consumption to a media example about daily life.
• Create, present and defend an argument from the perspective of a stakeholder involved in a societal/consumption issue
• Evaluate the effect of societal transformations related to consumer society on lifestyles and consumption

Assumed Knowledge:
CHL12305 Sociology of Business and Consumption;
MCB20806 Principles of Consumer Studies.