The Social Life of Unsustainable Mass Consumption

About this book

The Social Life of Unsustainable Mass Consumption draws on a variety of theories and research to contribute to our understanding of unsustainable mass consumption. It addresses the role of identities, social relations, interactions, belonging, and status comparison, and how perceived time scarcity is both a cause and an effect of consumption. It examines the power of consumer norms and how overconsumption is normalized and shows how consumption is embedded in the time-space arrangements of everyday life. Magnus Bostroem contextualizes such drivers within the larger institutional and infrastructural forces underlying mass consumption, including the economy, growth politics, and the problematic promises of consumer culture. Bostroem further draws on lessons from lived experiments of consuming less and discuss how insights about the flaws of consumer culture can help shape a growing critique and countermovement – a collective detox from consumerism.

Contents

List of Figures

Introduction: The Social Roots of Ecologically Destructive Consumerism
Chapter 1. Social Relations, Everyday Rituals, and Consumerism
Chapter 2. Social Comparison and Consumerism in Stratified Social Life
Chapter 3. The Temporalities of Mass Consumption in Social Life: A Lost Future
Chapter 4. Sites of Consumption: The Home, The Mall, The Internet
Chapter 5. The Social Stock of (Not) Knowing: Normalization and Ignorance of Unsustainable Mass Consumption
Conclusion: A Collective Detox from Consumerism
Afterword

References
About the Author

Customer Reviews

Biography

Magnus Boström is a professor of sociology at OErebro University.