Anti-Consumption as Tactical Response to Institutionalized Subordination: The Case of Materially-Deprived Anti-Consumers

Abstract

Abstract While most anti-consumption research focuses on middle to upper class consumers who reduce, avoid or control consumption, this study analyses anti-consumption among materially-deprived consumers. Such anti-consumption runs contrary to the conventional subordination of homeless persons to the status of inferior and deficient, whose survival is dependent upon social housing supports and food charities. Findings from an ethnographic study in Australia show that materially-deprived consumers avoid social housing and food charities as a tactical response against institutionalized subordination, which specialized homeless services reinforce. In our context, anti-consumption is thus not about projecting a self-affirming identity or generating a collective force to change consumer culture. Rather, anti-consumption among materially-deprived consumers aims at overcoming institutionalized subordination and represents tactics of survival rather than strategies for illusionary emancipation.