Consumption, identity and space‐time

Abstract

Offering an affirmative reading of work suggesting a strong association between postmodern society and consumer society, this paper provides an account of consumption and identity through an initial consideration of modern and postmodern conceptions of space‐time. Rather than addressing the detail of various critiques of work promulgating a strong association between the postmodern and consumerism; and rather than considering directly the degree of overlap or synonymy of the two terms; the paper works with an understanding of the modern /postmodern distinction that allows the problem (or, rather, aporia) of identity, and its increasingly important relation to consumption, to be brought to the fore. The connections between modernity, postmodernity, space‐time, identity and consumption are shown to possess a strong theoretical coherence‐recognition of which is extremely limited in those critiques expressing incredulity with respect to the association of consumerism and postmodernity, to which this paper obliquely responds.