Peopling the Practices of Sustainable Consumption: Eco-Chic and the Limits to the Spaces of Intention

Abstract

This chapter assesses selected exclusionary practices—with reference to the production spaces of Costa Rica and Mexico and the consumption spaces of Malaysia— to highlight some ethical ambiguities and limits to sustainable consumption, market-led sustainability, and, more broadly, eco-chic. It outlines what we see as the spaces of intention in the complicated and ambiguous arenas where the material and discursive connections between and among eco-chic consumers and producers are constructed and made real. The chapter then considers the productionist exclusionary practices from research done in Costa Rica and Mexico and consumerist exclusionary practices from Malaysia. The sustainable consumption sector is predicated on the production of spaces of intentions that give it meaning and purpose. One key factor that renders our understanding of spaces of intention more complex is the exclusionary practices of knowledge and taste that underpin them yet which sit uncomfortably with lofty network aims.