Social Relations Of Consumption Research Articles

Sustainability transitions and final consumption: practices and socio-technical systems

This article examines the significance of final consumption processes for understandings of prospective transitions towards more sustainable societies. It argues that most existing conceptualisations either place too much emphasis on technology or on ‘consumer behaviour’, ignoring the deeply intertwined relationships between the two. After briefly reviewing recent contributions to the technology-oriented multi-level perspective (MLP) and to social scientific explanations of ‘behavioural change’, we outline a practice-based approach to understanding final consumption and sustainability. Practice-based approaches reveal processes of reproduction (stasis) and change in forms of consumption, which we argue present conceptual insights into sustainability transitions. By examining the tensions and crossovers between the MLP and practice-based approaches to consumption, three specific forms of interaction are identified for further conceptual and empirical exploration: the social relations of consumption; co-dependent changes in production and consumption; and, technologies, practices and consumption.

Tourism, Consumption and Inequality in Central America

Much research in international political economy (IPE) has been criticised for focussing on large and powerful actors in post-industrial countries, to the neglect of sites, processes and actors in the global South. This article offers a corrective to this bias in two ways: by locating the analysis in two rural Central American communities; and by exploring the social relations of consumption in these communities. In doing this, I challenge assumptions about rural places being excluded from global processes and explore the complexities and contradictions of how such communities are inserted into global circuits of production and consumption. Drawing on extensive qualitative research, the article explores the ways in which capitalist development through tourism has reconstituted the political economy of consumption in terms of habits, attitudes and behaviour in these two communities. Using the community and the household as sites of analysis, I explore the complex ways in which inequalities have been reconfigured through changing relations of consumption. Certain kinds of social hierarchies, in particular traditional gendered power relations within the household, have been challenged. However, other inequalities – such as class, ethnicity and nationality – have been reinforced by these processes.

Social relations of production and consumption in the human service occupations.

This paper presents a Marxist analysis of human service occupations. As the forces of monopoly capitalism increased the need for human services and destroyed the social institutions which previously satisfied those needs, employment in the human service industries grew rapidly, and may now exceed that in manufacturing. The nature of human services is discussed: production and consumption occur simultaneously; the social relations of consumption and production are closely related; and service workers play a direct social control role. These characteristics generate contradictions between service and control in service work, and between service workers' roles as both oppressed workers and oppressors. Discussions of the ideologies impacting on the relationships between workers and "clients," the dynamics of these relationships, and the struggles to which they give rise conclude the paper.

Social Relations of Production and Consumption in the Human Service Occupations

The human services require an explicit theoretical analysis of the social relations of consumption in addition to the social relations of production. The purpose of this paper is to begin such an analysis.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-28-number-3" title="Vol. 28, No. 3: July-August 1976" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>