Tranzicija Božića od vjerskog blagdana slavljenja Kristova rođenja do »festivala potrošnje« obilježje je suvremenog potrošačkog društva. Sociokulturne promjene u Hrvatskoj nakon raspada socijalizma ...podrazumijevale su desekularizaciju i slobodu vjere ali i brzu preobrazbu u potrošačko društvo otvoreno procesima sveopće komercijalizacije i konzumerizma. Od tih procesa nije izuzeto ni obilježavanje vjerskih blagdana, što je osobito obilježje Božića. Imajući u vidu slavljenje Božića u suvremenom društvu cilj ovog rada je analizirati potrošački karakter vjerskih blagdana u kontekstu konzumerizma. Prvi dio rada posvećen je teološkom pogledu na Božić, odnosno odgovorit će se na pitanje što je Božić u sebi kao, za kršćane, jedan od najvažnijih i najvećih blagdana, s naglaskom na simbolizam božićne noći iz kojega su se razvili brojni vjerski običaji. U drugom dijelu rada, iz sociološke perspektive, odgovaramo na pitanje o porijeklu suvremenih manifestacija obilježavanja Božića. Konzumerističke i komodifikacijske prakse interpretiramo kao ishode socijalnih i ekonomskih promjena posljednjih desetljeća i nastanka društva masovne potrošnje te prezentiramo mehanizme trgovačke manipulacije u kontekstu božićne kupovine. U zaključku se Božić promatra u kontekstu društvene funkcije poticanja solidarnosti i održavanja socijalnih veza.
The meaning of Christmas as a religious holiday celebrating the birth of Christ in contemporary consumer society has transitioned into a kind of »consumption festival«. After the downfall of socialism, sociocultural changes in Croatia implied desecularization and freedom of religion but also a rapid transformation into a consumer society open to the processes of general commercialisation and consumerism. Celebrating religious holidays, especially Christmas, is not exempt from these processes. Keeping in mind the celebration of Christmas in modern society, this paper aims to analyse the consumer character of religious holidays in the context of consumerism. With an emphasis on the symbolism of Christmas night from which numerous religious customs have developed, the first part of the paper is dedicated to the theological view of Christmas, i.e., the question of what Christmas is as, for Christians, one of the most significant holidays. In the second part of the paper, from a sociological perspective, we answer the origin of contemporary manifestations of celebrating Christmas. We interpret consumerism and commodification practices as the outcomes of social and economic changes in recent decades and the emergence of a mass consumption society. We also present specific mechanisms of commercial manipulation in the context of Christmas shopping. In conclusion, we consider Christmas in the context of the social function of encouraging solidarity and maintaining social ties.
► Theorises frugality as a social practice. ► Explores the links between frugality and sustainable consumption. ► Draws a distinction between frugality and thrift. ► Economic crises may not change ...prevailing expectations and practices of consumption. ► Economic downturn may not encourage sustainable consumption.
In the context of a string of economic crises that have affected major world economies between 2007 and 2009, there seems to be a certain amount of overlap between debates around these issues and debates around long term environmental problems such as climate change. One of the interesting points of overlap is a renewed interest in notions of austerity with optimistic commentators offering up hope that a (re)turn to frugality represents a unique opportunity for the pursuit of sustainable consumption. Against this backdrop the analysis sets out an approach to frugality as a social practice and drawing on a qualitative study of persons who identified themselves as attempting to reduce their environmental impacts, it considers the links between frugality and sustainable consumption. Crucially, a distinction is drawn between thrift and frugality in relation to: (1) the scale at which they exercise care and compassion; (2) their relationship to the normative expectations of consumer cultures, and; (3) their consequences in terms of environmental impacts. Taking these distinctions alongside historical analyses of changing consumption patterns, a note of caution is offered that the passage from the economic downturn to sustainable consumption may not be as clear as might be hoped.
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the position of children's consumption in Japanese mass consumer society in 1960s, by revisiting the child research on consumption conducted by the Children's ...Research Institute (Kodomo chosa kenkyujo, 1964-2012). Over the past few years, several historical studies have been conducted on the formation of Japanese mass consumer society. In addition, a considerable number of educational studies have focused on the role of “media” in order to analyze children's consumption during the high economic growth period in postwar Japan. Therefore, this paper examines the formation of children's consumer culture from the relationship between children and Japanese corporate society. Moreover, it provides new insights on the formation of children's consumption in the Japanese mass consumer society. This paper is composed of the following sections: Preface: An overview of historical research on consumption in postwar Japan and the characteristics of the child research of the Children's Research Institute 1. Focus on children's “products” by revisiting the position of children's sweets 2. Development of the “children's market” theory Conclusion: Overview and outlook of the paper In the preface, the author summarizes the historical study of consumption in postwar Japan. The author also describes how the Children's Research Institute defined children's consumption by explaining the Institute's history. It was found that they defined children's consumption as an ambiguous act outside school education. The first section examines children's “products”, focusing on children's sweets. At first, children's sweets were thought of as childlore, located throughout children's lives. Further, children's sweets were redefined as products, involving negotiation between children and the company. The second section analyses the development of the “children's market” theory from 1965 to 1966. In the “children's market” theory brought up by the Children's Research Institute, companies entering the children's market should take a public role as a supplier of “abundant children's culture”. Furthermore, a new realm of consumption emerged at the end of the 1960s that could not be encompassed by children's consumer culture, which can be considered the rise of subcultures in Japan. The last section summarizes the discussion and provides new insights into children's consumer culture in postwar Japan.
Desire is the motivating force behind much of contemporary consumption. Yet consumer research has devoted little specific attention to passionate and fanciful consumer desire. This article is ...grounded in consumers’ everyday experiences of longing for and fantasizing about particular goods. Based on journals, interviews, projective data, and inquiries into daily discourses in three cultures (the United States, Turkey, and Denmark), we develop a phenomenological account of desire. We find that desire is regarded as a powerful cyclic emotion that is both discomforting and pleasurable. Desire is an embodied passion involving a quest for otherness, sociality, danger, and inaccessibility. Underlying and driving the pursuit of desire, we find self‐seduction, longing, desire for desire, fear of being without desire, hopefulness, and tensions between seduction and morality. We discuss theoretical implications of these processes for consumer research.
In order to understand the social impact of digital platforms, we need to examine the ways in which they reconfigure space – not only through critique of that reconfiguring but also examination of ...the conditions within the spaces it forms. This article offers a typology of the injuries enacted by platform logistics, taking online retail as its focus and using Amazon as an exemplar. Cognitive Injury occurs when platforms act to conceal their operation from the awareness of users. Hidden Injury is enacted on the invisible labour that sustains platform functionality, a precarious workforce that labours under harsh conditions and within hostile spaces, somewhere below the cognisance of the user. Moral Injury speaks of the way that platform logistics, in concealing from awareness the conditions that sustain its operation, attacks the ability of users, or of a society at large, to act with responsibility. These injuries are shown to be at play in the processes that facilitate buying online and order fulfilment. It is argued that the speed of purchasing and delivery enacts an unconscious consumption, which dislocates users from the labour that delivers the goods, creating a kind of perceptual pollution that diminishes a sense of moral responsibility.
This article explores the formation of the domestic ideal (or ideals) and its relationship with feminine ideals in Spain during the final period of Franco's dictatorship (1960s and 1970s). The ...complexity of this historical moment, in which important transformations were taking place in the country, means that the analysis must be carried out from different sources. On the one hand, some Francoist documents and organisations show what the official ideal of the home and the role of women in it was, and how this changed throughout the dictatorship. On the other hand, Spain's entrance into the logic of mass consumer society in the mid-1960s made it necessary to study the domestic and feminine ideal from the perspective of advertising and consumerism. Magazines aimed at women, such as Cocina y Hogar, are an invaluable source for this purpose. The contrast between these ideals and the reality and experiences of the housewives of these decades is the final piece to understand how women at the end of Franco's dictatorship dreamt of their home.
Este artículo explora la formación del ideal (o los ideales) doméstico y su relación con los ideales femeninos en España durante el periodo final de la dictadura franquista (décadas de los sesenta y setenta del siglo XX). La complejidad de este momento histórico, en el que se están produciendo importantes transformaciones en el país, hacen que el análisis se deba realizar desde distintas fuentes. Por un lado, algunos escritos y organismos franquistas muestran cuál era el ideal oficial de los hogares y el rol en ellos de las mujeres y como este va cambiando a lo largo de la dictadura. Por otro, la entrada de España en las lógicas de la sociedad de consumo de masas a mediados de los años sesenta, hace necesario estudiar el ideal doméstico y femenino desde la publicidad y la perspectiva del consumo. Para ello son una fuente inestimable revistas dirigidas a mujeres como Cocina y Hogar. El contraste de estos ideales con la realidad y las vivencias de las amas de casa de estas décadas es la pieza final para comprender como las mujeres del final del franquismo soñaban su hogar.
Just as the social categories of class, gender, and religion became unstable during the "age of fracture" (Daniel Rodgers), the idea that we are all consumers was consolidated. The emergence of ...societies in which the consumer became a pivotal figure during the second half of the twentieth century constitutes a distinct phase in the history of consumption, which impacted the politics of consumption. This article expands the view of political consumption by looking at the institutionalization of the consumer in Dutch political system. In the course of the postwar period, an abstract notion of the consumer became widely accepted. This view was emancipatory, negating existing differences through unifying consumer policies. Focusing on the entanglement of the consumer with other social roles and categories in these negotiations, the article demonstrates that political consumption is not an anomaly, but the result of such entanglements.
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