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Consume This! Consumer Activism and Corporate Diversity

In this post, Patricia Banks, author of the just-published Race, Ethnicity, and Consumption, reflects on how consumer-focused companies’ social media reacted to this spring and summer’s racial justice protests, as well as the subsequent activist response, neatly weaving it all through the important concept of ‘racialized political consumerism.’ – Michaela DeSoucey (section chair) Consume This! Consumer Activism […]

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Consume This! Geek Wave! Driving Scenes from the Fringe

In this month’s blog post, Eli Wilson, Nate Chapman, and J. Slade Lellock introduce us to their recently launched collaborative project on the craft beer scene, and discuss what – and who – drives scenes and shapes tastes, and why we need to take aficionados seriously. – Michaela DeSoucey (section chair) Consume This! Geek Wave! […]

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Consume This! Fashion Influencers and COVID “Chic”

In this month’s blog post Jordan Foster uses his research on fashion influencers to discuss how conditions under the COVID-19 pandemic have shaped their work lives, and reflect on what issues and questions they as well as brands and consumers in the fashion world face in our current moment and going forward. — Richard E. […]

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Consume This! Inclusivity and Reflection in Artistic Spaces

This month’s blog post features an essay by Amanda Koontz based on her recent visit to Art Basel Miami and the Spectrum Miami Art Show. Here she uses audience engagement with art exhibitions to discuss the relationship between inclusiveness and authenticity. — Richard E. Ocejo (Section Chair) Consume This! Space, Place, and Authenticity: What Helps Create Inclusivity […]

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Consume This! Ethnography and the “Tuned-Up” Palate

In this month’s post, Michael Ian Borer, author of the recent book Vegas Brews, discusses the importance in ethnographic research of “learning to taste” as both a part of the method and an object of inquiry. — Richard E. Ocejo (Section Chair) Consume This! Ethnography and the “Tuned-Up” Palate By Michael Ian Borer Despite his vast experiences in […]

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Consume This! Engaged Sustainers in the Food World

In this month’s post, John Brueggemann gets hopeful. Based on his research on what he calls “engaged sustainers” in the food world, he revisits Juliet Schor’s influential “new politics of consumption” piece from 1999, and finds a lot of optimism among food doers. — Richard E. Ocejo (Section Chair) Consume This! Engaged Sustainers in the […]

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Scholars’ Conversations: Jen Smith Maguire and Nate Chapman

This conversation is a recurring feature of the Consumers and Consumption website: the “Scholars’ Conversations” series, where consumption scholars (broadly defined) are interviewed by graduate students or other scholars in the field about recent publications and their approach to all things consumption. This month, two faculty members, Nate Chapman and Jen Smith Maguire, talk about their […]

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Consume This! The Politics of “Feeding the Planet”

This month’s post features work from two of our student members, Alana Stein and Nadia Smiecinska, from their research on how nations use a “citizen-consumer” discourse at the 2015 World Expo on food security. — Richard E. Ocejo (Section Chair) Consume This! The Politics of “Feeding the Planet” By Alana Haynes Stein and Nadia Smiecinska […]

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Scholars’ Conversations: Christopher Andrews and Craig Lair

This conversation is part of a new feature of the Consumers and Consumption website: the “Scholars’ Conversations” series, where consumption scholars (broadly defined) are interviewed by graduate students or other scholars in the field about recent publications and their approach to all things consumption. This month, two faculty members, Christopher Andrews and Craig Lair, talk about […]

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Consume This! The Evolution of Luxury

In this month’s post, Ian Malcolm Taplin draws from his new book, The Evolution of Luxury, to provide a much-needed historical analysis and contextualization of high-end consumption to show how goods and their meanings have transformed. — Richard E. Ocejo (Section Chair) Consume This! The Evolution of Luxury By Ian Malcolm Taplin Perhaps like others I […]

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Scholars’ Conversations: Clayton Childress, Under the Cover

This interview is part of the Consumers and Consumption website: the “Scholars’ Conversations” series, where consumption scholars (broadly defined) are interviewed by graduate students or other scholars in the field about recent publications and their approach to all things consumption. You can participate too! Graduate students, this can be an excellent opportunity to connect with […]

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Consume This! The Meanings of $4 Croissants

In this month’s Consume This!, I present a short essay based on my current, ongoing project on the plight of small cities in the twenty-first century. This piece focuses on the role consumption plays in shaping how people experience gentrification. Understudied in the gentrification literature, I hope to give consumption a more central role in […]

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Consume This! Consuming Global Borderlands

In this month’s Consume This!, Victoria Reyes examines how a special economic zone is intertwined with its host nation state, highlighting the tensions around notions of sovereignty, responsibility and desirability in modern, global consumption imaginaries. It’s a great introduction to her forthcoming book, Global Borderlands. —Jennifer Smith Maguire (Section Chair) Consume This! Consuming Global Borderlands […]

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Consume This! The Joy of Waste: Minimalism and its Ecological Consequences

In this month’s blog, Jennifer Sandlin and Jason Wallin examine Marie Kondo’s brand of decluttering as both an attempt at re-enchanting the object, and a failure to appreciate that our responsibility for objects extends beyond our domestic spaces. —Jennifer Smith Maguire (Section Chair) Consume This! The Joy of Waste: Minimalism and its Ecological Consequences By Jennifer […]

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Scholars’ Conversations: Kjerstin Gruys and Ashley Mears

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Consume This! Understanding Political Parties’ Leading Role in the Debate over Islamic Clothing

In our June edition of Consume This!, Emily Laxer examines the intersection of political parties, secularism and the consumption of symbols of collective identity, by comparing how Islamic veiling is framed within French and Québécois political landscapes. —Jennifer Smith Maguire (Section Chair) Consume This! Understanding Political Parties’ Leading Role in the Debate over Islamic Clothing By […]

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Consume This! Alternative Urban Consumption and Chile’s Shopping Malls

In our May issue of Consume This!, Liliana De Simone takes us on a tour of the research around—and social implications—of Chile’s shopping malls, and introduces us to the work of the Observatory of Consumer, Culture, and Society (OCCS UC), at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. —Jennifer Smith Maguire (Section Chair) Consume This! Alternative Urban Consumption […]

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Consume This! Eating for Taste and Eating for Change

In our April blog, Emily Huddart Kennedy, Shyon Baumann and Josée Johnston explore the intersection of status, ethics and aesthetics in relation to food preferences, and provide a fascinating prompt for a ‘cultural capital 2.0’ research programme for the sociology of consumption. —Jennifer Smith Maguire (Section Chair) Consume This! Cultural Capital 2.0? Eating for Taste […]

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Scholars’ Conversations: Joshua Sbicca, Food Justice Now!

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Consume This! Why “Eating for Change” Won’t Fix the Food System

In our March issue of Consume This!, Sinikka Elliott, Joslyn Brenton and Sarah Bowen draw from their recently published book, Pressure Cooker, to highlight some of the many tensions between holding individuals responsible for ‘eating for change,’ and the need for collective solutions to the ills of our contemporary food systems. —Jennifer Smith Maguire (Section […]

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Scholars’ Conversations: Meredith Katz and Jeffrey London

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Consume This! Diversity Capital and Corporate Cultural Patronage

In this month’s blog, Patricia Banks develops the concept of “diversity capital” to unpack how patronage of the black cultural sector operates as an instrument of corporate communication and impression management. —Jennifer Smith Maguire (Section Chair) Diversity Capital and Corporate Cultural Patronage By Patricia A. Banks In 2011, Aetna, a health insurance company, announced a $1.275 […]

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Scholars’ Conversations: Richard Ocejo, Masters of Craft

This interview is part of a new feature of the Consumers and Consumption website: the “Scholars’ Conversations” series, where consumption scholars (broadly defined) are interviewed by graduate students or other scholars in the field about recent publications and their approach to all things consumption. You can participate too! Graduate students, this can be an excellent […]

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Consume This! Plumbing of Capitalism: Credit as “Ordinary Consumption”

This month, Léna Pellandini-Simányi and Zsuzsanna Vargha make use of the practice theory concept of ‘ordinary consumption’ to consider the consumption of credit, and demonstrate the power of thinking through metaphor—in this case, plumbing! —Jennifer Smith Maguire (Section Chair) Revisiting the Plumbing of Capitalism: Credit as “Ordinary Consumption” By Léna Pellandini-Simányi and Zsuzsanna Vargha Household debt has […]

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Consume This! Cultural Participation and Professional Wrestling

In this month’s Consume This!, Gary Yeritsian gives us a thought-provoking and entertaining glimpse into the world of professional wrestling, suggesting how WWE’s use of social media for highly-scripted, sanctioned forms of audience participation nevertheless creates possibilities for contestation and disruption. —Jennifer Smith Maguire (Section Chair) Cultural Participation From Above and Below: The Case […]

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Consume This! Cultural Intermediaries, Emotion, and the Craft Beverage Industry

In this month’s Consume This!, Erik Withers takes us along to a craft brewery tour, highlighting the role of cultural intermediaries as frontline storytellers in contemporary consumer settings, and the power of emotions, nostalgia and place in those stories. —Jennifer Smith Maguire (Section Chair) Cultural Intermediaries, Emotion, and the Craft Beverage Industry: Reflections from the […]

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Scholars’ Conversations: Laura J. Miller, Building Nature’s Market

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Consume This! The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Craft Beer

In our October issue of Consume This!, Nathaniel Chapman and Slade Lellock consider ‘the Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ of craft beer and offer a great example of how personal consuming passions can lead to research projects! Nate and Slade highlight some of the particular paradoxes and tensions around issues of authenticity, diversity and […]

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Consume This! Consumption, Vulgarity and Vulgar Times

Hello all, and welcome to September. As the current Chair of the Consumers and Consumption section and in keeping with tradition, I’m delighted to contribute the September Consume This! essay. In this issue, I expand upon an article I recently completed on media representations of the nouveaux riches, taking a tour through the theme of […]

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Give the gift of section membership!

Want to help others join the Consumers and Consumption section? Why not offer them a gift membership? ASA members can gift an ASA membership for students or section memberships for any membership type at https://asa.enoah.com (Login required). To purchase a gift ASA membership for studentsOnce logged into the member portal, please click “Purchase a gift membership for a student” under […]

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Congratulations to the 2016-17 section award winners!

ASA Section on the Sociology of Consumers and Consumption Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award for 2017 Winners: Kristie O’Neill and Daniel Silver, “From Hungry to Healthy: Simmel, Self-Cultivation and the Transformative Experience of Eating for Beauty” Honorable mention: Nathan Wilmers, “Does Consumer Demand Reproduce Inequality? High-income Consumers, Vertical Differentiation and the Wage Structure” ASA Section […]

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Consume This! The End of Work (or More Work)?

Christopher Andrews’ May blogpost takes up a question that is sure to get increasing attention: is automation and artificial intelligence going to significantly reduce the number of jobs? What is the future of work? Andrews looks at self-checkout lanes in supermarkets—one of the biggest and most obvious candidates for job elimination—and has surprising and very […]

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Consume This! Art in the Chilean Living Room

In recent years, the influence of Pierre Bourdieu on U.S. sociology has increased substantially. Jeffery Sallaz and Jane Zavisca did an analysis of Bourdieusian concepts in major journals between 1980-2004, finding both increasing influence as well as an expansion of concepts, from cultural capital to habitus to field. Since that analysis the use of his […]

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2018 Section Awards: Call for submissions

ASA Section on the Sociology of Consumers and Consumption Distinguished Publication Award for 2018 The ASA Section on the Sociology of Consumers and Consumption Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award goes to the author(s) of the best published book that makes a significant, original contribution to the understanding of ideas about, and practices of, consumption. The sociology […]