Summary: Lifestyle And Consumption

Read the summary and the most important questions on Lifestyle and consumption

• 1 L1, Introduction

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• In this course we are looking at lifestyles and consumption, how can we describe what we are doing best? (found in the book)

  From a sociology perspective we investigate the symbolic expression of acts of consumption and relate those observations to classes and lifestyles.

• In what 3 factors can consumption be socially embedded?

  Consumption is socially embedded and not merely one single action. Embedded in:
  
  1 time, (what is socially accepted in time)
  2 society, (what does society prescribe is 'normal')
  3 position in social class (more on this in lecture 2.)

• What are the important aspects about goods and services we investigate in this course rather than price and function?

  1 Different use and meanings
  2 different degrees of social acceptance
  3 different forms or markets (informal/formal)

• What is the idea of circular economy?

  Consumption is no longer seen as an end state, there are more opportunities like recycling and reuse.

• What change did the idea of consumption undergo?

  Acts of consumption were only regarded as processes related to an exchange of money. It is now a wider cycle that also includes processes such as getting eaten, burned or recycled.

• What is collaborative consumption?

  Like liquid consumption; an economic model based on sharing, swapping, trading, or renting products and services, enabling access over ownership.
  
  Consumers as obtainers AND providers. Often, a platform mediates this process. (thinks of Vinted or AirnBnB)
  
  Part of sharing economy (sharing underutilized assets), but more triadic, more people and a mediating platform.
  e.g. vinted, Swapfiets

• What is a broad description of consumption according to the book?

  Consumption describes as just taking something in order to receive or use it. (e.g. A baby consuming its mother's milk)

• How can consumption be described in a narrower sense? And why, when using this decription, can we measure consumption, economically, as waste?

  A formal or informal contract which accompanies processes of payment.
  
  > Accordingly, only processes related to an exchange of money or to reciprocal expectations are regarded as acts of consumption. In this understanding, consumption can be measured economically as a waste, in terms of items getting eaten, burned or, literally, in the common sense of the word, consumed. (you buy something - it is of value - by consuming you'll not be able to get the same value back for it)

• Why is the legitimacy of products and their markets important in understanding consumption?

  Legitimacy of products and markets is important, since reflections about consumption are also always reflections about the social embeddedness of markets and their moral limits. Goods on the market are related to different forms of use and meaning, with different degrees of social acceptance and different forms of markets (e.g. braces, drugs etc.)

• Why are norms important when looking at lifestyles and consumption?

  Norms in a society define which services or goods are legal and which are classified as being illegal or criminal.