Consumption

Encompasses a wide range of goods

& activities:
Purchase of material goods
Use of goods
Interpretation of symbolic meanings
Desire & looking
Considerations:
Can be everyday or heroic
Embedded in social relations
Marshall Fields, Chicago
1910
West Edmonton Mall
Commodification
Commodities:
Objects of economic value
Products intended for exchange
Commodification:
Conversion from use to exchange value
Begins with commodified labour
Creates goods that are for sale
Consumed by someone other than producer
Mediated through markets, prices,
competition, profit
Egyptia
n
Carpets
 Cartographies of
Commodities
Marx on Commodification:
Product of capitalism
Mass commodification brought by industrial
revolution
Commodity fetish: Obscures relationship
between producer & consumer
Veiling relations of production
Attaches symbolic meaning to consumption
Define identities through consumption
Global Patterns:
Increased circulation
Networks more distant
Meaning shaped by globalization
Branding beyond the good
Banana Commodity Chain
Banana
Profits
Commodity Chain Problems
David Harvey:
we can in practice consume our meal without
the slightest knowledge of the intricate geography
of production and the myriad of social relations
embedded in the system that puts it on our table.
Harveys approach:
Unveiling & revealing hidden meaning
Dualism
Visible surfaces
Invisible reality
Critique:
Assumes consumer is uninformed
Some products speak loudly about origins
The World on a Plate
Double commodity fetish (Cook & Crang)
Fetishization 1: commodities divorced from
relations of production
Geographical ignorance of production and
provision
Fetishization 2: consumers aesthicize
geographical origins of commodities
Settings: resources of domestic preparation
Origins: stressed when authentic
Ethical
Authentic
Ethnic
Consuming Cultural
Difference
Identities formed through consumption
Choice of goods to belong
Consumption of other to bolster we
Involve power relations
Buying a bit of the Other via exotic
Separates other from we
Builds desire for other
Products stand-in for other
Products of other located in static place &
time
 World Music Connell &
Gibson
Precursors to world music
Commodification of non-Western sounds
Fetishization of Place:
Credibility linked to place of origin
Fetishization of Marginality
Eulogizes isolation, remoteness, authenticity
Eulogizes Africa at the expense of Asia
Artists practice strategic inauthenticity