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The Making of the Consumer: Knowledge, Power and Identity in the Modern World
We constantly hear about 'the consumer'. The 'consumer' has become a ubiquitous person in public discourse and academic research, but who is this person? The Making of the Consumer is the first interdisciplinary study that follows the evolution of the consumer in the modern world, ranging from imperial Britain to contemporary Papua New Guinea, and from the European Union to China. It makes a novel contribution by broadening the study of consumption from a focus on goods and symbols to the changing role and identity of consumers. Offering a historically informed picture of the rise of the consumer to its current prominence, authors discuss the consumer in relation to citizenship and ethics, law and economics, media, work and retailing.Contributors Winch (University of Sussex)Frank Trentmann (Birkbeck College, University of London)Vanessa Taylor (Birkbeck College, University of London)Marie-Emmanuelle Chessel ( Centre de Recherches Historiques, cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris)Michelle Everson (Birkbeck College, University of London)Erika Rappaport (University of California, Santa Barbara)Uwe Spiekermann (Georg-August University, Gttingen)Jos Gamble (Royal Holloway University)Stephen Kline (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada)Frank Mort (University of Manchester)Ina Merkel (Philipps-Universitt, Marburg, Germany)James G. Carrier (Indiana University and Oxford Brookes University)Ben Fine ( School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London)
- GenresHistory
256 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 20, 2012
It is hard to overstate the cultural, symbolic and political importance of the contemporary consumer. Consumption focussed business reports appear as key economic markers in news bulletins, surveys of consumer confidence can have a significant effect on received understandings of national or global economic well-being, and all around the consumer is ‘king’ (the gendering of the ways consumption is discussed is a fascinating topic, barely touched upon in this collection). Amid all this, academia seemed, about 25 or more years ago, to discover consumption; in cultural studies, for instance, we saw books such as Subculture: the Meaning of Style begin to define a field of scholarly work.
Amid all these analyses and discussions, the consumer per se has remained a curiously ahistorical figure, in that although she has changed, this change seems overwhelmingly teleological, defined that is only by what she has become. This useful collection sets out to and effectively undermines the myth of the essential consumer underpinning this view of consumer. It does so by blending more obviously theoretical pieces with close readings and case analyses to explore the social, economic, cultural and political forces behind the emergence of the consumer as a social figure or force. The book contains 12 essays plus a rich introduction that charts the field, clustered into three sections – ‘defining consumers’ looking at economic, legal and civil society aspects of the consumer, ‘commercial relations’ that explores the relations between consumers, retailers and experts, and finally by considering the roles of contemporary culture and political economy in ‘reframing consumers and consumption’.
This mix of more obviously theoretical papers with historical, anthropological and sociological case studies works well – and although Michelle Everson’s essay about the legal constructions of the consumer in post-war European law did not engage me as much as some of the more specific case studies the essays fit together well to give a nuanced and insightful (set of) view(s) of the meaning and significance of the changing social, cultural and political conditions that have produced ‘the consumer’.
Several of the empirical studies are really good; Frank Trentmann & Vanessa Taylor’s excellent paper about the political of water consumption in 19th century London reveals a significant shift in the relations between consumption, citizenship and political entitlements. Uwe Spriekermann’s discussion of consumer-retailer relations in 20th century Germany explores the way space, power and expertise shift, while Ina Merkel’s superb discussion of post-war East German consumer culture reveals the role of nostalgia and the forms of changes in the significance of both consumption and artefact is consumer cultures. I liked Erika Rappaport’s discussion of the ways orientalist imagery framed Victorian understandings of tea production and consumption, while Jos Gamble’s ethnography of British and Japanese stores in China reminds us that we have learned to be consumers of a particular type.
These were the stand-out empirical studies, to my mind, and they are enhanced by and enhance the three ‘theory’ papers that spoke most loudly to me. Donald Winch considers the problematic status of the consumer in classical and neo-classical economic thought, pointing to some of the limitations and misapprehensions that underpin current economic policy. James Carrier’s essay about the anthropology of consumption, as the title states, reveals the limits of culture; this is a potent and compelling call for much greater attention to the structural forces in life (there is a strong resonance with Frank Mort’s less engaging discussion of the parallel lives of consumer theory and liberal democratic theory in the US and UK). Carrier’s piece is fabulously complemented by Ben Fine’s materialist case for a much more sophisticated understandings of the links between consumption and production, and in doing so he provides a rich exploration of Marx’s work on commodities.
The collection is extremely good – so why only 3 stars? As is the case with many edited collections, several papers just did not resonate in the way these ones did, and in a couple of cases it was almost as if I finished them out of duty; they are not bad papers, the range of material here means that some will always be less interesting or engaging. This should not be seen as a sign that the collection is not good or unimportant – quite the opposite; I’ll come back to several of the papers (including Trentmann’s excellent introduction) and send my students to others. For both researchers and students there is important material here.
Amid all these analyses and discussions, the consumer per se has remained a curiously ahistorical figure, in that although she has changed, this change seems overwhelmingly teleological, defined that is only by what she has become. This useful collection sets out to and effectively undermines the myth of the essential consumer underpinning this view of consumer. It does so by blending more obviously theoretical pieces with close readings and case analyses to explore the social, economic, cultural and political forces behind the emergence of the consumer as a social figure or force. The book contains 12 essays plus a rich introduction that charts the field, clustered into three sections – ‘defining consumers’ looking at economic, legal and civil society aspects of the consumer, ‘commercial relations’ that explores the relations between consumers, retailers and experts, and finally by considering the roles of contemporary culture and political economy in ‘reframing consumers and consumption’.
This mix of more obviously theoretical papers with historical, anthropological and sociological case studies works well – and although Michelle Everson’s essay about the legal constructions of the consumer in post-war European law did not engage me as much as some of the more specific case studies the essays fit together well to give a nuanced and insightful (set of) view(s) of the meaning and significance of the changing social, cultural and political conditions that have produced ‘the consumer’.
Several of the empirical studies are really good; Frank Trentmann & Vanessa Taylor’s excellent paper about the political of water consumption in 19th century London reveals a significant shift in the relations between consumption, citizenship and political entitlements. Uwe Spriekermann’s discussion of consumer-retailer relations in 20th century Germany explores the way space, power and expertise shift, while Ina Merkel’s superb discussion of post-war East German consumer culture reveals the role of nostalgia and the forms of changes in the significance of both consumption and artefact is consumer cultures. I liked Erika Rappaport’s discussion of the ways orientalist imagery framed Victorian understandings of tea production and consumption, while Jos Gamble’s ethnography of British and Japanese stores in China reminds us that we have learned to be consumers of a particular type.
These were the stand-out empirical studies, to my mind, and they are enhanced by and enhance the three ‘theory’ papers that spoke most loudly to me. Donald Winch considers the problematic status of the consumer in classical and neo-classical economic thought, pointing to some of the limitations and misapprehensions that underpin current economic policy. James Carrier’s essay about the anthropology of consumption, as the title states, reveals the limits of culture; this is a potent and compelling call for much greater attention to the structural forces in life (there is a strong resonance with Frank Mort’s less engaging discussion of the parallel lives of consumer theory and liberal democratic theory in the US and UK). Carrier’s piece is fabulously complemented by Ben Fine’s materialist case for a much more sophisticated understandings of the links between consumption and production, and in doing so he provides a rich exploration of Marx’s work on commodities.
The collection is extremely good – so why only 3 stars? As is the case with many edited collections, several papers just did not resonate in the way these ones did, and in a couple of cases it was almost as if I finished them out of duty; they are not bad papers, the range of material here means that some will always be less interesting or engaging. This should not be seen as a sign that the collection is not good or unimportant – quite the opposite; I’ll come back to several of the papers (including Trentmann’s excellent introduction) and send my students to others. For both researchers and students there is important material here.
Displaying 1 of 1 review