In 2015, a United States Supreme Court ruling allowed same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Since that time, there have been over one million same-sex marriages in the United States, and the number of same-sex marriages has increased every year (Romero, 2017). With this work, we conducted an in-depth, exploratory study on how lesbian married couples in the United States negotiated their style–fashion–dress

This article explores the legalization and marketing of recreational cannabis in Canada, specifically the province of Nova Scotia, that has extended state monopoly over sales. Beginning with Howard Becker’s classic analysis of “becoming a marijuana user,” this ethnographic investigation of the first day of state cannabis sales utilizes and extends Bourdieusian analyses, particularly by showing how

The rise of platforms as the premier model of videogame distribution has led to a number of changes in the business models of producers and distributors. Consumers are constantly hailed by games platforms through freemium business models that offer cosmetic items contained in loot boxes or recurring subscriptions. Thus far, game studies and consumer studies have been unable to account for the totality

This article examines the intersection of English and coffee in Seoul, South Korea, in order to document how distinction (ala Bourdieu, 1984/2008) functions under the prevailing conditions of neoliberalism. A mere two decades after Starbucks first opened in Korea, high-end specialty coffee shops proliferate. Drawing on photographs of the exteriors, interiors, and menus from 89 coffee shops in the trendy

Regulatory approaches to games are organized by boundaries between game/not-game, game/gambling game, skilled/unskilled play, consumption/production. Perhaps more importantly, moral justifications for regulating gambling (and condemning digital games) are rooted in the idea that they consume our time and wages but give little in return. This article uses two case studies to show how these boundaries

This article investigates the origin, circulation and consumption of a new commodity – the “battle pass” – in the complex ludic economies of contemporary digital games. The article dives deep into the history and political economy of battle royale shooters and the game Apex Legends (2019), a free-to-play example of the genre monetized in part by a battle pass. Inspired and in dialogue with Nieborg

With its release in late 2009, League of Legends (Riot Games) has influenced the game industry in several profound ways. Known for its vast popularity and its pivotal role in pioneering live streaming and electronic sports, League of Legends is also noteworthy for its model of ‘fair’ free-to-play. Described by Riot Games and many industry professionals as ‘fair’ due to its lack of any ‘pay-to-win’

Several authors have described contemporary purchasing and consumption behavior as part of a “throwaway society.” Broader movements around environmental and consumer issues try to offset this process. Among these movements, Repair Cafés—places where volunteers help people repair their household items for free—are an interesting vantage point to study how a different relationship to objects can be transmitted

This article draws on fieldwork form Delhi’s garment and electronics bazaars to articulate an alternative perspective on the role of brands in the global bazaar economy. Knockoffs and counterfeit brands have mostly been viewed as problematic manifestations of counterfeiting and piracy, or framed in terms of authenticity or marginal practices of imitation. In this article, we suggest that bazaar brands

The efficiency approach of moving towards sustainable consumption through mainly technological solutions, which dominates environmental policymaking, has overall failed to reduce the adverse environmental impacts caused by unsustainable consumption patterns. Increasingly, it is recognised that efficiency needs to be coupled with sufficiency, which aims to reduce absolute levels of consumption. While

In this article, we discuss how and why virtual items known as “skins” travel beyond games and into wider online ecosystems where they become tokens in gambling games. We argue that betting with skins purchased on the Steam platform contributes to the wider platform economy. We do this on the basis of a comparative analysis of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Fortnite: Battle Royale as well as

Social casino apps are an emergent genre in the app economy that sits at the intersection of three different industries: casino gambling, freemium mobile games, and social media platforms. This institutional position has implications for the social casino app’s political economy and culture of consumption. We argue that social casino apps are representative of a broader casualization of risk that has

Since the middle of the 1970s, the cost of higher education, childcare, healthcare, and housing have all risen relative to median earnings, threatening the balance sheets of many middle-income households. A large number of these households have maintained their lifestyles and aspirations by taking on debt, leaving them highly leveraged and living paycheck to paycheck. Whether voluntarily or forced

Fandom communities adopt diverse consumption practices to cope with an overwhelmingly commodified football. Drawing upon literature on consumer communities, this paper examines a local football fandom community in multifarious relations with its broader fandom through divergent consumption practices, which create tensions and ambivalences in terms of the former’s autonomy from and loyalty to the latter

Much of the extant literature on esports consumption has characterized esports consumers as striving for mastery of their gaming skills, with a focus on professional esports players. Through a hermeneutic analysis of the esports literature, insider immersion, and in-depth interviews, this study applies a qualitative research design to illustrate the various journeys that non-professional esports consumers

This paper presents findings from a grounded theory study of consumer ethics among feminists who use porn. It presents a range of exogenous and endogenous factors reported to be influential on ethical decision-making in this context and demonstrates how such factors may be perceived as impeding or facilitating the types of behaviour that consumers consider to be more in keeping with their moral and

Scholars working in consumer culture studies have long recognized the significance of the imagination in directing consumption. Largely unconsidered in such studies, however, is nighttime dreaming, a state of consciousness in which consumers regularly engage with the meanings, materialities, identity projects, and objective structures associated with consumption. Synthesizing insights from the anthropology

Consumers’ increasing fascination with recreational eating out has contributed to numerous transformations in the upmarket restaurant practice. This paper explores such changes in regard to the “social” aspects of eating out, focusing particularly on the “cultural phenomenon” and practice of eating publicly alone (solo dining). Specifically, the paper extends previous portrayals of solo dining as a

This paper has three objectives. The first is to deliver a critical review of the work of Zygmunt Bauman on Liquid Modernity and Liquid Times. I argue that Bauman’s work can provide a useful starting point for analysing the ‘unruly’ forces of contemporary society. Bauman’s work, as I have sought to reveal, takes us to the heart of liquid modern darkness. It forces us to take seriously the import of

The diverse fields of business, management and marketing have long explored the concept of the ‘prosumer’ – the producer-consumer who not only consumes those products produced by industry, but also has some hand in their creation. But while the term itself is often credited to futurist Alvin Toffler, the concept he describes (and that which Ritzer et al. adapt) is a central concern of science fiction

Reviewed by: Chris Porter, Department of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

If resource intensive practices are regularly represented as conventional, these potentially become naturalised and inconspicuous consumption will increase. Understanding how representations, conventions and everyday practices interact is thus fundamental in tackling unsustainable consumption. To gain new insights into how representations, conventions and practices interact, this paper explores how

This paper intervenes in critical debates on the role of charitable food aid in meeting the material, social, emotional, and cultural needs of the people who depend on this aid. It offers a detailed case study of a social grocery in Belgium that attempts to circumvent the power inequalities and negative social and emotional impacts of charitable giving through staging consumer culture, and treating

This article explores the transition towards a circular economy in the context of household food waste practices. The research concerning the circular economy has mainly focused on engineering or the processes of production, manufacturing, business and industry. However, the transition towards a circular economy requires, in addition to new technologies, infrastructures and innovations, a societal

Organized forms of animal advocacy date back to the final decades of the 20th century. Born in progressive political milieus, animal advocacy and especially the more radical positions of vegan and animal rights activists originally assumed anticapitalist and counter-hegemonic perspectives. More recently, however, the spreading of veganism among civil society has very often related to reasons of health

This study investigates how meanings ascribed to education influence lower-income parents on investing (or not) in their children’s education, and how this in turn influences family expenditures and consumption priorities. Based on 62 ethnographic interviews with individuals who had ascended from poverty to the lower fractions of the Brazilian urban middle-class, we examine differences within a relatively

This article explores the creation process and the subsequent meaning development of vibrators within a framework consisting of various theories of material culture. The conceptual scheme is based on the view that four underlying junctures of meaning creation and vibrator consumption, namely (1) vibrators as a medical implement, (2) vibrators as a household appliance, (3) vibrators as a liberating

Even though we spend less and less time cooking and eating, food consumption remains a corner stone of the temporal organisation of everyday life. This paper is interested in how and to which extent food practices can be described as shared. We situate our investigation at the confluence of practice theories and the empirical analysis of time-use surveys. While qualitative research highlights the interrelations

The number of organic shops in Bengaluru has increased remarkably in the last few years, with millets being the main products drawing consumers. Yet, organic shops are only attracting middle-class consumers. We observed and interviewed 104 customers in five organic shops in Bengaluru to find out why this is the case. In this article, we follow practice theory to discuss the reported consumption patterns

This article engages with two rich but largely disparate research traditions: one looks at ethical consumption, that is, constructions and contestations around good food, while the other interrogates the equally contested space of what it means to be a good farmer. The argument is informed by qualitative data collected from, on the one hand, those engaged in shaping urban food policy and institutional

The cultural aspects of brands, as well as their consideration as symbols in consumer cultures, are relevant elements of contemporary branding. This research relies on cultural branding as a theore...

This article investigates the making of personhood through conspicuous hospitality practices in the Republic of Georgia, focusing on how this process has underpinned moral boundary drawing in Georgia’s recent history – from the late Soviet era, through the 1990s, to the years following the Rose Revolution in 2003. Largely perceived and defined as tradition by local people and external observers, hospitality

This article explores the role of nostalgia as a motivation for retro sewing and the ways in which nostalgia shapes the practices of retro sewing. Retro sewers circumvent typical models of clothing...

While the importance of consumption of luxury goods as a mechanism accompanying upwards movement in a social hierarchy has been well acknowledged, attention to the role and perceptions of luxury in multicultural societies has been scarce so far. It is nonetheless intriguing that ethnic groups inhabiting the same territory, and exposed to a same culture, might develop substantially different notions

The caring mother is one of the most recurring images of femininity in post-war advertising. We examine how mothers are depicted as knowing consumers in advertisements in Australian Women’s Weekly ...

Drawing on ethnographic research into household money practices among young middle-class couples in Warsaw, Poland, this article shows that normative concerns about the fair use of domestic money shape household budgeting rules. The practical division of funds into ‘mine’, ‘yours’ and ‘ours’ reflects what couples running a household together consider morally right. Focusing on couples’ practical and

With electricity-using appliances as the starting point, we seek to uncover the normative authority in the performance of practices among households in Western Switzerland. Through complementary me...

The evolving consumption landscape creates challenges for retailers in accommodating their modus operandi to negotiate changing consumer needs, arguably requiring a ‘new’ type of retailing to hopef...

This article critically engages with Russell Belk’s ‘extended self’ theory and Susan Fournier’s ‘human relationship model’. When a human development model is applied to the ‘extended self’ theory, ...

This article examines how class, consumerism, and employment influence beliefs of an idealized digital world in marginalized communities. I recount 24 months of ethnographic and institutional obser...

Participation is central to the success of political consumption movements. To date, consumer research has explored participation from the lens of the individual consumer activist. In this article ...

This article studies the preferences of middle-class residents for old or new neighborhoods in two Israeli cities, and describes the ways local social space mediates the translation of the habitus ...

Consumer culture has been inextricably bound up with two parallel transformations: the growing emphasis on self-actualization or individualization in late modernity and the rise of a particularly disengaged and predatory capitalism during the last 40 years. Wide academic and public understanding exists concerning the separate ways in which each of these forces have played out in societies, cultures

The historically masculine realm of sport has not always been welcoming to women. Today, women have found a place in sport culture, but contemporary media position and address them as objects whose...

Discourses of intensive mothering now seem to dominate European and American parenting cultures. This is a problem for those mothers who do not currently possess the resources to match up. In a study of Italian and British mothers who are experiencing low or reduced incomes, we observe the ways in which they internalize intensive mothering discourses through a process of ethical self-formation. This

This article examines the practice of gleaning or waste picking, that is, retrieving, reusing and exchanging disposed consumer goods collected from kerbsides and rubbish sites. While the literature has tended to be divided along geographic lines with waste picking either associated with poor communities in the Global South or understood as anti-consumerism activism in the North, this article reframes

This Special Issue focuses on the manifestations of austerity in everyday life, taking the dichotomous relationship between consumption and thrift as a means by which to explore thrifty practices. In doing so, it aims to straddle the disciplines of Sociology, Cultural Studies and Anthropology, while weaving in elements of History, Political Studies and Media Studies. The mainstream portrayal of thinking

The concept of consumer restraint has had a popular makeover. This is seen in the worldwide popularity of books, video tutorials and online discussion groups devoted to de-cluttering, and specifically the stunning success of professional organizer Marie Kondo and her best-selling book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying. De-cluttering sits on a broad continuum of alternative consumption that champions

This article explores the attitudes of pound store shoppers in the United Kingdom and the ways in which ‘consumptive thrift’ (spending to save) has become embedded in popular culture. Through an analysis of ethnography carried out in low-income urban areas with regular pound store shoppers, it argues that a culture of bargain seeking exists, which is unique to the current era. While in previous eras

This study analyzes a particular ideology of austerity as it spreads across Europe and reappears across diverse discourses. This ideology mobilizes the figure of the feckless consumer, who has overspent, who must come to regard their consumption as stupid, and therefore will accept austerity; not just as an inevitable outcome of bad decisions, but as holding the potential for moral redemption. We argue

In Western contexts, ‘hand-me-down’ and sharing economies of children’s clothes, toys and equipment remain one of the most normalised cultures of second-hand consumption. This article explores the strategies used by mothers to realise the most economic value from these economies in current austere times with the increased possibilities offered by the democratisation of informal buying and selling spaces

Unlike product invention, product innovation has been overlooked as an issue relevant to the study of the economic, social, and cultural change. It is only in recent times that historians started t...

In the past decades, numerous disciplines have investigated so-called ethical and alternative forms of consumption. This has led to confusion about what terms to use and how to interpret the multip...

Scholars have noted the power of state-led discourse to create a national identity as an imagined community and have explicitly linked food to state-orchestrated narratives of nationhood. Others ha...

This article uses participant observation data to explore teenagers’ presence in two urban public spaces in Manchester, England. The urban spaces under investigation are public, but surrounded by retail outlets and act as gateways for consumption. The aim is to answer the question ‘how do the rhythms of teenage life differ when ordinary and extraordinary activities occur in urban public spaces of consumption

An ethnographic approach to consumption practices of upper-class young-adult women in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, shows how shopping and selling experiences are seen as opportunities for owners, staff,...

In this article, we argue that the sociology of sustainable consumption has had a strong focus on practical understandings embedded in material entities and thereby also on the role of the material...

Anabolic-androgenic steroid consumption is considered a significant public health issue in a number of countries but particularly in the northeast of England. Informed by ongoing ethnographic work ...

This article provides a case study of race and big-gift cultural patronage, a theoretically and empirically understudied phenomenon, by investigating million-dollar donations to the Smithsonian Institution by black patrons. I find that large donations by black supporters are concentrated at one Smithsonian museum – the National Museum of African American History and Culture. To explain this distinctive

The international expansion of Korean popular music (K-pop) reflects the increasing dislocation of cultural globalization from Western centers, spurred by the rise of cultural, economic, and politi...