This is an essay for the course: The Anthropology of Economic Institutions and their social transformations. How has consumer society been theorised ? Is consumption a new thing? What is the role of commodities in different contexts ? How do consumption practices shape and reshape specific identities in terms of gender, class and ethnicity ? *J. Baudrillard 1998 The Consumer Society, Ch5, Ch6, Ch7 Z. Bauman 2007 Consuming Life M. B. Mills 1997 “Contesting the Margins of Modernity: Women, Migration and Consumption in Thailand”, American Ethnologist, 24(1), *J. Watson (ed.) 2006 Golden Arches East: Mc Donald’s in East Asia K. Tranberg-Hansen 2000 Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing in Zambia S. Mintz 1985 Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History Among anthropologists, consumption is not a not a new question in anthropological debates, but has always interested anthropologists. However, what is relatively new and again is related to globalisation, is the interest anthropologist have taken in consumer society. GOODS AND COMMODITIES - consumption of goods, which are often bought as commodities, serves much more differentiated and often purposes, for example status or personal prestige - questions anthropologists as opposed to economists ask, is, what happens through the consumption of goods, and is what happens significantly different in a society where goods have turned into commodities ? - Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood ‘The World of Goods - towards an Anthropology of Consumption‘ : goods serve comparable purposes in all societies, including our own, namely to " mak[e] visible and stable the categories of culture." (Douglas and Isherwood 59) - “providing subsistence and in drawing lines of social relationships [is]… the way to a proper understanding of why people need goods." - emphasise that the essential function of consumption is its capacity to make sense… and invite us to forget that commodities are good for eating, clothing, and shelter (the needs and livelihood approach); or their utility (the economists approach) but try to think of commodities as good for thinking; treat them as a nonverbal medium for the human creative faculty. (62) MASS PRODUCTION AND COMMODITY FETISHISM - Marxist approaches to the study of goods, which of course takes the form of a study of commodities as he is interested in capitalist society - the transformation of human practice (work) into capital, which transforms the product of labour into a commodity - he states here that a commodity is something entirely different from a mere good – as it is sold in a market place, where anonymous relations prevail and therefore the commodity relates people. The commodity therefore represents the consecutive condition of capitalist societies, as a relation between things - commodity fetishism: an inanimate object is treated as if it required a religious, or even sexual, devotion. In pre-modern societies fetishes were hand-made or rare natural objects thought to embody a spirit that protected the owner from misfortune or disease. Commodity fetishism arises under capitalism because the market system has become much more real and immediate to us than the underlying social relationships (based on inequality and exploitation) which made goods sold in the market possible in the first place. -Marx’ analysis of consumer society is largely a story of the critique of consumption of commodities, which appear as alienating -can we safely assume that consumption has always only these negative connotations? How have anthropologists analysed the spread of consumer society and the effect the commodification everyday lives has had in different domains?