"Everybody involved in the sociology of consumption should find something to interest them."
Peter Corrigan, University of New England, Australia
Introduction: Consumption Matters: Stephen Edgell (University of Salford) and Kevin Hetherington (University of Keele).
Part One: The Production of Consumption:.
1. Becoming a consumer of care: developing a sociological account of the ′new community care′: John Baldock (University of Kent) and Clare Ungerson (University of Southampton).
2. Production, disbursement and consumption: the modes and modalities of goods and services: Keith Dowding (London School of Economics) and Patrick Dunleavy (London School of Economics).
3. Public nightmares and communitarian dreams: the crisis of the social in social welfare: John Clarke (Open University).
4. Producing consumption: women and the making of credit markets: Janet Ford (University of York) and Karen Rowlingson (University of Derby).
5. Consumption and class analysis: Rosemary Crompton (University of Leicester).
Part Two: The Experience of Consumption:.
6. The enigma of Christmas: symbolic violence, compliant subjects and the flow of English kinship: Pnina Werbner (University of Keele).
7. Consuming schooling: choice, commodity, gift and systems of exchange: Pat Allatt (University of Teeside).
8. Expelling future threats: some observations on the magical world of vitamins: Pasi Falk (University of Helsinki).
9.′Bastard′ chicken or ghormeh–sabzi?: Iranian women guarding the health of the migrant family: Lynn Harbottle (University of Keele).
10. Consuming the past: Gaynor Bagnall (University of Salford).
11. The consumption view of self: extension, exchange and identity: Rolland Munro (University of Keele).
12. Social class, consumption and the influence of Bourdieu: some critical issues: Brian Longhurst (University of Salford) and Mike Savage (University of Manchester).
Afterword: the future of the sociology of consumption: Alan Warde (University of Lancaster).
Notes on Contributors.
Index
Consumption matters to everyone, arguably more than ever before. This up–to–date selection of papers considers some of the key changes in the patterning and social significance of consumption. It is based on a recent series of ESRC funded seminars (1994–96) involving sociologists, social anthropologists, and policy researchers.
As well as reporting on recent empirical studies, an extended introduction is provided, and future directions for social scientific research, especially sociological research, are discussed. Among the issues considered are: the privatization and marketization of welfare state services; class, gender, ethnicity, and consumption; the consumption of education, Christmas and vitamins; consumption and identity; the consumption of the past; and the influence of Bourdieu on the sociology of consumption.
