Introduction and Background to the SoP Approach

Abstract

Across the social sciences academics have long grappled with the question of what drives consumption. This relates not just to shopping habits but also to how basic needs such as housing and education are met to understand who gets what, how and why. The systems of provision (SoP) approach emerged in the 1990s in response to a perceived failing in the siloed social sciences to assess adequately the drivers of consumption. The approach proposes an interdisciplinary framing with consumption deemed to be inextricably linked vertically to processes of production as well as (horizontally) to wider contexts. This chapter traces the trajectory of the approach from early studies on the drivers of consumption norms for consumer durables, through analyses of food consumption to more recent applications in social policy and the grander issues of neoliberalism and financialization. The chapter shows that the approach has evolved to cover not just commodity production but also alternative, including public, production and consumption systems. And this adaptability and progress in part explains its durability over the past three decades.