The social life of mass and excess consumption

Abstract

The article uses social science theory and literature to theorize mass and excess consumption. The purpose is to contribute a conceptual framework for studying how institutions and mechanisms of social life drive and reproduce patterns of mass/excess consumption, and to discuss the potential for bottom-up transformative processes to move us away from excess consumption. The article discusses material and non-material institutions and focuses in particular on how mechanisms in social life reproduce patterns of mass/excess consumption. The concept of social life is divided into four dimensions. The social-relational dimension includes everyday interaction rituals of consumption and relationship confirmation, as well as social comparison, including the role played by identity and social status. The temporal dimension stresses novelty and rapidity. The spatial dimension focuses on sites of mass/excess consumption such as the home and the shopping mall. The cognitive dimension deals with normalization of mass/excess consumption as well as mass ignorance of its social and ecological consequences. Bottom-up processes of transformative change and their potential to challenge patterns of excess consumption are analysed through the lens of transformative learning.