Consumption and digital commodities in the everyday

Abstract

The category of the everyday has designated in social theory the remainder, what is left over after the important regions of politics and production. This left consumption in the under-theorized domain of the everyday. Since Veblen - and more recently Baudrillard and de Certeau - consumption has been reconfigured as significant in its own right, as a complex, articulated area related directly to culture. Liberal thinkers have also claimed consumer activity as central to society, as the domain where the individual is realized. This paper will review these positions and attempt to develop an understanding of consumption in daily life in relation to digital cultural objects. It will also argue that these mediated commodities, in the practices of appropriation connected with them, configure subjects in ways that are difficult to reconcile with existing structures of domination. © 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd.