Consumer Culture(1997), Celia Lury
1. How is the concept material culture defined by Lury in her text?
“A culture of the use or appropriation of objects or things”
2. Why is the concept useful?
It is useful because “it implies that the material and the cultural are always combined together in specific relations and that these relations may be subject to study.
3. How is it related to the concept immaterial culture? Is it a contradiction? Why/ why not?
Material includes immaterial culture. Which “refers to products or services whose important characteristics are the outcome of intellectual – or immaterial – labour”. Material culture is an outcome of material and physical labour and also intellectual and immaterial labour.
4. How does Lury relate consumer culture to poverty and Inequality? What can the study of poverty tell us about consuming practices in the West?
Lury says that “poverty places severe limits on the ability to participate in consumption…economic status restricts the possible extent of an individual’s participation in consumption or practical freedom”. Lury also mentions “poverty income inequality has increased in most of the major industrial countries of Western Europe and North America”. “The need to consider relative and absolute levels of poverty thus must be considered at both national and global levels to understand consumption patterns and consumer cultures.”
5. Explain the following quote on page 13: “…a culture may be dominant even if most people can only aspire to participate in it: its dominance is felt to the extent that people’s aspirations, their hopes and fears, vocabulary of motives and sense of identity are defined in its terms.”
Culture being dominant does not mean that it is a requirement for society’s members to have the ability to exercise active participation in the culture on the exact same terms. This quote suggests “that while it is important to recognize that the terms of participation in consumer culture are profoundly unequal, these terms are not simply reproduced in the culture itself”.
6. What’s Douglas and Isherwood definition of consumption?
Douglass and Isherwood define consumption as “beyond commerce, that is, it is not restricted to commerce, but is always a cultural as well as an economic phenomenon”.
7. What is the role of Rituals in consumer practices? Can you give some personal examples pertaining to these rituals? (You may use the examples provided on pages 14-16 to guide your answer.)
Rituals “are a fundamental component of all societies”. Rituals “give shape and substance to social relations; the fix or anchor social relationsships, making sense of the flux of events, and containing the drift of meaning”. I couldn’t access page 15 through the google book but I’m guessing giving gifts for holidays such as Christmas or birthdays is included, that is a personal example for me.
8. Explain in your own words Sahlin’s notion of totemism in relation to consumer culture. Can you think of an example pertaining this notion that applies to the consumption of goods and commodities associated with Latin American cultures?
I was unable to access pages 18-22 of the book and was therefore unable to find an answer to this question.
Open Veins of Latin America (1971 [1997]), “Introduction: 120 Million Children in the Eye of the Hurricane” (pp. 1-8) Eduardo Galeano.
1. Investigate what the Division of Labor is. How is the DoL related to the history of Latin America, according to Galeano?
“The division of labor among nations is that some specialize in winning and others in losing. Our part of the world, known today as Latin America, was precocious: it had specialized in losing ever since those remote times when Renaissance Eurpeans ventured across the ocean and buried their teeth in the throats of the Indian civilizations. Centuries passed, and Latin America perfected its role.”
2. What does Galeano means when he says: “Our [Latin America’s] defeat was always implicit in the victory of others…”?
Latin America has historically always lost. Their power has been usurped by countries with more political and economic power than them. Continuing to consume goods exported from Latin America has caused these countries to remain poor and their controllers to remain rich. Latin America’s lack of prosperity leads to a gain of prosperity for the winning countries.
3. Who are these 120 million children in the eye of the hurricane mentioned by Galeano and why is it important to consider them in the overall history of Latin America? Can you think of a way to connect this with consumption?
These children are the population of Latin America. Latin America has faced a long history of being used for some other country’s gain, all the way back to the beginning. Latin America’s largest markets combined still consume less than France or West Germany. There are way more people there who are consuming less, which causes a sustainability issue. These countries are exporting goods without ability to see the profits. I think that eventually the people of Latin America will be fed up with this excess of consumption in richer and more powerful countries and revolt against the western powers and the US.
4. According to Galeano, what is the inherent contradiction of development and the “perfectly rational” capitalist system?
“For its foreign masters and for our commission-agent bourgeoisie, who have sold their souls to the devil at a price that would have shamed Faust, the system is perfectly rational; but for no one else, since the more it develops, the greater its disequilibrium, its tensions, and it’s contradictions. Even industrialization---coming late and in dependent form, and comfortably coexisting with the latifundia and the structures of inequality---helps to spread unemployment rather than to relieve it; poverty is extended, wealth concentrated in the area where an ever multiplying army of idle hands is available. New factories are built in the privileged poles of development---Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Mexico City---but less and less labor is needed.”
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