Table Of ContentA Sociological Analysis
ALAN WARDE
Consumption and Public Life
Th e series will be a channel and focus for some of the most interesting
recent work on consumption, establishing innovative approaches and a
new research agenda. New approaches and public debates around con-
sumption in modern societies will be pursued within media, politics, eth-
ics, sociology, economics, management and cultural studies.
More information about this series at
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Alan W arde
Consumption
A Sociological Analysis
Alan Warde
University of Manchester
Manchester , United Kingdom
Consumption and Public Life
ISBN 978-1-137-55681-3 ISBN 978-1-137-55682-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55682-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016957709
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Acknowledgements
Th is book represents work conducted over more than 25 years.
Consequently, I am indebted to very many friends and colleagues who
have contributed ideas, careful criticism and practical advice, as well as
sympathy and encouragement. Many of them I have worked with closely
on material that is refl ected in this book, including writing formative
articles and chapters. Early in the period I worked in the Department of
Sociology at Lancaster University where collaboration with Lydia Martens
on a research project on eating out was a crucial step in developing an
understanding of consumption. But I also had the benefi t of cooperation
with Celia Lury, Andrew Sayer, Elizabeth Shove and John Urry and a
band of graduate students who attended a regular seminar on consump-
tion. Th e European Sociological Association’s Research Network (RN05)
endured early versions of sections of many of the chapters and stalwarts
of that group have been fi ne companions and critics, among them Isabel
Cruz, Jukka Gronow, Bente Halkier, Kai Ilmonen, Tally Katz-Gerro,
Margit Keller, Keijo Rahkonen, Pekka Sulkunen, Monica Truninger and
Terhi-Anna Wilska. Th at network also involved colleagues working spe-
cifi cally on food consumption, including Unni Kjaernes, Lotte Holm and
Roberta Sassatelli, with whom I have had many constructive discussions.
Two ESRC programmes, Th e Nation’s Diet and C ultures of Consumption ,
provided contexts for developing ideas of consumption and practice in an
interdisciplinary context facilitated by their directors, Anne Murcott and
v
vi Acknowledgements
Frank Trentmann, who provided me with critical encouragement. So did
the Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition at the University
of Manchester where I had the benefi t of sustained working on themes
of consumption with Mark Harvey, Andy McMeekin, Sally Randles,
Dale Southerton, Bruce Tether and Mark Tomlinson. Th e Centre for
Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) provided an interdisci-
plinary context and the opportunity to work on ‘Cultural Capital and
Social Exclusion’ with Tony Bennett, Mike Savage, Elizabeth Silva, David
Wright and Modesto Gayo, from whom I learned much about cultural
consumption. Th e Sociology Department and School of Social Sciences
at Manchester provided the opportunity to work with Fiona Devine,
Yaojun Li, Wendy Olsen, Bev Skeggs, Gindo Tampubolon and another
fi ne group of PhD students. In the last few years, at the Sustainable
Consumption Institute, also in Manchester, ongoing discussions with
its current director, Dale Southerton, and postdoctoral researchers and
research fellows Isabelle Darmon, Jo Mylan, Jessica Paddock, Dan Welch
and Luke Yates, who share interests in food, consumption and theories
of practice, have been pivotal in developing some of the key ideas in the
later part of the book. Luke Yates read the complete manuscript in scru-
pulous detail and I thank him especially for that. I also want to thank
the Collegium of Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki where
a two-year tenure of the Jane and Aatos Erkko Research Professor in
Studies on Contemporary Society allowed me time to marshal both plans
and material for this book. Many others have helped me along the way,
including graduate students, research associates and seminar audiences
who I have no space to list but who have engaged with me in argument
and drawn important points to my attention. I have been fortunate to
have very extensive stimulation and support for over 20 years from Jukka
Gronow, Sue Scott and Dale Southerton, and I thank them greatly since
many of their excellent ideas have been incorporated into the text.
I am also grateful for permission to reuse some material from pre-
viously published work. Chapter 5 is a slightly modifi ed and slightly
extended version of A. Warde (2005) ‘Consumption and the theory of
practice’, J ournal of Consumer Culture, 5(2): 131–54. It is published here
with permission from Sage Publishers. Chapter 3 includes short pas-
sages from A. Warde (2015) ‘Th e Sociology of Consumption: Its Recent
Acknowledgements vii
Development’, A nnual Review of Sociology , 41: 117–34 and A. Warde
(2014) ‘After Taste: Culture, Consumption and Th eories of Practice’,
Journal of Consumer Culture , 14(3): 279–303. Reuse is with the per-
mission of Annual Reviews and Sage respectively. A short passage from
A. Warde (ed.) (2010) ‘Editor’s Introduction’ to C onsumption (V olumes
I – IV ) (London: Sage, Benchmarks in Culture and Society Series) is
reproduced in Chapter 3 with permission from Sage. An earlier version
of Chapter 6 was contained in A. Warde (2004) ‘Practice and Field:
Revising Bourdieusian Concepts’, C RIC Discussion Paper No. 65 , April,
CRIC: University of Manchester. Also, a short passage has been used in
Chapter 9 , with permission from Abstrakt Forlag AS: A. Warde (2015)
‘Social Science, Political Economy and Sustainable Consumption’, in
P. Strandbackken and J. Gronow (eds.) Th e Consumer in Society : A tribute
to EivindStø (Oslo: Abstrakt Forlag AS) (2015), pp. 85–102 .
University of Manchester Alan Warde
June 2016
Contents
1 Introduction 1
Part I Th e Development of the Sociology of Consumption 13
2 Sociology and Consumption 15
3 Th e Development of the Sociology of Consumption 33
Part II Consumption and Practice 57
4 Consumption as Appropriation: On the
Use of ‘Consumption’ and Consumption as Use 59
5 Consumption and Th eories of Practice 79
Part III Consumption, Taste and Power 103
6 Practice and Field: Revising Bourdieu’s Concepts 105
ix
x Contents
7 Reassessing Cultural Capital 127
Part IV Consumption, Critique and Politics 155
8 Consumption and the Critique of Society 157
9 Sustainable Consumption: Practices, Habits and Politics 181
10 Illusions of Sovereignty and Choice 205
References 225
Index 253
