Anti-Consumption: Exploring The Opposition To Consumer Culture

In this edited volume, the leading scholars in the field engage with  consumers, marketers, corporations and policymakers as well as space  dynamics and network formation to provide an in-depth examination of  anti-consumption: a voluntary behavioural inclination to minimise rather  than grow, to decelerate and simplify and to reduce the unnecessary  exploitation of resources fuelled by consumer culture. This book does  not place anti-consumption on the high moral ground but rather  demonstrates its complexity to spur innovative and critical thinking on  how people, organisations, businesses and governments can treat  consumption more as a necessity for survival than as a tool for  self-expression, pleasure and economic growth. The first part of this  book looks at anti-consumption from a diversity of perspectives. It  analyses voluntary simplicity, a self-motivated engagement in  consumption reduction, and boycotting, a politically-motivated reaction  against unacceptable corporate practices, as distinct manifestations of  anti-consumption that nonetheless remain rooted in the logic of the  market. Paving the way to critical perspectives on the interface between  anti-consumption, people and the environment, the second part of the  book projects anti-consumption to issues of waste production and  provides possible answers to global challenges of resources depletion,  social inequalities and global warming. In this section,  anti-consumption is critically assessed as an actor of change, both in  terms of social change and paradigm change. To move the field forward,  the third part of this book presents several theoretical frameworks that  help set a roadmap for future research. Anti-Consumption will be of  direct interest to scholars and researchers within the fields of  marketing, consumer research, business studies, environmental studies  and sustainability. It will also be of value to those researching the  economics and/or sociology of markets.