Veidlapa Nr. M-3 (8)

Course Description Status: Approved

Course Description Version: 25/26.R.1.00

Description Period: 2025./26 academic year rudens semestris

Study Course Accepted: -

Study Course Description

Consumer Culture

Main Study Course Information

Course Code
KSK_284
Branch of Science
Social Anthropology; Sociology and social work
ECTS
3.00
Target Audience
Social Anthropology; Sociology
LQF
Level 7
Study Type And Form
Full-Time

Study Course Implementer

Course Supervisor
Andris Saulītis
Structure Unit Manager
Ieva Puzo
Structural Unit
Faculty of Social Sciences
Contacts

Dzirciema street 16, Rīga, szf@rsu.lv

About Study Course

Objective

This study course offers an introduction to consumer culture from the viewpoint of social anthropology, as well as in the social sciences in general. Consumer culture is a particularly popular study object in the last decades, although various consumption patterns are observable both long in the past and outside the Western hemisphere. The goal of this study course is to get to know various patterns of consumption from different theoretical disciplines, as well as to introduce students to the most recent scholarship in the consumption studies.

Preliminary Knowledge

Academic English

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge

1.Students have knowledge on the developments in the scholarship of consumption, as well as the most current trends in the field.

Skills

1.Students have the ability to critically examine, as well as analytically describe the consumption practices in the society.

Competences

1.Ability to describe and identify various consumption practices.

Assessment

Individual work

Title
% from total grade
Grade
1.

Individual work
-
-
Students have to read the assigned literature before the scheduled class/seminar, as well as have to work individually on their final essay, familiarizing with a relevant literature.

Examination

Title
% from total grade
Grade
1.

Examination
-
-
Active part in the discussions of the assigned literature (15% of the final grade); three response papers for each seminar's monography. It has to be sent no later than 10am on the seminar day (each paper 15%; in total, 45% of the final grade); final essay (40% of the total grade).

Study Course Theme Plan

FULL-TIME
Part 1

  1. Lecture

Modality
Location
Contact hours
On site
Auditorium
2

Topics

Consumption and Culture: a Short Introduction
Description
Annotation: The goal of this class is to provide overview on consumption studies in historical, cultural, sociological and anthropological perspective. Topics covered during the class: How to categorize consumption? How to write about consumption and what cultural, social and economic areas consumption covers? Literature: Slater, D. R. 1997. Consumer Culture and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Chapter 1. Rausing, S. 2002. Re-constructing the ‘ Normal’ : Identity and the Consumption of Western Goods in Estonia. In: Mandel, R., Humphrey, C. (ed.). Markets and Moralities: Ethnographies of Postsocialism. New York: Berg Publishers. P. 127-142.

  1. Class/Seminar

Modality
Location
Contact hours
On site
Auditorium
2

Topics

Consumption in the Western Europe
Description
Annotation: "When an anthropologist and an economist combine to write a book about consumption it is not a sermon against materialism, nor a moan against consumerism." Literature: Mary Douglas & Baron C. Isherwood. (1996). The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption

  1. Lecture

Modality
Location
Contact hours
On site
Auditorium
2

Topics

Interdisciplinary Approach in Consumer Studies
Description
Annotation: This class will look at consumer behaviour from the perspective of behavioural economics, social psychology, evolutionary theory and other disciplines. Topics covered during the class: Do different research approaches make more insightful picture on consumer studies or various methods leads to different outcomes and no interdisciplinary research design is possible? Literature: Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., & McElreath, R. 2001. In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies. The American Economic Review, 91(2), 73-78. Cohn, A., Fehr, E., & Maréchal, M.A. 2014. Business culture and dishonesty in the banking industry. Nature, 516, 86-89. Xu, A. J., Schwarz, N., & Wyer, R. S. (2015). Hunger promotes acquisition of nonfood objects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(9), 2688-2692.

  1. Class/Seminar

Modality
Location
Contact hours
On site
Auditorium
2

Topics

Economics, consumption and globalisation
Description
Annotation: "This trio of professors of, respectively, history, anthropology and economics, devised a “map” of social behaviour that aimed to capture “essential elements of human decision-making”. Instead of equations, it offers real-world examples of decision-making behaviour and the evolutionary processes underlying them." Financial Times Literature: O’Brien, M. J., Bentley, R. A., & Brock, W. A. (2019). The Importance of Small Decisions: How Culture Evolves. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

  1. Lecture

Modality
Location
Contact hours
On site
Auditorium
2

Topics

Active Consumption: Material Culture and Media Studies
Description
Annotation: This class is devoted to various consumption practices (such as shopping, mapping of consumption), as well as institutions and social groups related to particular consumption patterns. Topics covered during the class: Who are the agents of consumption patterns? To what extent consumers are active and reflective actors of the consumption market un what is the understanding of the role of consumer in a society? Literature: Hearn, A. (2008). Meat, Mask, Burden. Probing the contours of the branded self. Journal of Consumer Culture, 8(2), 197-217. Lien, Marianne Elisabeth (2004). The Virtual Consumer: Constructions of Uncertainty in Marketing Discourse, In Christina Garsten & Monica Lindh de Montoya (ed.), Market Matters; Exploring Cultural Processes in the Global Marketplace.

  1. Class/Seminar

Modality
Location
Contact hours
On site
Auditorium
2

Topics

Anthropology and Consumption: How to Write About It?
Description
Annotation: "Chin uses her anthropological background to present an autoethnography, combining research, theory, and personal writing to criticize (and commiserate with) our love of objects." (Jess Kibler Bitch 2016-12-01) Literature: Elisabeth Chin. (2016). My Life with Things: The Consumer Diaries.
Total ECTS (Creditpoints):
3.00
Contact hours:
12 Academic Hours
Final Examination:
Exam (Written)

Bibliography

Required Reading

1.

Slater, D. R. 1997. Consumer Culture and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Chapter 1.

2.

Rausing, S. 2002. Re-constructing the ‘ Normal’ : Identity and the Consumption of Western Goods in Estonia. In: Mandel, R., Humphrey, C. (ed.). Markets and Moralities: Ethnographies of Postsocialism. New York: Berg Publishers. P. 127-142.

3.

Mary Douglas & Baron C. Isherwood. (1996). The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption

4.

Hearn, A. (2008). Meat, Mask, Burden. Probing the contours of the branded self. Journal of Consumer Culture, 8(2), 197-217.

5.

Shiller, R. (2019). Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events.Princeton : Princeton University Press. xxii, 377 p.

6.

Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., & McElreath, R. 2001. In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies. The American Economic Review, 91(2), 73-78.

7.

Cohn, A., Fehr, E., & Maréchal, M.A. 2014. Business culture and dishonesty in the banking industry. Nature, 516, 86-89.

8.

Xu, A. J., Schwarz, N., & Wyer, R. S. (2015). Hunger promotes acquisition of nonfood objects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(9), 2688-2692.

9.

Mears, A. (2020). Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit. Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press. xv, 300 p.

Additional Reading

1.

Edward Skidelsky, Robert Skidelsky. 2012. How Much is Enough? Money and the Good Life.

2.

Derek Thompson. Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction.

3.

Gurova, O. (2015). Fashion and the Consumer Revolution in Contemporary Russia. London: Routledge.

4.

Elisabeth Chin. (2016). My Life with Things: The Consumer Diaries.

5.

O’Brien, M. J., Bentley, R. A., & Brock, W. A. (2019). The Importance of Small Decisions: How Culture Evolves. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.