Reconciling Economic and Cultural Explanations for Participation in Alternative Consumption Spaces

ABSTRACT With the cultural turn in economic geography, the emphasis on economic necessity when explaining participation in alternative consumption spaces (i.e. informal and/or second‐hand retail channels) has been contested by an agency‐orientated cultural reading that views engagement in such spaces as about the search for fun, sociality, distinction, discernment, the spectacular and so forth, and more recently by a geographically sensitive approach that ascribes agency to affluent populations and economic rationales to deprived populations. Drawing upon evidence collected during 120 face‐to‐face interviews in the English city of Leicester, however, this paper finds that people's reasons for engaging in such practices cannot be reduced simply to either economic necessity or agency. Instead, it reveals that such either/or thinking obfuscates how both co‐exist in people's explanations for engagement and combine in contrasting ways in different neighbourhood types, modes of goods acquisition and according to the type of good sought. The outcome of this paper is thus to transcend and reconcile previous reductive explanations using a both/and approach that recognises the varying ways in which economic necessity and choice are entangled in rationales for participation in alternative consumption spaces.     

The Effects of Climate and Socio‐Demographics on Direct Household Carbon Dioxide Emissions in Australia

Household CO₂ emissions are a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions and consequently climate warming. Despite this, there has been little consideration of how household CO₂ emissions may be affected by changes in climate. The aim of the present study has been to investigate the way climate, as well as socio‐demographic characteristics, may affect household CO₂ emissions produced from energy use. A national online survey was conducted to determine current household CO₂ emissions in Australia as well as capture the ownership and use of household appliances and installations. Electricity and gas‐based emissions as well as the ownership of a variety of household appliances and installations were found to be strongly associated with temperature. Electricity and gas emissions were found to decrease as annual average temperatures increase. However, as temperatures continue to rise under climate change this pattern may be reversed owing to increased reliance on air conditioners. One option for preventing this from occurring is to encourage houses to adopt more solar‐passive installations. Although this may be expensive, households with higher emissions tend to have higher incomes, indicating that they may have the capacity to pay for such installations.     

Burning damage and small-mammal human consumption in Quebrada del Real 1 (Cordoba, Argentina): an experimental approach

The zooarchaeological study of small-vertebrate consumption requires a taphonomical approach to differentiate animal bones that were incidentally incorporated from those that were intentionally exploited in the past human subsistence. In order to make this distinction, the relationship between archaeological small-rodent burned bones and prehistoric human behavior was explored using an experimental cooking study as a modern analogue. During the cooking experiment the entire carcasses of three guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) and two yellow-toothed cavies (Galea leucoblephara) were placed in the coals of an open fire that simulate a real campfire, rotating their positions until the meat was completely cooked. Subsequently, the intensity of burning damage and the loss of skeletal elements were analyzed at macroscopical levels. The data was used to identify cooking evidence in the Ctenomyidae and Caviidae rodent bones recovered from Quebrada del Real 1 (ca. 6000-300 BP, Córdoba, Argentina). Remarkable similarities between the archaeological and analogical records were found, including the distinctive burning pattern on the distal extremities of the unmeaty long bones (e.g, radii and tibiae), the high frequency of broken incisor teeth and the loss of autopodium elements. Based on these comparative results, it is suggested that the small-rodent assemblages of QR1 were primary accumulated by humans though butchery, cooking and consumption related activities. Extending this study to other archaeological sites in South America may help to identify the prehistoric bone collectors of these small-animals.     

Regimes of Ethical Value? Landscape,Race and Representation in the Canadian Diamond Industry

Abstract: Canadian diamonds are marketed as “ethical” alternatives to notorious “blood diamonds”. This paper analyzes the specific matrices through which ethical consumption as a discourse is being mobilized to sell diamonds. I argue that consumption operates as a system of social signification in which consuming subjects are positioned as moral subjects. Moreover, I argue that historically accumulated symbolic power, in the form of imagined geographies of benevolent colonialism in the Canadian North versus the exploitation of “dark” Africa, pristine, “white” northern landscapes, modernization via commodity production, and national identity, creates the very field of meaning within which the consuming subject is positioned. The ethicalization of Canadian diamonds also has important normative implications both in terms of the cultural politics of ethical consumption and social and environmental justice in the Canadian North.     

Of kimchi and coffee: globalisation,transnationalism and familiarity in culinary consumption

This paper discusses the culinary consumption choices of South Korean international students in Auckland, New Zealand as a route to re-considering the transnational production of familiarity. In particular, this study questions the extent to which culinary consumption by transnational migrants is always an intentional declaration of ‘group loyalties’ or about the re-production of local or national identities. Drawing on research with students this paper illustrates that while some aspects of the familiarity enacted in culinary consumption appear to be ‘local’, in the sense that they are encoded as ‘Korean’, other aspects appear to represent forms of ‘global’ familiarity. Hence, it is argued that culinary consumption in transnational worlds can also more subtly represent an effort to recreate familiarity through reference to characteristics of everyday life before migration that may include what appear to be both global and local products. Such familiarity is then not necessarily about group loyalties or identities but rather an example of the importance of practical know how and familiar sensations in feelings of belonging and attachment.     

Consuming campus: geographies of encounter at a British university

In this paper, we extend recent discussions on the geographies of encounter to examine how students and staff narrate their experiences of cross-cultural contact on a British university campus. In theory, the campus environment offers opportunities for more intense and prolonged forms of contact than the ephemeral micro-scale forms of interaction that have dominated much of the literature on encounters. In practice, however, our interviews suggest that many respondents tend to self-segregate, or in some instances are prevented from mixing with ‘others’ through institutional arrangements. As we also illustrate, the pressures posed by commercial forces on campus orientate certain students towards lifestyle choices and expectations which exclude others.     

Living in commodified history: constructing class identities in neotraditional neighbourhoods

This paper examines how residents of neotraditional neighbourhoods in the Netherlands socially construct a ‘classed’ place identity and what role the historicised architecture plays within that process. Given that place identity is constructed through social and cultural practices, the paper argues that residents' consumption of historicised environment is bound up with drawing symbolic boundaries that have been explored here by analysing residents' narratives. Three prominent types of narratives were found: (1) residents' locational choice, (2) their aesthetic judgement of the residential environment and (3) the way they use it. Through these layered narratives, all interviewees appear to use historicised aesthetics to classify themselves as part of a valued social category. However, the way of boundary drawing took several forms, based either on fostering moral judgements of social behaviour accompanied by sophisticated efforts to keep neighbourhoods' historicised image unchanged, or by conducting cultural practices shared with fellow residents by which ‘the other’ living outside the neighbourhood is ‘bracketed out’ symbolically and socially.     

个体行为视角下中小城市居民就医空间及社会分异研究——兼议与特大城市比较

基于日常医疗消费出行调查数据,剖析了中小城市居民日常就医出行空间社会特征,并与特大城市比较,结果表明：中小城市居民日常就医选择以市域最高等级综合医院为中心,形成"一超多强"多中心结构,出行空间呈"三带四圈层"的核心-外围形态。低收入群体近距离就医特征突出,出行空间小;高收入群体消费选择较为多元,出行时空范围广。中小城市居民日常就医首选私人诊所,出行距离是首要考虑因素,出行空间与收入水平呈正相关;特大城市居民日常就医首选区级医院,更重视医疗机构社会声誉,与中小城市存在显著差异。     

1949-1956年中国城乡居民消费水平总体考察

1949～1956年是中国从新民主主义社会向社会主义社会过渡的时期,也是中国经济发展较好和人民生活水平提高较快的时期之一。随着生产的发展和人们收入水平的提高,城乡居民饮食水平有所提高,穿衣打扮有所变化,日用品消费有所进步,居住紧张状况有所缓解,文化水平普遍提升,医疗条件明显改善,城乡居民物质生活和精神生活发生了显著变化。     

European Capitals of Culture: elitism or inclusion? The case of Stavanger2008

Who participates in the European Capital of Culture? This article analyses participation in Stavanger, European Capital of Culture (ECOC) in 2008, drawing on data from a survey conducted among a cross-section of the population of the city and its closest surrounds. It examines whether there is systematic variation in the number and type of events attended across key social background characteristics such as gender, age, education and income, as well as interest in culture. It finds systematic, but small differences between the genders, age groups and people of different educational attainment, and no differences between people with high and low income. Participation levels are high in all social strata. However, interest in culture is an important predictor of participation. Differences in social background and cultural interest matter more for participation in high-brow events. The authors conclude that the ECOC event was fairly inclusive of different population segments.