RN05 - Sociology of Consumption

The call for the RN05 midterm 2020 conference, launched in late Autumn 2019, began with the phrase “May you live in interesting times!” Certainly the disruption that followed only a few months after was beyond the expectations of most citizens. For those not working on the front-lines of the pandemic, life was confined to the home, and with a projectivity towards immediate futures. Over the months following local lockdown measures, the global pandemic made visible how consumption, at least for a very short while, could diminish: consumers could make do with less, work less and consume less, while at the same time save more, engaging in more local and perhaps even more sustainable forms of consumption. Now, at the delicate threshold of “normalcy”, we wonder, what different futures are being imagined, how do alternative futures shape current practices, and who has control over what futures are enacted? Will a Great Resignation of consumption take place (as hypothesized in the realm of work and employment) and lead us towards more sustainable and just futures?

The theme of consumption, justice and futures takes as a starting point the issue of what it means to live and consume well in future societies. A just  future would need to grapple not only with constrained resource and climate crisis adaptation, but also with social justice in the face of rising uncertainty and inequalities. Working on futures is no simple nor straightforward terrain. Futures can be utopic or dystopic, represent a single or multiple (and competing) visions, and emerge from deliberative processes or be dictated and imposed. Futures can present different understandings of agency, human and technological narrations, and materialities. Sociology of consumption is an interesting space for reflecting on futures and justice, in relation to a number of themes: from the role of technological platforms and the sharing economy in energy futures, to that of prosumers or citizen-consumers, engaged in prefigurative movement politics or cultural practices, towards shaping future-oriented politics and practices. 

Who is included or excluded from such dynamics is also central. Our ever more three-dimensional physical, digital, and hybrid reality imposes interpretative paradigms for evaluating developments towards transitions. These include political and procedural issues of how people come to be involved in decision-making processes, issues in relation to the distribution of and access to resources, (economic, social or cultural) barriers to engagement and justice through recognition. Questions of (in)justice are mobilised explicitly or implicitly in daily social relations and dynamics of consumption. 

At the upcoming midterm conference, we hope to stimulate reflections on a series of questions of relevance for considering consumption transitions and futures, including, but not limited to: how might consumption dynamics today hold opportunities for social change in the future? how do future imaginaries shape present day dynamics? how can the study of consumption futures be approached methodologically? how can we grapple with the normative and political dimensions of imagining futures, including the aims of sufficiency, prosperity, democracy, inclusion and participation (to name a few)? We thus invite submissions that address sociological theorizing in and around societal and political struggles on these debates.

For abstract submission, please visit: https://uni.oslomet.no/sociology-of-consumption-2022/abstract-submissio…

For the early career colloquium, please vsit https://uni.oslomet.no/sociology-of-consumption-2022/early-career-collo…