Mass Consumption and Personal Identity: Everyday Economic Experience Book

This text is about people and their money. It asks what money means to people and what role it plays in their everyday lives. It considers how people save or borrow money, what they buy and why, whether they talk about money and to whom, and what they think of consumerism, credit cards, shopping. The main focus is on the everyday experiences of mass consumption. The authors are concerned with the felt reality of present consumer arrangements, with ordinary beliefs about how daily life is and should be, with the relations between goods and personal identity, consumption and pleasure, budgeting and control. Theyn ground their arguments firmly in the accounts people gave them of their lives, drawing on interview and survey material. They analyze these accounts in the context of the different social conditions from which these accounts originated, conditions which varied by gender and generation, social class and personal life history.Read More