Download or read book Conspicuous Consumption in Africa written by Ilana van Wyk and published by Wits University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays examining cultures of consumption on the African continent From early department stores in Cape Town to gendered histories of sartorial success in urban Togo, contestations over expense accounts at an apartheid state enterprise, elite wealth and political corruption in Angola and Zambia, the role of popular religion in the political intransigence of Jacob Zuma, funerals of big men in Cameroon, youth cultures of consumption in Niger and South Africa, queer consumption in Cape Town, middle-class food consumption in Durban and the consumption of luxury handcrafted beads, this collection of essays explores the ways in which conspicuous consumption is foregrounded in various African contexts and historical moments. The essays in Conspicuous Consumption in Africa put Thorstein Veblen’s concept under robust critical scrutiny, delving into the pleasures, stresses and challenges of consuming in its religious, generational, gendered and racialised aspects, revealing conspicuous consumption as a layered set of practices, textures and relations. This volume shows how central and revealing conspicuous consumption can be to fathoming the history of Africa’s projects of modernity, and their global lineages and legacies. In its grounded, up-close case studies, it is likely to feed into current public debates on the nature and future of African societies – South African society in particular.
Download or read book Conspicuous Consumption written by Thorstein Veblen and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2005-08-25 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With its wry portrayal of a shallow, materialistic 'leisure class' obsessed by clothes, cars, consumer goods and climbing the social ladder, this withering satire on modern capitalism is as pertinent today as when it was written over a century ago.
Download or read book The Sum of Small Things written by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite, and how their consumer habits affect us all In today’s world, the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite. Highly educated and defined by cultural capital rather than income bracket, these individuals earnestly buy organic, carry NPR tote bags, and breast-feed their babies. They care about discreet, inconspicuous consumption—like eating free-range chicken and heirloom tomatoes, wearing organic cotton shirts and TOMS shoes, and listening to the Serial podcast. They use their purchasing power to hire nannies and housekeepers, to cultivate their children’s growth, and to practice yoga and Pilates. In The Sum of Small Things, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett dubs this segment of society “the aspirational class” and discusses how, through deft decisions about education, health, parenting, and retirement, the aspirational class reproduces wealth and upward mobility, deepening the ever-wider class divide. Exploring the rise of the aspirational class, Currid-Halkett considers how much has changed since the 1899 publication of Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. In that inflammatory classic, which coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption,” Veblen described upper-class frivolities: men who used walking sticks for show, and women who bought silver flatware despite the effectiveness of cheaper aluminum utensils. Now, Currid-Halkett argues, the power of material goods as symbols of social position has diminished due to their accessibility. As a result, the aspirational class has altered its consumer habits away from overt materialism to more subtle expenditures that reveal status and knowledge. And these transformations influence how we all make choices. With a rich narrative and extensive interviews and research, The Sum of Small Things illustrates how cultural capital leads to lifestyle shifts and what this forecasts, not just for the aspirational class but for everyone.
Download or read book Leveraging Consumer Behavior and Psychology in the Digital Economy written by Suki, Norazah Mohd and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2020-06-26 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the increasing prevalence of information, communication, and technology, including social media, in the digital economy, leveraging consumer behavior and psychology has become a dominant ground for researchers and practitioners to inspect the trends, opportunities, and challenges to social networking service (SNS) developers and online firms. These platforms have become a key channel for social interactions and networking among individuals and online communities to leverage business activities in respect to product and service visibility and sustainability via the internet. Leveraging Consumer Behavior and Psychology in the Digital Economy is a pivotal reference source that provides current research on topics relevant to consumer behavior, consumer psychology, consumer value, customer satisfaction, and loyalty and how best to utilize this research consumer behavior and psychology in the digital economy. Emphasizing critical topics in the field of consumer behavior research, this publication is a wide-ranging resource for professionals, practitioners, marketers, retailers, business managers, academics, researchers, and graduate-level students interested in the latest material on consumer behavior and psychology in the digital economy.
Download or read book The Theory of the Leisure Class written by Thorstein Veblen and published by Aakar Books. This book was released on 2005-12 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Theory Of The Leisure Class, His First And Best-Known Work, Thorstein Veblen Challenges Some Of Man S Most Cherished Standards Of Behavior And With Devastating Wit And Satire Exposes The Hollowness Of Many Of Our Canons Of Taste, Education, Dress And Culture. Veblen Uses The Leisure Class As His Example Because It Is This Class That Sets The Standards Followed By Every Level Of Society.The Sign Of Membership In The Leisure Class Is Exemption From Industrial Toil And The Mark Of Success Is Lavish Expenditure Conspicuous Consumption Is The Famous Term He Invented To Describe Spending Which Satisfies No Real Need But Is A Mark Of Prestige.The Process Veblen Criticized Continues Today The Same Worship Of An Empty Scale Of Values, The Same Urge To Prove Oneself Better Than One S Neighbor By The Conspicuous Accumulation Of Useless Objects And By Time And Money-Wasting Activities.
Download or read book Acts of Conspicuous Compassion written by Sheila C. Moeschen and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2013-06-24 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illuminates the relationship between performance and the American charity movement
Download or read book Finding New Ways to Engage and Satisfy Global Customers written by Patricia Rossi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-01 with total page 921 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This proceedings volume explores the new and innovative ways in which marketers find new global customers and build meaningful bridges to them based on their wants and needs in order to ensure high levels of customer satisfaction. Customer loyalty is ensured through continuous engagement with an ever-changing and demanding customer base. Global forces are bringing cultures into collision, creating new challenges for firms wanting to reach geographically and culturally distant markets, and causing marketing managers to rethink how to build meaningful and stable relationships with evermore demanding customers. In an era of vast new data sources and a need for innovative analytics, the challenge for the marketer is to reach customers in new and powerful ways. Featuring the full proceedings from the 2018 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) World Marketing Congress (WMC) held in Porto, Portugal, this volume provides current and emerging research from global scholars and practitioners that will help marketers to engage and promote customer satisfaction. Founded in 1971, the Academy of Marketing Science is an international organization dedicated to promoting timely explorations of phenomena related to the science of marketing in theory, research, and practice. Among its services to members and the community at large, the Academy offers conferences, congresses, and symposia that attract delegates from around the world. Presentations from these events are published in this Proceedings series, which offers a comprehensive archive of volumes reflecting the evolution of the field. Volumes deliver cutting-edge research and insights, complementing the Academy’s flagship journals, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS) and AMS Review. Volumes are edited by leading scholars and practitioners across a wide range of subject areas in marketing science.
Download or read book The Price of Prestige written by Lilach Gilady and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If wars are costly and risky to both sides, why do they occur? Why engage in an arms race when it’s clear that increasing one’s own defense expenditures will only trigger a similar reaction by the other side, leaving both countries just as insecure—and considerably poorer? Just as people buy expensive things precisely because they are more expensive, because they offer the possibility of improved social status or prestige, so too do countries, argues Lilach Gilady. In The Price of Prestige, Gilady shows how many seemingly wasteful government expenditures that appear to contradict the laws of demand actually follow the pattern for what are known as Veblen goods, or positional goods for which demand increases alongside price, even when cheaper substitutes are readily available. From flashy space programs to costly weapons systems a country does not need and cannot maintain to foreign aid programs that offer little benefit to recipients, these conspicuous and strategically timed expenditures are intended to instill awe in the observer through their wasteful might. And underestimating the important social role of excess has serious policy implications. Increasing the cost of war, for example, may not always be an effective tool for preventing it, Gilady argues, nor does decreasing the cost of weapons and other technologies of war necessarily increase the potential for conflict, as shown by the case of a cheap fighter plane whose price tag drove consumers away. In today’s changing world, where there are high levels of uncertainty about the distribution of power, Gilady also offers a valuable way to predict which countries are most likely to be concerned about their position and therefore adopt costly, excessive policies.
Download or read book Conspicuous Criticism written by Christopher Shannon and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1996 and newly revised, Conspicuous Criticism is a ringing defense of the need for religion and tradition in contemporary society. Writing with moral passion and critical verve, Christopher Shannon offers a convincing indictment of the forces that isolate the individual in modern capitalist society and counters more than a century of efforts by modern intellectuals to displace tradition in favor of a humanism that actually diminishes humanity in the name of freeing its potential. Featuring in-depth analyses of the works of John Dewey, Thorstein Veblen, C. Wright Mills, and others, Conspicuous Criticism is a call to reinstate traditional relations to God, nature, and the common good. Scholars in fields from American studies to intellectual history will be forced to grapple with Shannon's trenchant critique, which is well on its way to becoming a classic of Christian thought. "Conspicuous Criticism inspired a concern about the modern world that in the years since I've not been able to brush aside."--Eric Miller, First Things
Download or read book Framing Class written by Diana Kendall and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2011-04-16 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Framing Class explores how the media, including television, film, and news, depict wealth and poverty in the United States. Fully updated and revised throughout, the second edition of this groundbreaking book now includes discussions of new media, updated media sources, and provocative new examples from movies and television, such as The Real Housewives series and media portrayals of the new poor and corporate executives in the recent recession. The book introduces the concepts of class and media framing to students and analyzes how the media portray various social classes, from the elite to the very poor. Its accessible writing and powerful examples make it an ideal text or supplement for courses in sociology, American studies, and communications.
Download or read book The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies written by Daniel Thomas Cook and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-03-02 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With entries detailing key concepts, persons, and approaches, The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies provides definitive coverage of a field that has grown dramatically in scope and popularity around the world over the last two decades. Includes over 200 A-Z entries varying in length from 500 to 5,000 words, with a list of suggested readings for each entry and cross-references, as well as a lexicon by category, and a timeline Brings together the latest research and theories in the field from international contributors across a range of disciplines, from sociology, cultural studies, and advertising to anthropology, business, and consumer behavior Available online with interactive cross-referencing links and powerful searching capabilities within the work and across Wiley’s comprehensive online reference collection or as a single volume in print www.consumptionandconsumerstudies.com
Download or read book Conspicuous in His Absence written by Chloe T. Sun and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the biblical canon, two books lack any explicit reference to the name of God: Song of Songs and Esther. What is the nature of God as revealed in texts that don't use his name? Exploring the often overlooked theological connections between these two Old Testament books, Chloe T. Sun takes on the challenges of God's absence and explores how we think of God when he is perceived to be silent.
Download or read book Manufractured written by Steven Skov Holt and published by . This book was released on 2008-10 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work provides a model for creativity and a way of showing how innovation, invention, and beauty can emerge from even the most familiar, ordinary, and banal-seeming products. A wide variety of projects are presented in this book with insightful commentary on the trends and cultural phenomenon that inform the process.
Download or read book Conspicuous Production written by Donald Finlay Davis and published by Philadelphia : Temple University Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the founding of the American automotive industry in the 1890s, the social and economic community of Detroit was dramatically altered. In this first detailed examination of the relationship between the dominant industry and the social elite of Detroit, Donald Finlay Davis demonstrates how decisions and ambitions in one sphere fed into the other.Detroit's automotive industry was socially divided, roughly along the lines of its own price-class hierarchy, and Davis argues that these divisions influenced community decision-making. Bridging the gap between urban and business history, Conspicuous Production traces how the social aspirations of the "gasoline aristocracy" profoundly influenced the models and marketing decisions of these fledgling companies. The identification of social renegade Henry Ford with the low-and middle-income groups contributed to the Model T being scorned as a vehicle for the upwardly mobile. The Packard-"a gentlemen's car built by gentlemen"-and other luxury manufactures such as Lincoln, Wayne, Lozier, and Northern were embraced by the social elite while the more pedestrian models dominated the market. The author sheds new light on the fate of Detroit's old families; on the ascent of Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler; on Detroit's transit policies; and on the Michigan bank crash that precipitated the closure of America's banks in March 1933.Illustrated with early advertisements and promotional photos of classic automobiles, Conspicuous Production traces the mutual influence of industrial and community leadership in early twentieth-century Detroit and asks: Who determined that American technology should serve the masses as well as the classes? Author note: Donald Finlay Davis is Associate Professor of History at the University of Ottawa.
Download or read book International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home written by and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2012-10-09 with total page 3870 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available online via SciVerse ScienceDirect, or in print for a limited time only, The International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home, Seven Volume Set is the first international reference work for housing scholars and professionals, that uses studies in economics and finance, psychology, social policy, sociology, anthropology, geography, architecture, law, and other disciplines to create an international portrait of housing in all its facets: from meanings of home at the microscale, to impacts on macro-economy. This comprehensive work is edited by distinguished housing expert Susan J. Smith, together with Marja Elsinga, Ong Seow Eng, Lorna Fox O'Mahony and Susan Wachter, and a multi-disciplinary editorial team of 20 world-class scholars in all. Working at the cutting edge of their subject, liaising with an expert editorial advisory board, and engaging with policy-makers and professionals, the editors have worked for almost five years to secure the quality, reach, relevance and coherence of this work. A broad and inclusive table of contents signals (or tesitifes to) detailed investigation of historical and theoretical material as well as in-depth analysis of current issues. This seven-volume set contains over 500 entries, listed alphabetically, but grouped into seven thematic sections including methods and approaches; economics and finance; environments; home and homelessness; institutions; policy; and welfare and well-being. Housing professionals, both academics and practitioners, will find The International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home useful for teaching, discovery, and research needs. International in scope, engaging with trends in every world region The editorial board and contributors are drawn from a wide constituency, collating expertise from academics, policy makers, professionals and practitioners, and from every key center for housing research Every entry stands alone on its merits and is accessed alphabetically, yet each is fully cross-referenced, and attached to one of seven thematic categories whose ‘wholes' far exceed the sum of their parts
Download or read book Consumption and Consumer Society written by Colin Campbell and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of high quality, largely previously published essays, analyses a range of controversies in the field of the sociology of culture and consumption. Campbell made a major contribution to the development of this field and he has a clear and coherent theoretical position which he employs to comment on interesting disputes among scholars seeking to understand consumer culture. Containing a brand new expansive essay reflecting on consumption in the age of a pandemic and drawing out some of the conceptual and practical implications of the relationship between wants and needs, science and norms, this synthesis will be an invaluable resource for students and researchers of consumption, consumer and cultural sociology.
Download or read book Behaviour and Evolution written by Marion Hall and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 1998-11-25 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines a variety of aspects of animal behavior and analyzes the underlying relationship between behavior and evolution. Studying behavior draws upon the work of scientists from a number of disciplines, all seeking to answer the question of why an animal behaves in the way it does. The possible answers to this question development, survival value, evolutionary history, and cause-and-effectare explored in this easy-to-read introduction to behavior and evolution.
