Summary
Contents
Subject index
The question of consumption emerged as a major focus of research and scholarship in the 1990s but the breadth and diversity of consumer culture has not been fully enough explored. The meanings of consumption, particularly in relation to lifestyle and identity, are of great importance to academic areas including business studies, sociology, cultural and media studies, psychology, geography and politics. The SAGE Handbook of Consumer Culture is a one-stop resource for scholars and students of consumption, where the key dimensions of consumer culture are critically discussed and articulated. The editors have organised contributions from a global and interdisciplinary team of scholars into six key sections: Part 1: Sociology of Consumption Part 2: Geographies of Consumer Culture Part 3: Consumer Culture Studies in Marketing Part 4: Consumer Culture in Media and Cultural Studies Part 5: Material Cultures of Consumption Part 6: The Politics of Consumer Culture
Body Projects: Fashion, Aesthetic Modifications and Stylized Selves
Body Projects: Fashion, Aesthetic Modifications and Stylized Selves
Introduction
Consumer capitalist societies have been described as inviting individuals to joyfully take responsibility for their bodies and to invest in body maintenance and enhancement in order to perform culturally appropriate self-presentation. The body is said to become the ‘visible carrier of the self’ in contemporary ‘consumer culture’ (Featherstone, 1982), the finest consumer object subject to endless triumphant, commercially mediated ‘rediscovery’ (Baudrillard, 1998). Fitness culture, for example, has been described as the epitome of such a trend in consumer capitalism, spreading all over the global West (Sassatelli, 2015). All in all, a variety of products and services indeed give evidence to the increasing process of performative, aestheticized rationalization ...
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