Lecture 2

09/11/2013

What is consumption?
Geographies of consumption
Definitions
1. the using up of a resource: Industrialized countries should reduce
their energy consumption
- the eating, drinking, or ingesting of something
- and amount of something that is used up or ingested
ciggs are decadent and wasteful
the purchase and use of goods and services by the public: an article
for mass consumption
the reception of information or entertainment, esp. by a mass
audience: his confidential speech was not meant for public
consumption
2. dated a wasting disease, esp. Pulmonary tuberculosis: From the Latin
consumption from the verb consumere
the using up of a resource:
noun 1. Aa stock or supply of money, materials, staff and other
assets that can be dran on by a person or organization in order to
function effectively: local authorities complained that they lack
resources
a countries collective means of supporting itself becoming wealthier,
as represented by its reserves of minerals, land and other assets
the eating, drinking of something
food and liquid into the mouth and eating it.
Measurement and quantification ( subjective for each society)
Ingesting into the body
An amount of something that is used up
Consume from a limited supply
To use or exploit
Purchase and use of goods and services by the public
Acquire- buy-barter

The reception of information

Receiving something sent, given or inflicted
GEOGRAPHIC APPROACHES

Scale: global Mcdonaldization and local

Landscape: cities as planned theme parks; malls and security;
festivals and market places (blurring of private and public)
Everyday spaces: thrift stores, farmers markets, and car boot
sales
the Home: transformation of commodities; individual and
collective consumption; negotiation of meanings
the body: size, shape, health, beauty, ingestion of food and drink
vertical approaches: COMMODITIES IN SYSTEMS OF
PROVISISION; conception and design- production-retailing-final
consumption (supply chains)
horizontal approach: DIVERSE COMMODITIES ACROSS
PARTICULAR PLACE/NODES/SEGMENTS (Granville island market;
teenagers)
o more of a social approach the latter focuses on issues of
power, practices, ethics, race ethnicity, class, gender, age ect
o arenas of consumption
the ability to consume in a location and the effect you have on
others consuming in such a location

CONCLUSIONS
Consumption is complex and involves at least: resource use; eating,
drinking, and ingesting; the use of something; purchase, goods,
and services; and, the reception of something
Geographers have addressed consumption via scale, landscape, the
everyday, the home, the body, as well as vertical and horizontal
approaches to consider power, practices, ethics and peoples
identities
Outline
What is a commodity
Commodity chains
Commodity fetishism
Sandals Negrils commodity-form
The commodity

Definitions; object of value, produced for exchange, exchanged for

money
Production, Manufacturing, salability on market, profits (decided by
entrepreneur)
International encyclopedia of geography (resource for paper)

Commodity chains
Interrelated activities; production, consumption, design, marketing,
retailing. For product or service
Gary Gereffi Global commodity chain
o Producer driven (cars) stable market that producer choses
point of entry
o Buyer driven (clothes) driven by demands of consumer

Economy is an assemblage of individual commodity chains

o Each chain has a different form of organization
o Different geographies and power relations
sourcemap commodity chain generator
Critique of commodity chains-complexify them
o Commodity circuits; Non-linear movements of commodities
in circuits of culture and contexts
o Commodity networks; complex and multi stranded
connections of nodes and webs

Commodity Fetishism- Carl Marx

Inanimate object worshiped for its magical powers
Excessiveness, substitution, sexual desire
In the marketplace commodities appear to have value in relation to
each other (or money)

True source of their value (human labour) not visible Ex, coffee
beans- labour put in hidden by retail store
Consumers perceive commodities as natural, a life or their own
rather than socially produced.
Andreas Gursky - german photographer
Carl Marx- at first sight a commodity appears trivial, in analysis
brings out a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical
subtleties and theological niceties ( religious powers that can
transform our lives).
Society of prohibition(pre 60s)- restrictions on access to
pleasures; strong paternal authority enforces barrier to enjoyment
society of enjoyment (post 60s) - people bombarded by
injunctions to enjoy; makes enjoyment more difficult?

Sandals Negrils commodity-form

Avoid the fetichistic fascination of the content supposedly hidden
The secret is not the commodity hidden but the secret is why is
social life driven by commodities (zizek)

Environmental economy
o Unveiling the dirty secrets of capitalism
Political economy
o Wage inequalities
Culture
o Veiling workers, trying to make a living (pixilated trees on
brochure)
The real problem is not the hidden kernel of the commodity (worker
getting screwed) it is that capitalism and the commodity form still
endures
Secret of commodity form of tourusn is the interactions between
worker and tourist
o Enjoyment in the trading of stories
o
CONCLUSIONS
A commodity is an object of value that is produced in order to be
exchanged or sold for money
Geographers have addressed commodities in terms of spaces of
things or objects, chains, and fetishism
Geographers have recently questioned the urge to get behind or
beneath the veil of fetishism and inquired into the allures of the
commodity-form
Outline

Walter Benjamins Arcades Project

The mall
Dead Malls
The Aberdeen Centre Richmond