• Archive for June, 2012

    Spheres of consumption

    by  • June 29, 2012 • Theory

    Contemporary consumption patterns are characterised by a permanent increase in private and public commodification. These processes usually take place in spheres of exchange in which goods become commodified, decommodified, recommodified or sacralised. Some objects may be consumed and then removed from the sphere of exchange (either permanently or temporarily). In a society which is...

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    The biography of objects

    by  • June 27, 2012 • Featured, Theory

    There is a large agreement that objects are ruling our relations with each other — which implies that social relations between individuals are partially transformed into a relation between things. As objects become part of human interaction and exchange, they often do so through commodification. The process of commodification is the transformation of goods...

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    Use-value, exchange-value and symbolic-value

    by  • June 16, 2012 • Theory

    In the sociology of consumption much emphasis has been directed towards the exchange-value of commodities. In contrast to use-value, the exchange-value of a commodity is based on equivalences which unfold when a product enters the market (commodification). In a capitalist system any object X can be made equivalent to a certain proportion of any...

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