ABSTRACT
Consumer society is an unquestionably complex social construct. However, after decades of unremitting dominance there are signs emerging that it is starting to falter, both as a coherent and durable system of social organization and as a strategy for societal advancement. Debates concerning how we can transition beyond present energy- and materials-intensive consumer society are beginning to gain greater salience.
Social Change and the Coming of Post-Consumer Society aims to develop more complete appreciation of the relevant processes of social change and to identify effective interventions that could enable a transition to supersede consumer society. Bringing together leading interdisciplinary experts on social change, the book identifies and analyzes several ongoing small- and modest-scale social experiments. Possibilities for macro-scale change from the interlinked perspectives of culture, economics, finance, and governance are then explored. These contributions expose the systemic problems that are emblematic of the current condition of consumer society, specifically the unsustainability of prevailing consumption practices and lifestyles and the persistence of inequalities. These observations are summarized and extended in the final chapter of the book.
This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainable consumption, sustainability transitions, environmental sociology, and sustainable development.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|22 pages
Consumption and social change
part II|102 pages
Niches of social innovation
chapter 4|17 pages
Social change at the nexus of consumption and politics
chapter 5|17 pages
Institutionalization processes in transformative social innovation
part III|88 pages
Post-consumerist transitions
chapter 7|18 pages
When “gestures of change” demand policy support
chapter 9|22 pages
“Beyond-GDP” indicators
chapter 10|21 pages
Consumption, governance, and transitions
part IV|6 pages
Social change toward post-consumer society