ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the connections between consumption and identity, which are approached in two ways. First it examines the notion of choice and its centrality in everyday experience of consumption. Second, it considers the role of identity in acts of consumption, as either the expression of one's authentic identity or, conversely, as the manipulation of consumer desire and aspiration, as everybody saw in the previous chapter's reflections on the generation of false needs by the mass culture industry. The ability for consumers to choose from a range of products is predicated on the distinction between products, so that what is unique about a product must be noticeable and appreciable. By choosing certain products over others all are exercising our judgement of taste; through which everybody articulate sense of social status, background, and cultural identity. The chapter begins to answer such questions of cultural identity by relating Bourdieu's notions of taste, lifestyle, and habitus to youth consumption.
