ABSTRACT
Is one of the problems with a social science perspective on consumption precisely that it is a social science? To be a social science assumes a commitment to some kind of collectivity, whether society, culture or the state, which is most commonly contrasted with various forms of individualism. So that sociology and anthropology oppose themselves to disciplines such as psychology or economics that tend to privilege the individual. For social science reduction to the individual is a problem or a sign of individualism (see, for example, Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2001; Bourdieu 1977, 1979; Giddens 1991; Miller 2009a). In this chapter I want to show how the study of consumption as material culture may be a means to confront and repudiate this dualism. The power of this dualism is evident in the colloquial term materialistic. To call a person materialistic is to imply an orientation towards the commodities of modern capitalism at the expense of their proper orientation, which should be to other people.
