ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that consumption has recently become a tool for expressing citizenship and civic concerns in Russian society. It is also a resource for collective identification and for creating consumption communities. The protests of 2011-12 made visible and prompted this process. The protests also further encouraged the development of a new subjectivity in Russia, a 'citizen consumer', who approaches his/her own consumer choices from the point of view of a larger public interest rather than from an egoistic interest of self-indulgence and pleasure-seeking, as does the 'customer-consumer', to use Cohen's term. The chapter explores various forms and examples of political consumerism and consumer citizenship in Russia during and after the protests of 2011-12. It focuses on the meanings of political consumerism in state–citizens relations, and on the market as a resource for the expression of citizens' identities and beliefs.
