ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 reviews different ways of thinking about how resources, goods, services and social life interact. It describes how demand is conceptualised in neoclassical economics; how it is positioned within social theories of consumption and material culture, and how interpretations of demand relate to notions of need and want. Against this backdrop, the chapter introduces and develops the suggestion that the demand for goods and services is derived from social practices, and that it is quite literally constituted and changed as practices evolve across space and time. The two propositions considered in this chapter – that demand is derived from practices and that it is made and not simply met, raises further questions about materiality and temporality which are taken up in Chapters 3 and 4.
