Logo UAB

Consumption and Sustainability

Code: 103688 ECTS Credits: 6
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
2500262 Sociology OT 4

Contact

Name:
Vicent Eduardo Borras Catala
Email:
vicent.borras@uab.cat

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

There is not


Objectives and Contextualisation

1. Knowledge and visualization of the characteristics of the consumer society in Spain and Catalonia.

2. Understand the theoretical contributions of consumer behavior

3. Analyze the relationships between class, gender, life cycle and consumption

4. Understand the limits of the current consumption model: Sustainability

5. Contextualize, the alternative theoretical perspectives.

 

 

 

 


Competences

  • Analysing the problems arising from the implementation of public policies and conflict situations by recognising the complexity of the social phenomena and political decisions affecting democracy, human rights, social justice and sustainable development.
  • Applying the concepts and approaches of the sociological theory, specially the explanations of social inequalities between classes, between genders and between ethnic groups, to the implementation of public policies and to the resolution of conflict situations.
  • Assessing the contributions of sociological approaches to the study of culture, education, interaction between society and environment, social policy, and work.
  • Demonstrating a comprehension of the approaches of the sociological theory in its different aspects, interpretations and historical context.
  • Describing social phenomena in a theoretically relevant way, bearing in mind the complexity of the involved factors, its causes and its effects.
  • Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  • Generating innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activity.
  • Students must be capable of assessing the quality of their own work.
  • Students must be capable of managing their own time, planning their own study, managing the relationship with their tutor or adviser, as well as setting and meeting deadlines for a work project.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Defining the interaction society-environment from these approaches.
  2. Defining the sociological concepts that interpret the interaction between society and the environment.
  3. Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  4. Distinguishing the vision of society that these actors take for granted.
  5. Expressing the epistemological assumptions that led to this interaction.
  6. Generating innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activity.
  7. Relating the concepts methods and techniques of environmental sociology with general theoretical and methodological debates.
  8. Relating them with the debates about order, social change and capitalism.
  9. Relating these concepts and visions with the theoretical and methodological debates about society and environment.
  10. Students must be capable of assessing the quality of their own work.
  11. Students must be capable of managing their own time, planning their own study, managing the relationship with their tutor or adviser, as well as setting and meeting deadlines for a work project.
  12. Using their analysis to reflect the social and environmental reality of Spain and Catalonia.

Content

 

I. Introduction to consumption from a sociological perspective: consumption as a "total social phenomenon".
II. General theory of the consumer society: genesis and structure of consumer societies.
  1. The formation of the consumer capitalist market and archetypal consumer models.
    1.1. The background of the consumer society.
    1.2. Neoclassical economic theory of demand and basic concepts of consumption analysis.
    1.3. The real structure of the market and creation of the consumption norm: oligopolization and transformation in the demand / consumption process.
III. The consumer society in Catalonia and Spain.
  1. Process of historical configuration and development of the consumer society: phases and models of consumption.
  2. The role of brand / product images and advertising in consumer models.
IV. Theoretical paradigms for the social investigation of consumption and advertising communication.
  1. Criticism of the economic theory of demand: the social construction of needs.
  2. Behaviorism and consumption: the brand / product as a signal.
  3. Psychoanalysis and consumption: the brand / product as a symbol, and desire.
  4. Genetic-structural theory: consumption as a social symbol.
  5. Cultural studies and consumption: consumption as a material culture.
  6. Structural linguistics and semiology of consumption: the brand / product as sign and signifier.
  7. Postmodern theories of consumption: the identity construction through consumption.
V. Current debates in the sociology of consumption.
  1. The axes of structuring consumption and the context of economic crisis: class, gender and life cycle.
  2. Cultural consumption and the “omnivorism” debate.
  3. Sustainable consumption trends.
  4. Emotions in consumption.
VI. Investigating consumption: review of statistical sources on consumption and the use of social research techniques for the analysis of consumption.


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Master Lessons 42 1.68
Type: Supervised      
Tutoring students 3 0.12
Type: Autonomous      
Reading articles, team work, presentation in seminars, papers 105 4.2

The sessions will combine a) theoretical presentations of a theoretical nature and b) text discussion seminars.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Individual written test/esay 50% 0 0 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Research project 30% 0 0 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Short works linked to practical activities 20% 0 0 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12

 

Students must submit the following evidence:

1) Individual written proof. At the beginning of the course, the guidelines will be given for the realization of a written test on the topics you will see during the course. It will be a test to develop at the end of the course. 
The test will present in a critical way, and with a review of the literature, some of the classic and/or current debates on the sociology of consumption.

2) Group work: students must carry out -in group- a brief empirical research on a phenomenon or object / brand of consumption previously chosen and agreed with the teacher. The work will be delivered at the end of the course and an oral presentation will be made in the last weeks of the course. At the beginning of the course the teacher will give the specific orientations of the work.

3) Brief assignments linked to practical activities of class: the alumnado will have to deliver the practical activities linked to the discussion of texts on consumption and publicity that will provide during the course.


Assessable activities that do not exceed a minimum of 5, must be repeated to pass the course.
Those students who request it, will be attended individually in the office or virtually, in order to give the relevant explanations to the correction of the tests and guide the possible recovery.

 4) Definition of the Not Submitted: Do not present the set of individual works

  In the event of plagiarism, the evaluation of the test will be 0 '.

 In accordance with article 117.2 of the UAB Academic Regulations, the evaluation of those students who have been enroled before may consist of a single synthesis examination. The students who wish to be evaluated this way should contact the professor at the beginning of thesemester. 

Single assessment: those students who are vulguie enrolled will have to notify the teacher during the first 2 sets of courses that it is their will to enroll in a single assessment. 
This assessment system will consist of two assessment activities: a) a final test on the subject matter of the course; b) the realization of an individual research work on any of the topics developed during the course, they havent agreed on the topic with the teacher. 
In these cases, the weight of each activity will be 60% of the written proof and 40% of the work on the final grade.

 


Bibliography

ALONSO L.E. (2017) “Consumo colaborativo: Las razones de un debate” Revista Española de Sociologia RES nº26 pp 87-95

ALONSO L. E. (1989), ‘Proceso de trabajo y objeto de consumo. Apuntes para un análisis de su evolución conjunta’, Sociología del Trabajo, 8, pp.59-80 .

ALONSO L .E. (2009),  Prácticas económicas y economía de las        prácticas. Crítica del posmodernismo liberal, Madrid, Ed        Catarata

ALONSO L.E (2005) La era del consumo. Madrid SIglo XXI.

ALONSO L. E., CONDE F. (1994), Historia del consumo en España: Una aproximación a sus orígenes y primer desarrollo, Madrid, Debate.

ALONSO L. E., CALLEJO J. (1994) “ Consumo e individualismo metodológico: Una perspectiva crítica” a Política y Sociedad, 16 pp111-134.

ALONSO L. E.; FERNANDEZ C.; (2013) “Consumo y sociedad líquida en la     obra de Zygmunt Bauman: una recapitulación crítica” en Alonso L.E.; Fernández C. Los discursos del presente. Un análisis de los imaginarios sociales contemporáneos. Madrid, Siglo XXI.

ALONSO, L. E., FERNANDEZ, C. IBÁÑEZ, R. (coord.) (2020) Estudios sociales sobre el consumo. Madrid: CIS.

ALONSO L.E. PÉREZ L.(2003) ‘Problemas actuales en el estudio de la jubilación y la edades del trabajo: la perspectiva sociológica’ Revista del ministerio de trabajo y asuntos sociales. nºExtra Seguridad social.

ANDRES ORIZO F. (1977), Las bases sociales del consumo en   España, Madrid, Confed. Española de Cajas de Ahorro.

BAUDRILLARD J. (1969), El sistema de los objetos, Madrid, Siglo XXI.

BAUDRILLARD J. (1987), Crítica de la economía política del signo, Madrid, Siglo XXI.

BOCOCK R. (1993), El consumo, Madrid, Talasa Ediciones.

BORRÀS CATALÀ V. (1998) El consumo, un análisis sociologico.         Barcelona, Cedecs.

BORRAS V. (2007), “Las desigualdades en el consumo a traves del género” RES nº8 pp139-156.

BAUMAN Z. (2007), Vida de consumo, Madrid, Fondo de Cultura       Económica

BOURDIEU P. (1991), La distinción. Criterio y bases   sociales del gusto,. Altea,   Taurus Humanidades.

CASTILLO CASTILLO J. (1987), Sociedad de consumo a la española, Madrid, Eudema Actualidad

CASTILLO CASTILLO J. (1988), ‘La singular sociología de Thorstein Veblen: el caso de la condición femenina’, REIS, 43, pp. 7-22.

CORTINA A. (2002) Por una ética del consumo. Madrid, Taurus.

CRUZ j. (2014) “El buen tono y la cultura del consumo” en Cruz J. El surgimiento de la cultura burguesa, Madrid, Siglo XXI.

FEATHERSTONE M. (1992), Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, London, Sage.

FERNANDEZ C. J.; HEIKKILÄ R. (2011) “El debate sobre el Omnivorismo Cultural. Un aproximación a nuevas tendencias en sociología del consumo” Revista Internacional de Sociología Vol 69 nº 3 pp 585-605

FREIXENET M.(coord) (2011) Sostenibilitas, Polítiques públiques des de el feminisme i l’ecologisme. Barcelona, ICPS.

GALBRAITH J. K. (1992), La Sociedad Opulenta, Barcelona, Ariel.

GRANDE I. (2002) El consumo de la tercera edad. Madrid. Esic.

GRIGNON C. PASERON J.P.(1992) Lo culto y lo popular. Miserabilismo y populismo en socilogía y en literatura, Madrid, La piqueta.

DURAN Mª A. (1988), De puertas adentro. Madrid, Instituto de la Mujer.

IBAÑEZ j. (2012) “ Publicidad la tercera palabra de dios” en Ibañez J. Por una sociología de la vida cotidiana” Madrid, Siglo XXI

KLEIN N (2001) No Logo, el poder de las marcas. Barcelona, Paidos.

KÖHN, J.; GOWDY, J.; HINTERBERGER, F.; STRAATEN, J.van der (1999) Sustainability in Question. The Search for a Conceptual Framework. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

LEONINI L. (1990-91), ‘A che servono le cose? A proposito di due contributi sui consumi’, Quaderni diSociologia, 29, pp. 168-178.

LATOUCHE S. (2006) La apuesta por el decrecimiento. Barcelona, Icaria.

LIPOVETSKY G. (1986), La era del vacío, Barcelona, Anagrama.

LIPOVETSKY G. (1990), El imperio de lo efímero, Barcelona, Anagrama.

MARAFIOTI R. (1988), Los significantes del consumo. Semiología, medios masivos y publicidad, Buenos Aires, Biblos.

MINISTERIO DE SANIDAD Y CONSUMO (2000). La tercera edad y el consumo. Madrid. INC.

PRADES, A.; HORLICK-JONES, T.;BARNETT, J.; CONSTANTIN, M.; ENANDER, A.; ESPLUGA, J.; KONRAD, W.; POUMADÈRE, M.; ROSENHEAD, J. (2013) “Shining a light on sustainability: making visible, and promoting policy reflection upon, knowledge about citizen’s everyday environment-related behaviours”. A:  A. Martinuzzi and M. Sedlacko (eds.) Knowledge Brokerage for a Sustainable Europe. Innovative tools for enhancing the connectivity of research and policy making on sustainable development issues.(Springer book series Interdisciplinary Studies in Economics and Management).

PRETECEILLE E. (1975), ‘Besoins sociauxet socialisation de la consommation’, La pensée, 180, pp. 22-60.

PRETECEILLE E., TERRAIL, J. P. (1985), Capitalism,         consumption and needs, Oxford, Basil Blackwell.

PAHL J.(1990), ‘Housedold speeding, personal speeding and the control of money in marriage’, Sociology, 24, 1, pp. 119-138

REQUENA M. ‘Juventud y dependencia familiar en España’. Estudios de juventud. nº58/2.

SCHWART R. (2011) “La ‘revolución industrial’ en el hogar: tecnología          doméstica y cambio social en el sxx” en Carrasco C.; Borderias T.;          Torns T.; El trabajo de cuidados. Historia, teoría y políticas, Madrid          Ed Catarata.

TAYLOR-GOOBY P. (1985), ‘Personal Consumption and Gender’, Sociology, 19, 2, pp. 273-284.

TERRAIL J-P (1975), ‘Production des besoins et besoins de la production’, La pensée, 180, pp. 6-21.

VEBLEN T. (1944), Teoría de la clase ociosa, Mexico, Fondo de Cultura Económica.

 

 


Software

None in particular.


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(PAUL) Classroom practices 1 Catalan second semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 1 Catalan second semester morning-mixed