The Unmanageable Consumer: Contemporary Consumption and its Fragmentation

Gabriel, Yiannis

ISBN 10: 080397745X / ISBN 13: 9780803977457

Editore: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1995

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Codice articolo rev5191414305

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: The Unmanageable Consumer: Contemporary Consumption and its Fragmentation
• Editore: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Data di pubblicazione: 1995
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 080397745X
• ISBN 13: 9780803977457
• Rilegatura: Brossura
• Condizione: Good
• Peso: 353,8 grammi

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Consumption and concepts of the consumer sit at the centre of numerous current debates - academic, political and environmental. This highly readable and stimulating book - a tour-de-force in the breadth of its coverage and analysis - shows how different traditions of thought have constructed different representations of the consumer. Each of these has its own coherence but rarely addresses alternative positions. A key concern of the authors is to identify, disentangle and juxtapose approaches to contemporary consumption which are seldom found in a single text.

Yiannis Gabriel and Tim Lang present a number of distinctive portraits of the consumer - as Chooser; as Communicator; as Identity-seeker; as Explorer; as Hedonist; as Victim; as Rebel. They detail the paradigms and perspectives underpinning these. They also contend that none of the various images satisfactorily come to terms with the fragmentation, volatility and confusion of contemporary western consumption. The concept of the `unmanageable consumer′ is introduced to capture the practical and theoretical recalcitrance of consumerism today. The book concludes by arguing against any triumphalism about the globalization of western-style consumption.

Informazioni sugli autori

Yiannis Gabriel is Professor of Organizational Theory at Bath University. Yiannis has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College London and a PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.

 

Yiannis is well known for his work into organizational storytelling and narratives, leadership, management learning and the culture and politics of contemporary consumption. He has used stories as a way of studying numerous social and organizational phenomena including leader-follower relations, group dynamics and fantasies, nostalgia, insults and apologies. He has also carried out extensive research on the psychoanalysis of organizations.

 

Yiannis is founder and coordinator of the Organizational Storytelling Seminar series, now in its fourteenth year (See http://www.organizational-storytelling.org.uk/), the author of nine books and numerous articles. He is elected to the board of EGOS and is currently Senior Editor of Organization Studies. His enduring fascination as a researcher lies in what he describes as the unmanageable qualities of life in and out of organizations.

Tim Lang has been Professor of Food Policy at City University′s Centre for Food Policy since 2002. With a PhD in Social Psychology from Leeds University he became a hill farmer in Lancashire, North of England, in the 1970s.

Over the last four decades he has engaged in public and academic research and debate about food policy: what sort of food system do we want? What do we mean by progress? He has written and co-written 10 books and many reports and papers on the trends, problems and policy frameworks in the food system. A constant theme is how public health, environment, social justice and consumer rights do and don’t connect.

Besides his academic work, he has been an advisor to many bodies including the World Health Organisation, the EU Environment Commissioner, the Mayor of London and many civil society organisations. He was the UK Government’s Sustainable Development Commissioner for food and land use in 2006-11. All this enquiry and engagement spawned and retains his keen interest in the issues analysed in The Unmanageable Consumer.