Anthropology of Consumption

Study Course Description

Course Description Statuss:Approved

Course Description Version:5.00

Study Course Accepted:13.03.2024 08:53:19

Study Course Information
Course Code:		KSK_006		LQF level:		Level 7
Credit Points:		2.00		ECTS:		3.00
Branch of Science:		Communication Sciences		Target Audience:		Sociology
Study Course Supervisor
Course Supervisor:		Andris Saulītis
Study Course Implementer
Structural Unit:		Faculty of Social Sciences
The Head of Structural Unit:
Contacts:		Dzirciema street 16, Rīga, szfrsu[pnkts]lv
Study Course Planning
Full-Time - Semester No.1
Lectures (count)		6	Lecture Length (academic hours)		2	Total Contact Hours of Lectures		12
Classes (count)		6	Class Length (academic hours)		2	Total Contact Hours of Classes		12
Total Contact Hours								24
Study course description
Preliminary Knowledge:
Economic and Political Anthropology, Classical Anthropology Theories.
Objective:
Provide an overview of the main concepts of consumer anthropology (as a finer specialization of economic anthropology), offering insights into the anthropological perspective on everyday consumption habits and practices.
Topic Layout (Full-Time)
No.	Topic			Type of Implementation		Number	Venue
1	Introduction to Consumer Anthropology Issues. Consumption and Culture.			Lectures		2.00	auditorium
2	Consumption and Popularity in the 21st Century.			Classes		2.00	auditorium
3	Directions and Methods of Consumption Research.			Lectures		2.00	auditorium
4	Economic Processes and Consumption.			Classes		2.00	auditorium
5	Active and Conspicuous Consumption: The Individual and Materiality.			Lectures		2.00	auditorium
6	Conspicuous Consumption in the 21st Century.			Classes		2.00	auditorium
Assessment
Unaided Work:
Students must independently master the required literature, prepare necessary written assignments and oral presentations. They independently prepare for seminars, visit the library, and utilize available digital resources to prepare for face-to-face classes. Specific tasks are updated annually and detailed on the e-study platform.
Assessment Criteria:
Reflective essays on the literature assigned for seminars (45%); active participation in seminar discussions (15%); written exam (40%).
Final Examination (Full-Time):		Exam (Written)
Final Examination (Part-Time):
Learning Outcomes
Knowledge:		Knowledge of the main principles of consumer anthropology, understanding of everyday consumption habits and practices in a global society.
Skills:		The ability to analyze and understand consumption as an integral part of daily economic and political life.
Competencies:		Critically evaluate the theoretical and empirical material covered in this course, use it in interpreting and analyzing other theoretical and empirical materials, as well as apply it in solving practical problems and research.
Bibliography
No.	Reference
Required Reading
1	Visa literatūra pieejama angļu valodā, tapēc paredzēta gan latviešu, gan angļu plūsmas studentiem
2	Horvat, K. V. 2012. Memory, Citizenship, and Consumer Culture in Postsocialist Europe. In: U. Kockel, M. N. Craith, & J. Frykman (Eds.), A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe. P. 145–162.
3	Rausing, S. 2002. Re-constructing the ‘ Normal’: Identity and the Consumption of Western Goods in Estonia. In book: Markets and Moralities
4	Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., & McElreath, R. 2001. In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies. The American Economic Review, 91(2), 73-78.
5	Cohn, A., Fehr, E., & Maréchal, M.A. 2014. Business culture and dishonesty in the banking industry. Nature, 516, 86-89.
6	Xu, A. J., Schwarz, N., & Wyer, R. S. 2015. Hunger promotes acquisition of nonfood objects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(9), 2688-2692.
7	Robert Shiller. 2019. Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
8	Hearn, A. 2008. Meat, Mask, Burden: Probing the contours of the branded `self. Journal of Consumer Culture, 8(2), 197–217.
9	Lien, M. E. 2004. The Virtual Consumer: Constructions of Uncertainty in Marketing Discourse. 46–69.
10	Ashley Mears. 2020. Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit. Princeton : Princeton University Press.
11	Thompson, D. 2017. Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction (First Edition). Penguin Press.
12	Davenport, T., Guha, A., Grewal, D., & Bressgott, T. 2020. How artificialintelligence will change the future of marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48(1), 24–42.
Additional Reading
1	Appadurai, Arjun, ed. 1986. The social life of things. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2	Bloch, Maurice and Parry, Jonathan, eds. 1989. Money and the morality of exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
3	Howes, David, ed. 1996. Cross-cultural consumption. Global markets, local realities. London and New York: Routledge Mandel, Ruth and Humphrey, Caroline, eds. 2002.
4	Markets and moralities: Ethnographies of postsocialism. Oxford: Berg Miller, David, ed. 1996
5	Douglas, Mary, Isherwood, Baron 1996. The world of goods: Towards an anthropology of consumption. Oxford and New York: Routledge
6	Plattner, Stuart, ed. 1989. Economic anthropology. Stanford: Stanford University Press
7	Veblen, Thorstein. 2009. The Theory of the Leisure Class.
8	Lange, A. 2022. Meet me by the fountain: An inside history of the mall. Bloomsbury Publishing.
9	Pridmore, J., & Zwick, D. 2011. Editorial—Marketing and the Rise of Commercial Consumer Surveillance. Surveillance & Society, 8(3), 269–277.
10	MacDonald, M., McDonald, M., & Wearing, S. 2013. Social psychology and theories of consumer culture: A political economy perspective. Routledge.
11	Skidelsky, R. J. A., & Skidelsky, E. 2013. How much is enough? The love of money, and the case for the good life (Published with a new preface). Penguin Books.
12	Acknowledging consumption. London and New York: Routledge
Other Information Sources
1	The American Sociological Association section on Consumers and Consumption