Globalizing Responsibility: The Political Rationalities of Ethical Consumption

by Clive Barnett, Paul Cloke, Nick Clarke, Alice Malpass

Overview

Interest in the ethics and politics of consumption is rising steadily. But many questions still remain about the complex motivations and practices involved in being an 'ethical consumer'. Globalizing Responsibility: The Political Rationalities of Ethical Consumption presents an innovative reinterpretation of the forces that have shaped the remarkable growth of ethical consumption.

The book challenges the claim that this phenomenon reflects an increase in individualism and a retreat from proper politics. Using detailed qualitative empirical cases of ethical consumption campaigns, the book investigates the practical strategies used to encourage various ethical consumption activities by ordinary people. First, it looks at the way in which discourses of responsibility and repertoires of consumerism are deployed by activists to enrol support for global campaigns around fair trade, environmental issues, and human rights. And then it looks at how ordinary people engage critically as citizens, not just as consumers,. These two interwoven strands reveal the pragmatic dynamics of ethical action in consumption processes and point to important new directions in understanding the contemporary politicization of consumption.

Globalizing Responsibility: The Political Rationalities of Ethical Consumption represents a valuable new contribution to our critical understanding of the politics and ethics of consumption, and to the wider political and academic debates on citizenship, participation, and subjectivity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781444390230
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	12/09/2010
Series:	RGS-IBG Book Series
Sold by:	JOHN WILEY & SONS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	831 KB

About the Author

Clive Barnett is Reader in Human Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University.

Paul Cloke is Professor of Human Geography, Department of Geography, University of Exeter.

Nick Clarke is Lecturer in Human Geography, Department of Geography, University of Southampton.

Alice Malpass is Research Associate, Primary Health Care, University of Bristol.

Read an Excerpt

Click to read or download

Table of Contents

Series Editors' Preface.

Preface and Acknowledgements.

1 Introduction: Politicizing Consumption in an Unequal World.

1.1 The Moralization of Consumption.

1.2 Justice, Responsibility and the Politics of Consumption.

1.3 Relocating Agency in Ethical Consumption.

1.4 Problematizing Consumption.

Part One Theorizing Consumption Differently.

2 The Ethical Problematization of 'The Consumer'.

2.1 Teleologies of Consumerism and Individualization.

2.2 Theorizing Consumers as Political Subjects.

2.3 The Responsibilization of the Consumer.

2.4 What Type of Subject Is 'The Consumer'?

2.5 Does Governing Consumption Involve Governing the Consumer?

2.6 The Ethical Problematization of the Consumer.

2.7 Conclusion.

3 Practising Consumption.

3.1 The Antinomies of Consumer Choice.

3.2 Theorizing Consumption Practices.

3.3 Problematizing Choice.

3.4 Articulating Background.

3.5 Conclusion.

4 Problematizing Consumption.

4.1 Consumer Choice and Citizenly Acts.

4.2 Articulating Consumption and the Consumer.

4.3 Mobilizing the Ethical Consumer.

4.4 Articulating the Ethical Consumer.

4.5 Conclusion.

Part Two Doing Consumption Differently.

5 Grammars of Responsibility.

5.1 Justifying Practices.

5.2 Researching the (Ir)responsible Consumer.

5.3 Versions of Responsibility.

5.4 Dilemmas of Responsibility.

5.5 Conclusion.

6 Local Networks of Global Feeling.

6.1 Locating the Fair Trade Consumer.

6.2 Re-evaluating Fair Trade Consumption.

6.3 Managing Fair Trade, Mobilizing Networks.

6.4 Doing Fair Trade: Buying, Giving, Campaigning.

6.5 Conclusion.

7 Fairtrade Urbanism.

7.1 Rethinking the Spatialities of Fair Trade.

7.2 Re-imagining Bristol: From Slave Trade to Fair Trade.

7.3 Putting Fair Trade in Place.

7.4 Fair Trade and 'The Politics of Place Beyond Place'.

7.5 Conclusion.

8 Conclusion: Doing Politics in an Ethical Register.

8.1 Beyond the Consumer.

8.2 Doing Responsibility.

Notes.

References.

Index.