Because it is better to start writing the ideas, which tend to disappear with the old age that always comes.
Then.
1. Introduction.
- A historical approach: consumption as material life. The evolution of the standard of life (or why it is not useful to forget that the consumption is going to be significant and cultural, as you want, but tons of wood and steel, calories and nutrients from food and all those things are still tons, calories, and nutrients also. Ultimately, from a cultural perspective ‘consumerism’ might not make sense, from a material we are still having. And we took advantage of to pass a little of the ‘Collapse’ of the Diamond.)
- A historical approach: the practices of consumption and exchange (Although the sociological view implies that the consumer is not buying, in terms of the social practices we are interested in how the consumer relates with the practices of the exchange. Ultimately, it serves to show that the mythical village self-sufficient, or the peasant self-sufficient, has never existed)
- A historical approach: the meanings of consumption (Or the consumption has been implicated identity since, well, we have records of the case. It is not a modern invention).
- A historical approach: From various studies on the birth of modernism / industrial revolution and consumption (in the end, McKendrick, idea -horrible in my opinion, but hey will have to pass – the ethics of romantic and the spirit of consumerism and other things)
- Some of the conclusions of the historical review: the consumption is not something new, that what we take for modern consumption, in reality neither is, that the consumption can take place in many and various ways.
2. The modern society and consumption.
- The approach of the consumer society. Brief review and hopefully ultacrítica of various postulates on which is the modern society of consumption (continued monotonous topic: what you give by new has a millennia old, but showing what you can with sense considered to be modern(*)
- The approach of a new society of consumption. Of e.g. fordist, posfordistas, consumption post-modernists (and consumption of immaterial and all those things that some say).
3. An introduction to the eye ‘sociological’ (well, in the social sciences, about the story)
- Of consumption beyond the purchase: consumption as the whole complex of relations with the goods.
- Of consumption as embedded in the society. Of the relationship with the goods as an expression / result etc of the relationship with the other (and with their own culture)
- Consumption as an activity: Or more that of consumption, there is talk of a consumer.
- The importance of the study of consumption (and for this we use the text of Miller about the myths of consumption)
4. Some theorists
- The traditions (and yes, I would have to give a class to the good of Veblen)
- The traditions are not forgotten (or as the antropológos, always smarter, always had to Mauss and the Gift as a central part of their studies)
- Bourdieu (La Distinction, the Social Structures of the Economy, on second thought, the text about the misery it would be good to also study it)
- Douglas (The world of goods, Thought Styles, and other essays; if I get the more inaccurate than usual, we took advantage of work to Appadurai, in the same time)
- Miller (The theory of the purchase, and would have to supplement it with other things I guess)
- Of the enemy, or of the economists (because economists are always the black beast at the end of the day). The good of Becker (with some comments on the tradition, and we talk about Friedman and those things)
- Fabris (Italian authors, something to devote themselves to these things, that are a little crazy but hey it would be interesting to pass them anyway)
- Of various authors (that should be passed close to the older more separated, but we talk about Slater and McCracken. Featherstone and his men happen to be discussed only when discussing postmodernity, we will not give more importance. And Baudrillard the same thing. With that he complies with them, and with that I keep to myself my duty not to give them too much importance)
5. How to study this beast somewhat elusive consumer
- Because it is a beast somewhat elusive: the studies Of the market and its utter uselessness to talk about the consumer.
- The use of ethnography as overcoming these problems: how a method that works with acts and meanings, trying to understand the consumer closely follows what are supposed to be the themes that we say our theorists. And how the methods should follow the ideas we have about things in the end.
- Of the segmentation. If the consumer is so varied, if the consumer operates in ways as different in so many different places, it follows that we cannot view the article in a homogeneous way. (With a couple of comments about data mining and stuff)
- How to study the consumer beyond the social sciences (And here we talk about Neuromarketing and the ideas of Zaltman, or how to use other type of tools)
6. How it has been studied effectively to this beast somewhat elusive.
- Introduction. The situation of the studies of the consumer, with special emphasis to the situation in Chile (or, how not to do things)
- Budget and expenditure in the numerical one. Survey of Family Budget, comments on models of family budgets. The material basis of the consumption by to speak to the brute.
- The decision processes in consumption. Or how people / families / organizations decide to buy / how to use etc (And in fact, as studies of decision-making processes often end up as studies of decision-making processes of purchase).
- Economies morales in the family. The power consumption, consumption of clothing. (There are several English studies that can be used in this regard, sniff, the English, always making things interesting)
- For fans of postmodernism, the consumption of tourism (which is one of his favorite places)
- Of cultural consumption. And here we quote it all, but we use the survey of chile (but we use it to Garcia-Canclini, and to all the world that in Latin America is dedicated to the topic, skip that one to know for what, but in principle here we study enough)
- Of the hearings. And of course, you can’t stop to talk about consumption without talking to the media, so that Morley, Silverstone and all around the world (passing by Ang and the rest).
And well, after what we developed (and if you don’t do the course, it serves to type a text at least).
(*) On the other hand, at this point modernity is already so old. His pair of centuries in the version more low.