Transdisciplinary Consumerism

7Transdisciplina

ry Consumerism

Sue L. T. McGregor PhDMSVU Halifax NS Canadawww.consultmcgregor.com June 2013SOCRAI Conference Clark University, Worcester MA

Culture-Ideology of Consumerism (CIC)

“A mutually reinforcing integration of consumer culture and consumerist ideology” (Kozinets & Handelman, 2004, p. 691)

“A coherent set of practices, attitudes and values…that encourages ever-expanding consumption” (Sklair, 1994, p. 260)

CIC is perpetuated by corporate capitalists – capitalism needs the ideology of consumerism and a consumer culture in order to survive

CIC creates the hegemony of capitalistic consumerism, which needs to be disrupted on a global scale to make room for a new consumerism – transdisciplinary consumerism

The culture-ideology of consumerism:

Perpetuates the logic of the market (an exclusive logic that ignores life)

Assumes there is one level of reality – the physical, material level (materialism)

Draws on knowledge stemming from dualistic, linear, deterministic, reductionist and causal thinking

Perpetuates market-based values in a culture of consumption

Trans means working at the borders by crisscrossing back and forth (zigzag

lateral movement) and actually pushing, climbing over and/or moving beyond

borders (transcending): at the interface of disciplines and civil society

Exclusive and Inclusive Logics

TD Knowledge is:

Use transdisciplinarity to solve wicked problems caused by capitalistic consumerism – mitigate power of culture-ideology of consumerism

TAME PROBLEM Complex and difficult but can be solved, with everyone agreeing on the solution

WICKED PROBLEM

Messy, vicious, aggressive social, political, economic and environmental messes; the more you do, the worse things get; yet, something has to be done