The consumer studies research group focuses on consumption, consumers and consumerism in late modern societies. Our starting point is that consumption is a phenomenon interrelated with a variety of social, cultural, political, economic and environmental developments. From this perspective, consumption is understood widely as a process in which people not only act on the market as buyers but are engaged in producing meanings of consumption, appropriating, using, sharing and living with goods and services, and eventually discarding them, as well as constructing their social identities through consumption and practices related to it. Through consumption people both carry out, reproduce, and renew everyday practices as part of their social lives. We study these practices and consumption, their changes, meanings, norms, cultural dimensions, social differences, contexts, and related materialities. The in-depth understanding of consumers and consumption we provide helps both policy and business actors to support the wellbeing of both people and the planet.
You can find us at the Viikki Campus at the Department of Economics and Management, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry (Latokartanonkaari 5, 3rd floor).