Zygmunt Bauman

Science, Consumption & Identity

Bauman & Capitalism

• Looking at … Zygmunt Bauman’s analysis of contemporary ‘consumer society’ – As opposed to ‘production-based’ social

organisation

Social Class(Production)

Consuming – rubbish …

• Bauman argues that contemporary society is organised around the principles of consumption, rather than ‘production’.

• ‘Freedoms’ in a consumer society, tend to understood as:

– “the freedom to choose how to satisfy individual desires” (via the medium of the consumer market)

• As a consequence, individual ‘freedom’ has become privatised and commodified – a development which in turn fuel’s increasing consumption

• Identity itself becomes based on the process and products of consumption

What defines who ‘we’ are?

SeducedRepressed

• Zygmunt Bauman

Thorstein Veblen: Conspicuous Consumption