This article builds on the current rethinking of nostalgia in heritage studies and an increasing amount of research that explores the formatting of customer – producer relationships in terms of ’market attachments’ to analyse how nostalgia is performative on the market for retro, vintage and second hand, what we call the re:heritage market. Based on a multi-sited study including offline and online ethnographic observations, photography and qualitative interviews with shop owners and staff at a selection of central streets in Gothenburg, Sweden, the article explores the way shop owners work with nostalgia in order to attract, or ‘captate’, the public, through engaging affective market devices. Our particular contribution is to show how the re:heritage market contribute to our understanding of an alternative of cultural heritage, through configuring exchange and value, and details how ‘affective captation’ adds conceptual strength for understanding the emotive and sensate pull of certain market-based heritage practices. Staging nostalgic encounters involves practices of selecting, collecting, displaying and preserving for the future: practices that are vital for all heritage-making. A variety of actors are involved in this unconventional of heritage at safe a distance from traditional heritage practices.

Contemporary consumer society is increasingly saturated by digital technology, and the devices that deliver this are increasingly transforming consumption patterns. Social media, smartphones, mobile apps and digital retailing merge with traditional consumption spheres, supported by digital devices which further encourage consumers to communicate and influence other consumers to consume. Through a wide range of empirical studies which analyse the impact of digital devices, this volume explores the digitization of consumption and shows how consumer culture and consumption practices are fundamentally intertwined and mediated by digital devices. Exploring the development of new consumer cultures, leading international scholars from sociology, marketing and ethnology examine the effects on practices of consumption and marketing, through topics including big data, digital traces, streaming services, wearables, and social media’s impact on ethical consumption. Digitalizing Consumption makes an important contribution to practice-based approaches to consumption, particularly the use of market devices in consumers’ everyday consumer life, and will be of interest to scholars of marketing, cultural studies, consumer research, organization and management.

This special issue of the Journal of Cultural Economy focuses on the digitalization of consumption and its social, cultural, ethical, political, and gendered implications. It thus answers the call for more research on how digital devices spread from the purely personal domain to multiple sociocultural domains. Through their use, new cultural practices have emerged between consumers and these devices, and devices and markets, that lead to change, in terms of consumer demand, consumption norms, and issues of ethics, culture, and power. Closely examining the role that devices play in consumption behavior enables us to address the supposed manipulative power of hi-tech companies, infrastructures, and systems at the global level, and the view ordinary market actors hold of digital appliances as empowering tools at the local level. The papers in this volume bridge ‘actor network theory’ and ‘consumer culture theory’ from the perspective of market ‘agencements.’ Ruckenstein-Granroth and Beauvisage-Mellet, and Arriagada-Concha focus on the device-mediated relationship between large digital market infrastructures and consumer behavior; Petersson McIntyre and Licoppe unveil the societal and cultural underpinnings of digitalized markets. Last but not least, Sorum and Soujtis address the political dimensions and implications of our new digital consumer equipment and society.

Urban Cultures: Fallet Kommersen (Case Kommersen) This project builds upon knowledge derived from our previous work with Urban Cultures (se Gillberg et al 2012), which was a summary of both theoretical (cultural) perspectives on the city as well as cultural everyday doings within the city. Our conclusion then, which is our point of departure now, was that urban cultures needed the city to be an enabling city. This time we want to further explore this topic by investigating the city in real life. Our intention is modest and based on the humble thought of a possibility to add some positive insights from adding culture – as a methodological and analytic perspective, a concept and an empirical given – into the mix of ingredients commonly associated with the notion of sustainability. One way of reaching the sustainable city is thought to be by making the city dense. Therefore one of the aims of this project is to investigate what the concept cultural densification would consist of and what it would mean to use it within city planning. To do so we have chosen the flea market Kommersen at Masthuggstorget, Gothenburg as our case study. We argue that markets, and in this case an urban flea market, are important phenomena that contribute to sustainable urban cultures in specific ways depending on particular market mechanisms, organizational features and socio-cultural dimensions of the flea market. In conclusions we present the concept of sustainable cultural densification defined as: urban cultures are drivers of complex processes of layering of values over time. These values could be seen as solutions to different problems residing in cities, and a lens through which to perceive of sustainable urbanity.

I Konsumtionsrapporten 2023 sammanfattas och analyseras konsumtionen i Sverige under 2022. I den första delen, ”Hushållens konsumtion” ges en översikt över den privata konsumtionen i Sverige och hur den förändrats. Här beskrivs även skillnader mellan olika hushållstyper och konsumentgrupper, hållbarhetsaspekter på konsumtionen samt hushållens framtidsförväntningar på den egna ekonomin. I andra delen, ”Detaljhandeln” beskrivs försäljning och utveckling inom detaljhandeln under 2022 med fokus på olika delbranscher, kanaler och platser, inom e-handeln respektive den butiksbaserade detaljhandeln. Den andra delen avslutas med handelns framtidsförväntningar. Årets Konsumtionsrapport innehåller två fördjupningsdelar som var en och analyserar aktuella teman inom konsumtion. I den första av fördjupningsdelarna analyserar Emma Björner digitalisering inom turism, besöksnäring och upplevelseekonomi. I den andra fördjupningsdelen analyserar och diskuterar Benjamin Hartmann olika exempel på nostalgisk konsumtion. 

In studies of consumption a focus on the experiences of bringing items back home are rare. Even though the history of self-service, mass retailing, and the birth of the mass consumer have been well documented there is little research on consumers’ physical moves and ways of acting while assembled along with purchases outside market places. In the project “Consumer Logistics” I focus on how different artifacts play a role in the arrangement of consumption practices among families with small children in Gothenburg. Looking at consumption through the lens of family consumotion deepen our understanding of how ‘things’ or ‘objects’ influence market attachment.

The aim of this paper is to present an understanding of consumers on the move with recent purchases, i.e. moving consumers doing consumer logistics, as it is negotiated in the performance of a variety of material objects or “mobility-things” as I call them: containers (bags, carriers, baby strollers) and means of mobility (bikes, cars, buses, trams). On shopping trips away from home, consumers depend on various “mobility-things” to assist in their journeys. Among families with small children the stroller is one of the most important. Objects are co-constitutive of moving consumers in urban space and people often extend their body range, carrying capacities, mobility skills and ability to move across distance through enrolling devices. They use them for planning the route of consumption and the number and volume of goods to purchase. In turn, devices also play a role in the embodiment and experience of being a consumer on the move. The results points towards the important role of mobilitythings in patterns of consumption and adds a hitherto neglected supplement to our understanding of consumption, markets and consumer culture. In this paper I focus on how artifacts play a role in the arrangement of consumption practices among families with small children in Gothenburg, Sweden. I use qualitative ethnographic data obtained through in-depth interviews, videos and “go-along observations” together with families as they shop.

Contemporary consumption generates mobility and even though recent understandings of consumption have moved beyond moments of purchase, it has also become complicated to discuss spatiality and mobility.1 Researchers have started to emphasize the mobilities that undergird consumer behavior and the way that virtual mobility help shape consumer practices has also been explored. But some aspects of mobility constitutive of consumption are less articulated. Focuses on the experiences of bringing items back home from the store are rare in the studies of consumption. The aim of this article is to present an understanding of differently mobile consumers on the move with recent purchases as it is negotiated in the performance of a variety of material objects or “mobility-things.” Mobilitythings are co-constitutive of moving consumers in urban space and people often extend their body range, carrying capacities and ability to move across distance through enrolling devices. But they also use them for planning the route of consumption and calculating volume of goods to purchase. The results of this study point toward the important role of mobility-things in consumption and add a hitherto neglected supplement to our understanding of mundane consumer culture.

The purpose of the thesis is to analyze the production of network politics, using the Gothenburg Social Forumprocess as an example. Concepts collected from theories of social movements; the resource mobilization theory and the new social movements-theory, are brought together within the conceptual framework of assemblage theory. Assemblage theory is a theory of society reconstructed by distinguished philosopher Manuel DeLanda’s from out of late French philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s concept of assemblage, a concept describing social entities as the non-stable result of historical processes. The analysis highlights the internal dynamics of network politics, with a focus on process before stable product, putting an extra effort into explaining everyday political organizing as something highly un-predictable, as organized outcomes (network organization) cannot start with a notion of networks as a collective or community acting in unison. The study rests on solid ethnological and ethnographic ground, and is based on a long-term participant observation within the local Gothenburg Social Forumprocess, e-mailing list material, interviews with social forum-organizers, websites, and alternative media press. The empirical focus of the study is mainly on the period 2003 – 2005. Throughout the empirical chapters the local social forumprocess is analyzed via its links to other levels within the World Social Forumprocess. The World Social Forumprocess is described as a self-organizing system with constantly interacting local, regional, national, and global levels, and as an emerging network of social forum-organizations interacting via feedback processes resonating through the system. The empirical chapters highlights different parts of the production of network politics and the local social forumprocess: diffusion of the forum-model as a successful organizing format within the global justice movement, decision-making and consensus building, ground rules for interaction between political organizations, forum-organizers, individual activists and groups, the role of the Internet within network politics, selection of social categories as temporary points of convergence between different political actors (organizations), the method called merger process which reflects the forum-organization as a broker-device between organizations, power-relations within network politics, and finally, a résumé-like chapter presenting glimpses from within a local social forum-event. In the conclusion I state how the social forums could be examined as political meeting-places within a “leaderless social movement”. 

This paper explores emergent urban governmentalities that constitute cycling and public transport as forms of sustainable transport. The aim of the paper is to discuss discrepancies between examples of sustainability politics and campaigns, and people’s everyday consumption logistics, using the analytical frame of mundane consumption practices and ethnographies of “consumovers”. In conclusion, we suggest that the entity of the consumover citizen is a more productive way of discussing sustainable transport and consumer-logistics and that it may accommodate a less exclusionary policy sensibility.

Purpose – In this chapter, we intend to discuss and analyse possibilities and policies for sustainable cities and mobility by linking these issues to ordinary consumption or shopping practices. We argue that sustainability discourses directed towards urban dwellers or citizens tend to express totalizing and exclusionary tendencies that obscure the situated dimensions of mobility practices generated through consumption. Design/methodology – Through an ethnographically informed exploration of everyday consumption practices we discuss discrepancies between examples of sustainability policies and campaigns on the one hand and mundane consumption practices on the other. Findings – The chapter concludes that there are some major discrepancies between official sustainability discourses and mundane consumption practices and introduces the concept of the ‘consumover citizen’ as a productive way of discussing sustainability. Originality/value – Introducing the concept of ‘consumover citizen’ is a novel way of conceptualizing sustainability in terms of who and what moves in the city regarding mobility generated by consumption practices.

Since consumer researchers started paying attention to flea markets they represent common consumer and market research objects. Arguably, in the “natural laboratory” of the flea market, researchers can observe and theorize market and consumer processes “in the wild”, as forms of direct marketing and consumption. We build on existing flea market research through adopting a circulatory approach, inspired by actor-network theory (ANT). Rather than presenting a theory of (flea) markets, ANT is useful for studying markets from the perspective of grounded market-making processes. Consumption is understood as the interplay of consumers, marketers, retailers, and a wide array of artifacts and market mediators like products, economic theories and ideas, packaging, market space (in the physical sense) and furniture, etc. Our results point out that not only does such an approach enable analysis of features commonly studied within consumer research such as calculative action and social interaction, but also issues more rarely in focus in such research, such as cognitive patterns of consumer curiosity, emotions, senses, and affect. Furthermore, even though flea markets foremost are places of commerce and exchange of second hand goods, there is a large variety of other forms of flows or circulations going on “backstage” that enable the surface phenomena of second hand consumption to come into being. Many of these circulations, we argue, are material rather than immaterial Vendor and buyer subjectivities are thus understood as outcomes of circulatory dynamism that involves a range of material and immaterial flows. - See more at: http://www.cultureunbound.ep.liu.se/article.asp?DOI=10.3384/cu.2000.1525.157191#sthash.C4vBiuQ3.dpuf

Konsumtionens roll i en accelererande konsumtionskultur berör både människor och samhällets organisering, men har inte alltid fått den uppmärksamhet den förtjänar. En person som verkat för att utveckla forskning om konsumtionskultur i Sverige är professor emerita Helene Brembeck vars forskning spänner över många områden: barndom, fredagsmys, vardagsliv, praktiker relaterade till mat och ätande, kommersiella kulturer, aktör-nätverksteori, materialitet, hur överflöd hanteras, nostalgi och mobilitet. Den här boken är en vänbok till Helene Brembeck som entusiastiskt utvecklat forskning och tvärvetenskapliga samarbeten på Centrum för Konsumtionsvetenskap. Boken ger uttryck för Helene Brembecks stora engagemang och goda kollegialitet. I boken diskuteras innebörder och praktiker kopplade till konsumtionskultur inom en rad olika områden. Bidragen relaterar alla till Helene Brembecks mångfacetterade forskningsinriktning och avslutas med en reflektion av professor emeritus Orvar Löfgren som kan betraktas som nestor inom konsumtionsfältet i etnologi. Boken bidrar genom att belysa konsumtionskulturens innebörder och praktiker till forskarsamhället, men även till en intresserad allmänhet som ges möjlighet att reflektera över konsumtionens roll i samhället. Karin M. Ekström, professor i företagsekonomi, Högskolan i Borås, initiativtagare och fd föreståndare till Centrum för Konsumtionsvetenskap

Digital teknik håller radikalt på att förändra vår konsumtionskultur. Appar, QR-koder och ständigt mer avancerade mobiltelefoner, samt de digitala spår användningen av dem lämnar efter sig skapar nya konsumtionsbeteenden, nya metoder för marknadsföring och försäljning av produkter, men också nya metoder för forskare att studera konsumtionsmönster. De omformar även vilka vi är som konsumenter. Att forska om den här omvandlingen innebär att undersöka tekniken i sig, de som tillverkar den, de som marknadsför den liksom de som använder den. I forskningsprojektet Digcon – Digitaliseringen av konsumtionskulturen, har forskare från Sverige och Frankrike undersökt olika aspekter av digitalisering och konsumtion. Vilka betydelser har digitala verktyg och apparater i människors vardagsliv och hur förändrar de konsumtionsmönster? Hur påverkar digitaliseringen vad det innebär att vara konsument och hur en konsument uppfattas vara. Hur omformas förståelser av kön, till exempel genom uppkomsten av modebloggar och modeappar? Vilka möjligheter till etisk konsumtion skapas genom digital teknik och vilken etik är det som skapas? I den här rapporten har vi samlat populärvetenskapliga texter från forskningsprojektet. Digcon bedrivs vid Centrum för konsumtionsvetenskap och Centre for retailing, Handelshögskolan vid Göteborgs universitet, Handelshögskolan i Stockholm och Université Tolouse II, Frankrike.

Magnus Roos, Ulrika Holmberg och Niklas Hansson har på uppdrag av Konsumentverket gjort en undersökning om hur konsumenter förhåller sig till valmöjligheter på marknaderna för fast telefoni, mobil telefoni, bank, försäkring, el och tandvård. Syftet har varit att få svar på hur information om valmöjligheter når konsumenter samt vilka åtgärder på informationsområdet som skulle kunna innebära att konsumenterna får bättre intresse för och möjligheter att göra rationella och hållbara val på de aktuella marknaderna.