Political Consumerism and the Social Practice Perspective

Social practice approaches, developed in sociology, contribute to the study of political consumerism by moving away from individual accounts of political consumerism and towards the study of everyday practices and their changes. This chapter presents the main conceptual tools and empirical orientations and connects these with political consumerism thinking. This leads to a focus on social practices, the embeddedness of different social practices, and the roles of power and information. This framework is then applied in empirical examples of energy, food, and mobility to illustrate the additional insights that social practices can contribute to political consumerism. The conclusion explores how social practice approaches can contribute to a better understanding of dynamics of agency, power, and change in everyday consumption.