[ecrea] ephemera politics of consumption issue released

New ephemera issue on the politics of consumption released...

ephemera volume 13, number 2
The politics of consumption
http://www.ephemerajournal.org/issue/politics-consumption

This age of austerity comes on the back of a lengthened period of
apparently rampant consumer excess: that was a party for which we are
all now having to pay. A spectacular period of unsustainably funded
over-indulgence, it seems, has now given rise to a sobering period of
barely fundable mere-subsistence. Consumption, narrated along such
lines, is a sin which has to be paid for. Beyond the deceptive theology
of consumption, however, lies actual politics. In May 2012, we hosted a
conference at Dublin’s Royal Society of the Antiquaries of Ireland in
order to analyse and debate the politics of consumption. This special
issue is the outcome of the discussions which took place during that
event. It features conceptual and empirical investigations into the
politics of consumption, a head-to-head debate on the idea of consumer
citizenship, a series of notes on the relationship between art,
politics, and consumption, and reviews of two recent books. Taken
together, these diverse pieces underline the need for a
politically-oriented analysis of consumption, not only for the sake of
informing academic debates but also for the sake of informing
contemporary consumption practices. Consumption, we argue, is political:
to approach it otherwise is to dogmatically seek refuge in a world of
fantasy.


CONTENTS
The politics of consumption
Alan Bradshaw Norah Campbell Stephen Dunne

Consumption matters
Ben Fine

The dialectics of progress: Irish ‘belatedness’ and the politics of
prosperity
Kate Soper

Alienated consumption, the commodification of taste and disabling
professionalism
Peter Armstrong

Towards a consumerist critique of capitalism: A socialist defence of
consumer culture
Matthias Zick Varul

A liquid politics? Conceptualising the politics of fair trade
consumption and consumer citizenship
Eleftheria Lekakis

> From politicisation to redemption through consumption: The
environmental crisis and the generation of guilt in the responsible
consumer as constructed by the business media

The potential of consumer publics
Adam Arvidsson

Utopias of ethical economy: A response to Adam Arvidsson
Detlev Zwick

Thinking beyond neo-liberalism: A response to Detlev Zwick
Adam Arvidsson

The myth of metaphysical enclosure: A second response to Adam Arvidsson
Detlev Zwick

On things and comrades
Olga Kravets

Can the object be a comrade?
Stevphen Shukaitis

Commodity as comrade: Luibov Popova – Untitled textile design on William
Morris wallpaper for Historical Materialism
David Mabb

Re-appropriating Che’s image: From the revolution to the market and back
again
Antigoni Memou

In praise of anti-capitalist consumption: How the V for Vendetta mask
blows up Hollywood marketing
Ruud Kaulingfreks Femke Kaulingfreks

Commodity fights in Post-2008 Athens: Zapatistas coffee, Kropotkinian
drinks and Fascist rice
Andreas Chatzidakis

Irish utopian realism?
Gavin Brown Angus Cameron

Consumption and its contradictions: Dialogues on the causes of buying
Georgios Patsiaouras


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