Consumer Culture Theory in Asia: History and Contemporary Issues

  • 6h 10m
  • Russell Belk, Yuko Minowa
  • Taylor and Francis
  • 2022

We live in times of increasing world uncertainty. Consumer culture in Asia has embodied such precariousness, with their unprecedented states of both prosperity and vulnerability.

Works in this volume examine the consumer cultures that exist in today’s precarious Asia. They do this through culturally oriented, critical consumer research. How deeply has the consumer precariousness in Asia been intertwined with the sociohistorical patterning of consumption including class, gender, and other social categories? How do these problematics affect consumers’ identity projects, consumer rituals, and marketplace cultures? How is consumer precariousness aggravated by the governmentality of the superpower? How does the changing landscape of inter-Asian and global popular culture impact consumer culture in these nations? Together, the authors in this volume attempt to answer these questions through consumer research within the paradigm known as consumer culture theory (CCT). Since most CCT inquiry has been in Western contexts, this volume augments the existing knowledge. It presents the most current, critical, historical, and material consumer studies focused on Asia.

This volume will be of interest to seasoned CCT researchers and academics, for anyone new to CCT, and for postgraduate students interested in CCT or writing a consumer culture-related thesis.

About the Author

Yuko Minowa is Professor of Marketing in the School of Business at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University in New York, Unites States.

Russell Belk is York University Distinguished Research Professor and Kraft Foods Canada Chair in Marketing, Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada.

In this Book

  • Introduction
  • The Long March of the Commodity in China
  • Consumerism in Early Modern Japan: Food, Fashion, and Publishing
  • Century of Humiliation and Consumer Culture: The Making of National Identity
  • Predicting a Mother’s Role in Investing in Children’s Education: A Study on Autonomy and Empowerment From India
  • Gift-Giving and Kinship-Making: Male Phoenix in China
  • Solitary Death Is Elsewhere: The Making of Memorial Community in Japan
  • The Work of Culture in Thai Theravāda Buddhist Death Rituals
  • Utopia and Dystopia: Consumer Privacy and China’s Social Credit System
  • The Thanatopolitics of Neoliberalism and Consumer Precarity
  • Cold Chains in Hanoi and Bangkok: Changing Systems of Provision and Practice
  • Market Versus Cultural Myth: A Skin-Deep Analysis of the Fairness Phenomena in India
  • Haptic Creatures: Tactile Affect and Human–Robot Intimacy in Japan
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