Staying Cool, Looking Good, Moving Around: Consumption, Sustainability and the ‘Rise of the South’

Abstract

The nature of global development has changed substantially over the past three decades in step with the intensified globalisation of capitalism and its imperatives of growth and expanding consumption. Most significant is the ongoing shift in the balance of the global economy towards the South in general and the East in particular. As the ‘Rise of the South’ materialises, a number of emerging economies are moving beyond their roles as factories of the world and are turning their focus towards expanding domestic markets. The emergence of high-consuming middle classes in these countries represents a profound challenge for global sustainability. When coupled with the as-yet unsuccessful efforts to constrain the consumption in the mature capitalist countries, rising global consumption constitutes one of the greatest challenges to sustainable development. Neither development theory nor sustainability policy has adequately acknowledged surging global consumption. How do we best understand the changes behind the dramatic increase in consumption? Drawing on social practice theory as well as the political economy of capitalist development, this article analyses the social and environmental dimensions of increasing consumption in the South, using India and Vietnam as case studies.

Keywords:

• consumption
• capitalism
• India
• Vietnam
• airconditioning
• beauty products
• cars

Notes on contributors

Arve Hansen is Research Fellow at Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo, Norway. He is a development geographer with current research focus on changes in consumption in contexts of processes of rapid development.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen works at the Department of Sociology, University of Bergen, Norway, and also coordinates the Norwegian Network for Asian Studies, located at the University of Oslo's Centre for Development and the Environment.

Harold Wilhite is a Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo's Centre for Development and the Environment.