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Original Articles

Why do households use alternative consumption practices?

Some lessons from Leicester

Pages 301-320 | Published online: 15 Aug 2006
 

Abstract

In recent years, the emphasis on economic necessity when explaining engagement in alternative consumption practices (i.e. informal and/or second-hand modes of goods acquisition) has been challenged by an agency-oriented reading that views participation to be more a matter of choice, and more recently by a geographically sensitive approach that ascribes agency to affluent populations and economic necessity to deprived populations. To evaluate critically these contrasting explanations, data collected from 120 face-to-face interviews in the city of Leicester are here reported. The finding is that these previous accounts that reduce consumers participation in alternative consumption practices to the mono-causal explanations of either economic necessity or choice obfuscate how both often coexist in people's explanations for participation, albeit in varying ways in different populations. This paper thus displays the need to reconcile the previous reductive either/or explanations through the use of a both/and approach that recognizes and unpacks how both economic necessity and choice are variously entangled in rationales for participation in alternative consumption practices.

Traditionnellement, on a mis l'accent sur le besoin financier quand il s'agit d'expliquer les pratiques de consommation alternatives (par example, les modes d'acquisition de biens informels ou d'occasion). Récemment, cette approche a été mise en question par une autre plus centrée sur l'agence qui voit la participation à ces activités plutôt comme une question de choix. Plus récemment encore, on a prôné une approche qui englobe les modalités géographiques qui suggère que l'agence explique les pratiques des populations aisées d'un côté, et le besoin financier explique celles des populations exclues de l'autre. Afin d’évaluer de façon critique ces explications contrastées, des données tirées de 120 entretiens faits dans la ville de Leicester sont discutées ici. On découvre que les explications precedentes, soit basées sur le besoin financier, soit sur le choix, masquent le fait que les deux raisonnements co-existent dans les explications offertes par les individus de leur propre participation, même si l'on trouve de logiques diverses dans des populations variées. Cet article démontre le besoin de reconcilier ces deux explications opposées et d'analyser comment les facteurs de besoin financier et de choix sont entremêlés de façons différentes dans les raisonnements qui soutendent la participation aux pratiques de consommation alternatives.

Notes

1. These 17 goods covered eight household goods (bed, floor covering, household cleaning materials, washing machine, tumble dryer, oven, refrigerator, microwave oven), six electrical goods (television, video recorder, hi-fi equipment, DVD player, computer, mobile phone) and three items of clothing (waterproof coat, shoes and an outfit for job interviews).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Colin C. Williams

Colin C. Williams is Professor of Work Organization and Director of the Collective for Alternative Organization Studies (CAOS) at the University of Leicester Management Centre. Recent books include Cash-in-hand work (2004, Palgrave) and A commodified world? Mapping the limits of capitalism (2005, Zed)

Jan Windebank

Jan Windebank is Senior Lecturer in French Studies and Associate Fellow of the Political Economy Research Centre (PERC) at the University of Sheffield. Recent books include Poverty and the Third Way (2003, Routledge) with Colin Williams and Community self-help (2004, Palgrave) with Colin Williams and Danny Burns

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