Abstract

This webinar consists of two parts. In the first part, Magnus Boström will present key insights from his recent book The Social Life of Unsustainable Mass Consumption. This book examines how forces of overconsumption are normalized and how consumerism is deeply embedded in everyday social life. It contextualizes various drivers of consumerism within larger institutional and infrastructural forces underlying mass consumption. The book also draws on lessons from lived experiments of consuming less and discusses how insights on the flaws of consumer culture can help shape a growing critique and countermovement; that is, overcoming consumerism. This last point is further developed (work in progress) in The Handbook of Research on Sustainable Lifestyles, which Boström writes together with researchers from the environmental sociology group at Örebro University (Åsa Callmer, Sara Karimzadeh, Helena Römmelmann, and Sandra Österlund). The presentation/chapter addresses how the development of sustainable lifestyles requires the overcoming of consumerism, which is critical as a global culture of consumerism threatens the very existence of humanity and millions of other species. This presentation/chapter contributes by highlighting key topics relevant for understanding counter-drivers at macro, meso-, and microlevels of society. It does so by using the metaphors of “detox” (ways to get rid of the “addiction” to consumerism) and “vaccination” (ways of developing resilience, for example through alternative goals and practices).