D05Differentiating Consumers

Economic Change and the Figure of “the Consumer”

Economic change generates new methods and forms of human differentiation. In our project, we examine how the gradual transition to consumer capitalism in the United States since the late nineteenth century has inscribed the figure of the “consumer” as a political, social, and economic category in cultural self-perceptions, social visions, scientific taxonomies, bureaucratic systems of order, and economic policy concepts. 

Human Differentiation, Consumer Capitalism and Nutrition and Migration Discourses

We study human differentiation in debates on immigration and nutrition policy. These debates remain central to the negotiation of civic belonging, social inclusion, economic participation, and cultural visibility in the epochal transition to a consumption-oriented economy and society.

Research Questions

1. What new human differentiations arise in the context of the emergence of modern consumer societies? 

2. What role do immigration and nutrition discourses play in the formation and consolidation of consumerist categories?

3. To what extent are differentiations in migration and nutrition policy interwoven with the political economy of consumer society?