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Consuming Life

University of Leeds; 1 Lawnswood Gardens, Leeds LS16 6HF, UK.

This article posits a ‘mutual fit’ between consumer culture and the task posed to individuals under conditions of modernity: to produce for themselves the continuity no longer provided by society. It therefore explores the new forms of consumption formed from a shift from the functionality of needs to the diffuse plasticity and volatility of desire, arguing that this principle of instability has become functional to a modernity that seems to conjure stability out of an entire lack of solidity.

Key Words: choice • consumer markets • desire • modernity • need • self

Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol. 1, No. 1, 9-29 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/146954050100100102


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