[A Sip of Books] Your ‘Consumption’ Is Related to ‘Jiri’

Some sentences encapsulate the entire content of the book itself, while others instantly reach the reader's heart, creating a point of connection with the book. We introduce such meaningful sentences excerpted from the book. - Editor's note

This book contains fascinating research conducted by geographers on the history, space, connections, objects, commercial culture, and morality of consumption. Focusing on major areas of consumption geography, it covers intriguing studies on consumption (places) that have not been deeply discussed before, including advertising, collective and institutional consumption, as well as research on cultural economy, rural spaces, services, and work terrains. It is a book about the 'geography of consumption,' which examines how relationships between people, things, and places are formed around the sale, purchase, and use of goods and services, and about the 'perspectives of consumption geography,' which deals with how geographers interpret these phenomena.

Feminist geography, which explored patriarchal and sexual discourses within (domestic) spaces, has elucidated how relatively ordinary activities such as eating, meal preparation, and dressing become political. Detailed ethnographic studies have shown how commodity practices create powerful discourses that define boundaries and relationships among people in everyday life, and how these discourses relate to material geography (for example, studies on the difference between talking about shopping and the practice of shopping). - p.42

Through the newly emerging bourgeois household, consumerism gained new respect and was freed from debates linking it to the conspicuous leisure pursuits of the elite class and the excessive and risky behaviors of the working class. Meanwhile, the rise of consumerism was connected to Romanticism, a set of ideas and values based on individualism, emotion, aestheticism, morality, and physical beauty, serving as means to express the essence of the individual. Romanticism appeared in various leisure activities and commodities such as theater, horse racing, novels, poetry, and fashion. - p.75

Theme parks are examples of glamorous leisure and consumption spaces that have attracted the interest of consumption researchers. Stacy Warren argues, using narratives told by visitors and staff, that even these ‘glamorous’ spaces should not be regarded as places of homogeneous experience or meaning. - p.119

Consumption Geography | Written by Juliana Mansvelt | Translated by Baek Ilsun | Alphi | 348 pages | 17,000 KRW

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