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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Cheryl McEwan, Professor Alexandra Hughes, Dr David Bek
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
Emerging research on the increasing significance of consumption in the global South is concerned with its links to the globalizing middle classes. Against the backdrop of optimism invested in the new global middle classes to fuel consumption-led growth, this paper contributes to new debate about the articulations and significance of ethical consumption in the global South. Missing from much current mainstream policy, media and academic debate is acknowledgement of the diversity of the global middle classes and an understanding of how ethical interpretations and behaviour differ in various consumer markets around the world. In response, this paper draws on qualitative research in South Africa’s Western Cape to explore the cultural significance of everyday ethical realities in shaping consumption in the global South. In addition to addressing the relative absence of research into ethical consumption in global South contexts, the paper makes two key contributions based our findings. First, it challenges the tendency, particularly in economic discourses, to generalise about the ‘new’ global middle class consumers by highlighting the significance of locality and context in shaping consumption practices in the Western Cape; specifically it finds that, for diverse middle class consumers, thrift is an important ethical choice and practice determining consumption patterns. Second, it highlights the significance of everyday ethical practices in shaping consumption in the Western Cape, focusing specifically on how thrift is imbricated in concerns with not just economic constraint, but also care, habit and aspiration. The paper concludes with reflections on the wider implications of these findings and suggests that they illustrate a need to theorise ethical consumption from contexts in the global South, on their own terms.
Author(s): McEwan C, Hughes A, Bek D
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Geoforum
Year: 2015
Volume: 67
Pages: 233-243
Print publication date: 01/12/2015
Online publication date: 10/03/2015
Acceptance date: 13/02/2015
Date deposited: 16/02/2015
ISSN (print): 0016-7185
ISSN (electronic): 1872-9398
Publisher: Pergamon Press
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.02.011
DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.02.011
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