Articles by Roberta Sassatelli
STUDI CULTURALI, 2022
The paper discusses the links between cultural studies and sociology, and considers the relevance... more The paper discusses the links between cultural studies and sociology, and considers the relevance of the study of consumption through the intellectual experience of the author.
RELACES, 2022
http://www.relaces.com.ar/index.php/relaces/article/view/501/457
Consumption and Society, 2022
Consumption and Society editors Stefan Wahlen and Dan Welch sat down with Prof. Roberta Sassatell... more Consumption and Society editors Stefan Wahlen and Dan Welch sat down with Prof. Roberta Sassatelli to discuss consumer culture, the politics of consumption, authenticity, the sharing economy, food and the body, and the future of consumption studies.
Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia , 2019
Discussion of Warde's Book "Consumption", stressing the need to consider normative notions of con... more Discussion of Warde's Book "Consumption", stressing the need to consider normative notions of consumption and the consumer to complement theory of practice
Considering my intellectual biography, I Investigate the relationship between Sociology and Cultu... more Considering my intellectual biography, I Investigate the relationship between Sociology and Cultural Studies
Roundtable with and on Deborath Lupton's The Quantified Self, discussing the diffusion of persona... more Roundtable with and on Deborath Lupton's The Quantified Self, discussing the diffusion of personal Apps for Mhealth and the rationalization of self in the context of consumer culture
Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 2016
This paper describes and reflects on a teaching experience developed as a complimentary workshops... more This paper describes and reflects on a teaching experience developed as a complimentary workshops to MA class on history, theory and politics of consumption. We used Wikipedia as a tool to consider the circuit of knowledge production in the Web 2.0 era, where consumers are no longer passive audiences but producers and consumers at the same time. We developed a collaborative team-work workshop aimed at the production of Wikipedia entries on topics related to the class content. In this note we describe the structure of such “Wikiworkshops”, our teaching strategy on sources management, teamwork and group teaching, and elaborate on students' reception of the workshop. Wikiworkshops proved to be an effective exercise in a collaborative economy of knowledge, and an opportunity for young sociologists to be part of it, expressing their creativity as well as becoming aware of the boundaries and limits inherent in the mechanism.
Questo lavoro introduce la sociologia dei consumi, e mettendo al lavoro triangolando le teorie si... more Questo lavoro introduce la sociologia dei consumi, e mettendo al lavoro triangolando le teorie simmeliane e foucaultiane sulla modernità e il soggetto con l'approccio garfinkeliano all'accountability del taken-for-granted individua nel consumo uno spazio liminoide di creatività dove viene messa in questione l'autenticità del soggetto attraverso l'articolazione pratica della scelta e la costruzione di stili di vita possano essere giustificati come espressione di una identità di fondo soggettiva. I lavori di Campbell, McCraken, Miller, Willis e Featherstone vengono riletti in questa chiave per offire un approccio che tenga conto dell'ambivalenza del consumo come pratica allo stesso tempo riflessiva e incorporata.
Sociologia Ruralis, 2015
The article considers sustainable consumption and alternative food networks in thecontext of glob... more The article considers sustainable consumption and alternative food networks in thecontext of global consumer capitalism as a locus where a new form of consumer sover-eignty can be developed. It offers a theoretical overview aimed at charting the emergenceand consolidation of a relational, responsible vision of consumer sovereignty. Potentiallyalternative to neo-classical and neoliberal views, such a vision of consumers and theirpower involves both sustainability, equality and democracy, and private happiness, con-ceived as a form of responsibility for personal, creative well-being and fulfillment asopposed to acquisition and spending power. Ultimately the article offers a reappraisal of the economistic notion of utility of goods, and proposes a way forward for alternativeways of consuming and of thinking of consumption which aim at avoiding the merereproduction of charity and at involving individuals’ subjectivity working on their capa-cities to develop new pleasures in sustainable lifestyles.
La crisi economica è ormai una preoccupazione quotidiana con cui un po’ tutti gli strati sociali,... more La crisi economica è ormai una preoccupazione quotidiana con cui un po’ tutti gli strati sociali, ma soprattutto
i gruppi che si trovano nel mezzo della stratificazione, si trovano a dover fare i conti, spesso senza più vergognarsi di ammetterne dubbi e preoccupazioni, e anzi manifestando apertamente la propria incessante ricerca di porre rimedio alle difficoltà, di ridimensionarle con uno sguardo alla generazioni future. In questo articolo riprendo i dati emersi da una vasta ricerca empirica su consumi e
ceto medio che ha visto coinvolte oltre centocinquanta famiglie italiane provenienti da varie frazioni
delle classi medie. In particolare considero alcuni dei modi in cui, lavorando sui propri desideri, gusti e consumi, gli italiani che stanno nel mezzo della stratificazione sociale affrontano i mutamenti indotti dalla crisi economica e provano
a ricostruire un’immagine del proprio futuro.
Sassatelli, R. (2015) “Il ceto medio sotto pressione. Come cambiano i consumi”, Il mulino, LXIV, 3, pp. 452-61.
This article addresses the aestheticization of traditional foods and the use of territori-alizati... more This article addresses the aestheticization of traditional foods and the use of territori-alization as a brand value for the promotion of products and services. Economy of quality is studied through a focus on the role that political institutions may have in promoting quality chains. Through document analysis, questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups, we consider the case of the quality brand, DegustiBo, promoted by the Province of Bologna, Italy. This initiative was developed to help local shops and restaurants find a source of common identity in the local territory. We consider actors' narratives in defining, judging, and creating quality as related to the specific branding initiative, focusing on the way different descriptions of quality as related to ways of enacting territory are read and presented as performing authenticity. We explore how branding has been supported, realized, and responded to, concentrating on the encounter between consumers and producers. A focus on producers' perceptions of consumer competence helps addressing the narrative asymmetry between consumers and producers , and the ways in which consumer rituals work as sites of knowledge transmission and conflict, defining the contours of an arena for the performance of concerted and contested notions such as traditional, local, and authentic food.
Modern Italy, 2015
As urbanisation has come to characterise contemporary societies, large cities have become quite a... more As urbanisation has come to characterise contemporary societies, large cities have become quite ambivalent places for the human species: they are removing the human body from its perceived natural condition, while increasingly attempting to provide a cure for the ills of a sedentary life. Fitness gyms are presented as the 'natural' solution to our 'unnatural' lifestyle as urban dwellers and as a therapeutic fix to the ills of metropolitan living. This paper deploys a mix of qualitative methods (ethnographic observation, interviews and discourse analysis) to explore fitness culture as an urban phenomenon. Using data from Italy and the UK, it develops a micro-sociology of the spatiality of the gym that helps to approach this institution from within, deconstructing those claims which contribute to its cultural location as a key ingredient in contemporary urban lifestyles. The paper first looks at how fitness culture is negotiated through the marshalling of structured variety within the spatiality and temporality of gyms. It then explores the specificity of fitness as urban, instrumental leisure as compared with other forms of active recreation or sports available in urban contexts. It finally considers, on the one hand, the way in which fitness activities are continuously renovated, drawing on the fields of both sport and popular culture and, on the other, the kind of subjectivity and embodiment that fitness culture normatively sustains.
This paper triangulates the work of Bourdieu, Goffman and Foucault to provide an empirically grou... more This paper triangulates the work of Bourdieu, Goffman and Foucault to provide an empirically grounded analysis of processes of embodiment. It discusses and elaborates the notions of habitus, interaction and discipline as mechanisms for the substantiation of embodied identities. Reference is made to the field of sport and leisure participation, with particular attention to the case of fitness training.
This paper addresses two important themes in the contemporary sociology of
consumption: the role ... more This paper addresses two important themes in the contemporary sociology of
consumption: the role of the home as key place in the constitution of meaningful
spaces of consumption and the role of consumer rituals in the stabilization of social
identities and relationship. It does so, by looking at how middle-class families manage
hospitality (and in particular party-giving) and how this informs both their construction
of the home spatiality and their wider food consumption behavior. Hospitality
and dinner parties are a fundamental elements of indoor sociability through food
consumption in contemporary societies. Deploying an ethnographic strategy we look
at how Italian middle-class families present their dinner party choices in terms of
form (spatiality, dinner table, manners) and content (ingredients, recipes). We then
consider how their dinner party narratives relate to the management of a particular
sociability code, which in turn is related to the performance of a particular family
social identity and reinforces a particular family social positioning. The paper then
unfolds by considering how gender identities within the family are played out in such
configuration, contributing to its consolidation and/or introducing ambivalence and
conflict.
Rassegna italiana di Sociologia, 2004
This paper reviews and introduces the sociology of food, looking at the main strands of research ... more This paper reviews and introduces the sociology of food, looking at the main strands of research which have been developing in the field.
O consumo de alimentos é um aspecto importante, ainda que pouco lembrado, da consideração sobre a... more O consumo de alimentos é um aspecto importante, ainda que pouco lembrado, da consideração sobre a moral política da cultura e das práticas de consumo contemporâneos. De mais de uma forma, alimentos são de fato cruciais para a maneira como negociamos o consumo como um conjunto específico e significativo de atividades. Tal fato se deve tanto à posição ocupada pelos alimentos em todas as sociedades conhecidas – o papel deles nas diferentes formas de coabitação, por exemplo –, quanto por seus atributos especiais nas sociedades contemporâneas. O consumo de alimentos é hoje um campo bastante dinâmico, com mudanças e inovações que estão, até certo ponto, comprometendo seu funcionamento enquanto um caminho tomado por certo para o senso de identidade e pertencimento das pessoas. Em termos gerais, trata-se de um campo que já está embutido de moral, mas que também constitui espaço para a tradução prática de visões morais e políticas. De fato, ao observarmos as formas como a cultura do consumo vem sendo criticada na sociedade contemporânea, percebemos que o consumo de alimentos é uma maneira pela qual as pessoas começam a imaginar um mundo diferente.
J Consum Cult, 2010
A growing field of research is documenting the political investment of the consumer. Yet, consume... more A growing field of research is documenting the political investment of the consumer. Yet, consumers are invested of political responsibilities in many different ways, which respond to different visions of politics and consumption, culture and the economy. In this article we critically explore the particular stance of an increasingly international actor such as Slow Food, placing it in the context
European Societies 3(2): 213- 44., 2001
The public debate around food confidence stimulated by food scares, the opening up of wider food ... more The public debate around food confidence stimulated by food scares, the opening up of wider food markets and the introduction of GM foods provides an opportunity to analyse citizens’ identification with their community sociologically, as it is reproduced through mundane practices. In order to do so, this article examines the GM food debate in Italy and the implications for food and agricultural policy of Austria’s entry into the EU. Britain, with its highly industrialized agriculture and political commitment to open markets and new technologies, acts as a bench-mark. We distinguish between disembedded and embedded trust regimes; the former being predominant in freer markets and the latter a resource which can be mobilized in cases where remnants of ‘traditional’ agricultural production and supply can still be found (Italy and Austria). The increasing emphasis upon the regional origin of food, its traceability and organic production by key actors – the state, consumers’ movements, retailers and marketing boards – we interpret as a confidence-building strategy which attempts to address deficits in disembedded trust resulting from widening chains of interdependency, crises such as BSE and the introduction of unfamiliar new technologies.
Studi Culturali, 2011
This article instroduces visual studies, focussing on the notion of visuality and visual culture,... more This article instroduces visual studies, focussing on the notion of visuality and visual culture, selectively reviewing some of the most relevant trends in this cross-disciplinary field.In mondi sociali sempre più carichi di rappresentazioni visive, in culture sempre
più strutturate da tecnologie della visione in continuo mutamento, anche le scienze
sociali ed umane stanno acquisendo una propria sensibilità visuale tentando di
correggere quella predilezione per modelli euristici di derivazione linguistica che
le ha a lungo caratterizzate. Da alcuni decenni, la sociologia, la semiotica, la geografia,
la storia e l’antropologia hanno affiancato gli studi culturali cominciando a
riflettere sul ruolo dell’immagine, assumendo le immagini come oggetto di ricerca
o come indicatore per l’analisi di fenomeni culturali complessi. L’aspirazione è
sempre più quella di considerare le immagini – disegni, mappe, elementi decorativi
ma anche e soprattutto foto – come qualcosa di più che attraenti illustrazioni
esemplificatorie o elementi decorativi per arricchire un testo. Certo possiamo
rinvenire illustri precedenti a questa svolta visuale – basti pensare, per riprendere
due contributi classici già apparsi in «Studi Culturali», al ruolo che W.E.B. Du Bois
(1900) riservò alla fotografia per studiare e al contempo promuovere l’identità
afroamericana, o alla celebre analisi dei genderismi condotta da Goffman (1977)
a partire dalle fotografie pubblicitarie (si veda anche Sassatelli 2010 e 2004).
Tuttavia, oggi si avverte più forte l’urgenza di far fronte ad un fenomeno, quello
dalla cultura visiva, che appare sempre più centrale.
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Articles by Roberta Sassatelli
i gruppi che si trovano nel mezzo della stratificazione, si trovano a dover fare i conti, spesso senza più vergognarsi di ammetterne dubbi e preoccupazioni, e anzi manifestando apertamente la propria incessante ricerca di porre rimedio alle difficoltà, di ridimensionarle con uno sguardo alla generazioni future. In questo articolo riprendo i dati emersi da una vasta ricerca empirica su consumi e
ceto medio che ha visto coinvolte oltre centocinquanta famiglie italiane provenienti da varie frazioni
delle classi medie. In particolare considero alcuni dei modi in cui, lavorando sui propri desideri, gusti e consumi, gli italiani che stanno nel mezzo della stratificazione sociale affrontano i mutamenti indotti dalla crisi economica e provano
a ricostruire un’immagine del proprio futuro.
Sassatelli, R. (2015) “Il ceto medio sotto pressione. Come cambiano i consumi”, Il mulino, LXIV, 3, pp. 452-61.
consumption: the role of the home as key place in the constitution of meaningful
spaces of consumption and the role of consumer rituals in the stabilization of social
identities and relationship. It does so, by looking at how middle-class families manage
hospitality (and in particular party-giving) and how this informs both their construction
of the home spatiality and their wider food consumption behavior. Hospitality
and dinner parties are a fundamental elements of indoor sociability through food
consumption in contemporary societies. Deploying an ethnographic strategy we look
at how Italian middle-class families present their dinner party choices in terms of
form (spatiality, dinner table, manners) and content (ingredients, recipes). We then
consider how their dinner party narratives relate to the management of a particular
sociability code, which in turn is related to the performance of a particular family
social identity and reinforces a particular family social positioning. The paper then
unfolds by considering how gender identities within the family are played out in such
configuration, contributing to its consolidation and/or introducing ambivalence and
conflict.
più strutturate da tecnologie della visione in continuo mutamento, anche le scienze
sociali ed umane stanno acquisendo una propria sensibilità visuale tentando di
correggere quella predilezione per modelli euristici di derivazione linguistica che
le ha a lungo caratterizzate. Da alcuni decenni, la sociologia, la semiotica, la geografia,
la storia e l’antropologia hanno affiancato gli studi culturali cominciando a
riflettere sul ruolo dell’immagine, assumendo le immagini come oggetto di ricerca
o come indicatore per l’analisi di fenomeni culturali complessi. L’aspirazione è
sempre più quella di considerare le immagini – disegni, mappe, elementi decorativi
ma anche e soprattutto foto – come qualcosa di più che attraenti illustrazioni
esemplificatorie o elementi decorativi per arricchire un testo. Certo possiamo
rinvenire illustri precedenti a questa svolta visuale – basti pensare, per riprendere
due contributi classici già apparsi in «Studi Culturali», al ruolo che W.E.B. Du Bois
(1900) riservò alla fotografia per studiare e al contempo promuovere l’identità
afroamericana, o alla celebre analisi dei genderismi condotta da Goffman (1977)
a partire dalle fotografie pubblicitarie (si veda anche Sassatelli 2010 e 2004).
Tuttavia, oggi si avverte più forte l’urgenza di far fronte ad un fenomeno, quello
dalla cultura visiva, che appare sempre più centrale.
i gruppi che si trovano nel mezzo della stratificazione, si trovano a dover fare i conti, spesso senza più vergognarsi di ammetterne dubbi e preoccupazioni, e anzi manifestando apertamente la propria incessante ricerca di porre rimedio alle difficoltà, di ridimensionarle con uno sguardo alla generazioni future. In questo articolo riprendo i dati emersi da una vasta ricerca empirica su consumi e
ceto medio che ha visto coinvolte oltre centocinquanta famiglie italiane provenienti da varie frazioni
delle classi medie. In particolare considero alcuni dei modi in cui, lavorando sui propri desideri, gusti e consumi, gli italiani che stanno nel mezzo della stratificazione sociale affrontano i mutamenti indotti dalla crisi economica e provano
a ricostruire un’immagine del proprio futuro.
Sassatelli, R. (2015) “Il ceto medio sotto pressione. Come cambiano i consumi”, Il mulino, LXIV, 3, pp. 452-61.
consumption: the role of the home as key place in the constitution of meaningful
spaces of consumption and the role of consumer rituals in the stabilization of social
identities and relationship. It does so, by looking at how middle-class families manage
hospitality (and in particular party-giving) and how this informs both their construction
of the home spatiality and their wider food consumption behavior. Hospitality
and dinner parties are a fundamental elements of indoor sociability through food
consumption in contemporary societies. Deploying an ethnographic strategy we look
at how Italian middle-class families present their dinner party choices in terms of
form (spatiality, dinner table, manners) and content (ingredients, recipes). We then
consider how their dinner party narratives relate to the management of a particular
sociability code, which in turn is related to the performance of a particular family
social identity and reinforces a particular family social positioning. The paper then
unfolds by considering how gender identities within the family are played out in such
configuration, contributing to its consolidation and/or introducing ambivalence and
conflict.
più strutturate da tecnologie della visione in continuo mutamento, anche le scienze
sociali ed umane stanno acquisendo una propria sensibilità visuale tentando di
correggere quella predilezione per modelli euristici di derivazione linguistica che
le ha a lungo caratterizzate. Da alcuni decenni, la sociologia, la semiotica, la geografia,
la storia e l’antropologia hanno affiancato gli studi culturali cominciando a
riflettere sul ruolo dell’immagine, assumendo le immagini come oggetto di ricerca
o come indicatore per l’analisi di fenomeni culturali complessi. L’aspirazione è
sempre più quella di considerare le immagini – disegni, mappe, elementi decorativi
ma anche e soprattutto foto – come qualcosa di più che attraenti illustrazioni
esemplificatorie o elementi decorativi per arricchire un testo. Certo possiamo
rinvenire illustri precedenti a questa svolta visuale – basti pensare, per riprendere
due contributi classici già apparsi in «Studi Culturali», al ruolo che W.E.B. Du Bois
(1900) riservò alla fotografia per studiare e al contempo promuovere l’identità
afroamericana, o alla celebre analisi dei genderismi condotta da Goffman (1977)
a partire dalle fotografie pubblicitarie (si veda anche Sassatelli 2010 e 2004).
Tuttavia, oggi si avverte più forte l’urgenza di far fronte ad un fenomeno, quello
dalla cultura visiva, che appare sempre più centrale.
The book is organized to offer an historically-grounded and theoretically-informed discussion of contemporary consumer culture as well as a critical understanding of its diversity, reach and ambivalence. Throughout the book a variety of empirical examples illustrate the rich texture of consumer culture(s). The ambivalence of consumption is shown by looking at the various ways in which it can be conceived as an ordinary and yet socially regulated practice of appropriation: people typically remove commodities from their commercial codes and contexts, but do so by negotiating with routines and meanings which are otherwise deemed culturally appropriate, reasonable, fair and even “normal”. The book chapters are thus divided into three parts organized around three main dichotomies: production/consumption; rationality/irrationality; freedom/oppression. Both in lay and social scientific discourse, these dichotomies have been applied to understand contemporary consumer culture. Reference to them thus helps discussing its history, theory and politics, even though much of the book is concerned with showing that consumption challenges them and involves other, more complex patterns of relation. The first part on history maps the multifarious, spatially and temporally articulated historical development of (Western) consumer culture, thus providing a cultural reading of the vast socio-economic and geo-political transformations this has entailed. The second part on theory critically discusses the main theoretical approaches which have tried to model consumer agency from neo-classical economics to sociological classics, from critical theory to communication approaches, up to the recent emphasis on theories of practice and ritual de-commoditization. The third part on politics considers the political dimension of consumer culture, looking at the issue of representation and intermediation and in particular the role of advertising, at de-commoditization as a contested terrain where social actors negotiate hegemonic views of identity and choice, and finally the issues of globalization, localization and alternative consumption. While one part naturally leads into the following, each of them can be read separately. The text closes with a brief conclusion both helps drawing its overarching theses and threads together and offers some analytical tools for further investigation. Finally, at the very end of the book, the reader will find some selected suggestions for further reading. Their purpose is twofold: to mark out key studies related to the arguments proposed, and to point to auxiliary resources to orientate research and writing in the field of consumption.
qualitative sources – ethnographies, interviews and discourse analysis – this book explores how consumers and producers collaborate in the production of the
fitness scene. It examines how individuals become fitness participants, at locally sustained relationships, the framing of discipline as fun, the meanings attached to the idea of fitness and the negotiation of broader body ideals, to provide a critical discussion of fitness as lived consumer culture. Choice is revealed as a process, rather than a cost-benefit decision; a
transformative, ongoing practice rather than an accomplished, rational calculation. Consumption is revealed as an ambivalent practice, with consumers increasingly asked to be active producers of cultural forms that are nevertheless largely circulated and managed by producers who need to consume much of the very same sort they produce. PAPERBACK EDITION, 2014, WITH NEW FOREWORD
also envisages a possible conflict between standardized goods which provide novelty by obsolescence and individualized pleasure which may grow slowly as consumption competences develop in a free, non- commercialized fashion. Finally he posits an insidious gap between generalized knowledge which is needed for everyday consumption and specialized skills which are required in the work environment. Ultimately I critically draw on Scitovsky’s discussion and explores the dualities of comfort versus pleasure, standardization versus individualization, generalized versus specialized knowledge to develop a critical position in favour of slowness and embeddedness within the current debates about alternative ways of consuming.