Consumption, Status, and Sustainability: Ecological and Anthropological Perspectives

Description

This volume addresses current concerns about the climate and environmental sustainability by exploring one of the key drivers of contemporary environmental problems: the role of status competition in generating what we consume, and what we throw away, to the detriment of the planet. Across time and space, humans have pursued social status in many different ways - through ritual purity, singing or dancing, child-bearing, bodily deformation, even headhunting. In many of the world's most consumptive societies, however, consumption has become closely tied to how individuals build and communicate status. Given this tight link, people will be reluctant to reduce consumption levels - and environmental impact -- and forego their ability to communicate or improve their social standing. Drawing on cross-cultural and archaeological evidence, this book asks how a stronger understanding of the links between status and consumption across time, space, and culture might bend the curve towards a more sustainable future.

Paul Roscoe is a social anthropologist specializing in the anthropology of small-scale societies and modeling the human dimensions of climate-change. He co-edited three books and has published regularly in leading anthropology and archaeology journals. He won the 1993 Curl Essay Prize (Royal Anthropological Institute) and is the 2016 Distinguished Maine Professor. Cindy Isenhour is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Maine. Shespecializes in environmental policy and sustainable systems of consumption-production. She co-edited two books, Sustainability in the Global City: Myth and Practice (2015) and Power and Politics in Sustainable Consumption Research (2019) with research support from the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Environmental Research and Education Foundation.

'A strongly diachronic collection, the pieces within this book form a comprehensive examination of status and consumption. Suitable for those conducting research in the fields of anthropology, sociology, geography, archaeology, or any environmentally oriented social science ... Recommended.' J. Asselin, Choice Connect