Production, consumption, globalisation and identity Flashcards
(45 cards)
What are the three ways production/ work is influential on our identity?
- Affects leisure activities
- Affects sense of self
- Affects tastes and interests
(Parker) ______ + ______=______
Type of work + experience in work e.g. job satisfaction = leisure choices
What are Parkers three categories on jobs types?
- Physically taxing jobs (miners, car mechanics, steelworkers etc.)
- Boring and routine jobs (bookkeeper, HR, secretaries, supermarket staff etc.)
- High levels of commitment (doctors, social workers, teachers, architects etc.)
What is the nature of work for opposition type of work-leisure pattern?
- Physically taxing
- Dangerous
- Male dominated
- HOSTILE to work
What is the nature of leisure for opposition type of work-leisure pattern?
- Escape from work
- Leisure = central feature of life e.g football, drinking/pubs
What is the nature of work for neutrality type of work-leisure pattern?
- Boring
- Routine
- Little job satisfaction
- APATHY to work
What is the nature of leisure for neutrality type of work-leisure pattern?
- Leisure unrelated to job e.g. relaxing with family
What is the nature of work for extension type of work-leisure pattern?
- High personal committment
- High job satisfaction
- Work is POSITIVE
What is the nature of leisure for extension type of work-leisure pattern?
- Leisure involves their work e.g. playing gold with business clients, planning for work
Evaluation for Parkers work-leisure pattern theory?
- Very deterministic
- Doesn’t acknowledge other factors such as social class, gender, ethnicity, age affecting leisure
What is Clarke and Critchers theory on leisure activities?
- Certain leisure activities are encouraged by capitalism
- Healthy leisure —> healthy workforce
- Restricted choice —> remains false class consciousness
- Profit making leisure
Bourdieus theory on work affecting leisure?
Work —> social class —> habitus —> leisure/consumption e.g high/popular culture
Riach & Lorettos theory on lack of work and identity?
- People see you as lazy and a burden, as they do not pay tax and therefore are not contributing to society —> elderly retire (Vincent) and therefore are disliked —> lonely, vunerable, burden.
- Work gives a sense of status
- (Durkheim): People who lack social solidarity makes people feel anomie —> social exclusion
- Disabled feel like a burden —> stigmatised identity
(Riach & Loretto) theory on losing a job
- Disruption to personal life
- Loss of work based friends
- Loss of job —> Loss of income
- Loss of routine
- Applying for jobs and constantly being rejected —> crisis of confidence
- Wanted to avoid being labelled as ‘scroungers’
What is the end of work thesis?
- The idea that consuming goods is much more a significant source of identity than work, and that jobs are now less skilled, flexible hours, short term and less secure
- Work is no longer significant as people aren’t attached to work anymore
What do postmodernists argue about changing identities?
- Class, gender, ethnicity and age no longer have a significant impact on identities.
- Lyotard argues that metanarratives no longer explain people’s identities.
- Argue that identities are now much more fluid and changing.
- Believe that our leisure and consumption choices have much more impact on identities now.
- They suggest that most people have an almost unlimited free choice of leisure activities and lifestyle, and can adopt any identity they wish.
What does Bocock believe?
- People’s consumer choices are important aspects in defining their identities and the status they wish to project to others, e.g. the products we buy indicate our identity (conspicuous consumption).
What is a media saturated society?
- Baudrillard says we live in what we call a media saturated society.
- In this society, the media creates desires and pressures to consume.
- Individual identity is no longer formed by class etc, but by influences from the media.
- Strinati argue we are bombarded daily by popular culture which increasingly dominates the way we define ourselves
Why is there more choice over identities?
- New identities are created by globalisation which brings different cultural groups into contact.
- People now adopt different identities to meet the diversity in their lives, instead of identifying just with class, for example, they identify with ethnicity, disabilities, race, religion, nationality, music, fashion labels, sport and other leisure activities etc.
- Individuals can pick and mix to create whatever identities they wish.
What is symbolic significance?
- Bauman and May suggest that advertising for products like perfumes, alcoholic drinks, cars, and clothing is not simply about selling the products as these goods have symbolic significance.
- The label is more important than the product itself, e.g. the make of the trainer is more important than the actual trainer. The label illustrates our identity.
What are lifestyle models?
- The products come packaged with an associated lifestyle as shown by people in adverts.
- These people act as lifestyle models.
- This encourages people to buy these products in order to buy these lifestyles.
- Advertising and shopping provides what Bauman and May call ‘do it yourself identity kits’.
What do postmodernists suggest about shopping? What does this link to?
- Postmodernists suggest shopping is not just about buying products, but about buying into lifestyles which helps establish identities.
- This links with Giddens’ idea of the reflexive self where people are constantly reflecting on and changing identites.
What does Bauman argue about shopping?
- Bauman argues that life has become a shopping mall to stroll around consuming whatever you want, trying out whatever identities you choose and changing them whenever you want.
What does Rojek argue?
- Argues that we live in a leisure culture where leisure activities express our identity.