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develops a complementary argument, saying that of the market researchers, in the sense
that the economic logic of consumer society that both are based on an individualized con-
has colonized domestic space and that, today, ception of social relations. For marketing
this provokes increasing pangs of conscience experts, the individual is not very reflexive,
about the inability to live according to one’s and is even rather impulsive. While the exact
personal principles. Exploring the topic of opposite is true from the political scientists’
ecological representations, the author then perspective, in both cases the individual
shows the development of practices of appears largely unaffected by social determi-
‘everyday resistance’. Recycling and reusing, nants, such as socio-economic status, habits
systems of local bartering, voluntary simplic- and local culture, and socialization from
ity and responsible consumerism are all birth to adulthood. Furthermore, the two
attempts to escape from the logic of con- positions are hardly critical of the bases
sumer society. However, for her, acts of of consumer society and its operating princi-
everyday resistance do not constitute a polit- ples (the differentiation of products and
ical force or a social movement to the extent the renewal of needs by advertising). On
that they are largely fragmentary, are not the contrary, each in its domain reflects the
applied consistently, and are only resistance neo-liberal paradigm.
to an oppressive situation rather than con- Marketing and consumer studies conclude
crete affirmation of a new model. that consumers’ demands are apolitical and
part of a normal process of the capitalist eco-
nomic system, the evolution of demand.
Therefore, this is collaboration with the
SYNTHESIS: THREE POSITIONS ON system, adherence to its principles. For their
RESPONSIBLE CONSUMERISM AS A part, political science researchers affirm that
POLITICAL ACT thoughtful, autonomous and critical individ-
uals, motivated by personal political convic-
Clearly, as we end this analysis, we find our- tions, act politically by making consumer
selves with three major positions on responsi- choices. These choices modify demand for
ble consumerism as a political act. First, products and oblige producers to adjust their
starting from a traditional conception of politi- practices. These are, then, acts that one may
cal participation, Micheletti and her colleagues deem political but that essentially have
seek to demonstrate that the normative impulse effects on the economic practices of produc-
that collective discourse gives the individual, tion. If this is politics, it is the neo-liberal
as well as the personal gesture that acts of pur- politics of self-regulation by the invisible
chasing entail as a vote in the economic hand.
market, are enough to make consuming (or Second, a position such as that of Michelle
buying) a political act. Therefore, for them, Dobré ranks responsible consumer practices
political consumerism is a positive strategy of ahead of collective action, considering that
‘individualized collective action’ that allows they constitute resistance, and defining it as a
for self-expression and direct influence on the disruptive reaction to a threat which is still
world market, a new arena for expressing polit- misunderstood. Making alternative consumer
ical power. Nonetheless, the scope of political choices individually – for example, buying
spaces and their articulation are fluid; political used clothes to extend the life of manufac-
space is at one and the same time that of tured products – is not a political act. If this
national boundaries and institutions, that of a act is performed by hundreds of people, it
de-territorialized economic market and that of will have cumulative effects, but will it be
domestic space. collective action? Surely not, as the actors
The position of Micheletti and her col- are unaware of acting collectively to defend a
leagues is consistent in some respects with position in the public arena.