دانلود رایگان مقاله مطالعه تفسیری مصرف گرایی در زمینه سفر دریایی

ABSTRACT

The paper seeks to make a contribution in addressing a theoretical gap related to how emerging middle class consumers utilize consumption as a classificatory practice. We adopted an interpretive approach and used the method of participant observation combined with in-depth interviews. Drawing from Bourdieu and Veblen, two main categories were used to explain the use of cruises as a means of classification: distinction and conspicuous consumption. It was found in addition to consumers classifying themselves in relation to others, they classify the time spent, space, artifacts, and the very experience of the cruise itself. The cruise simulates, for a short period of time, the life of the ‘‘leisure class,’’ with its attendant conspicuous consumption and waste.

5. Discussion

For Le´vi-Strauss (1962), classification systems are the basis of human thought and establish an ordering principle of the natural world and social relations through a constant process of grouping and separation of beings and things. In the context of the hedonic experience of a sea cruise, consumption is used to classify people, time, spaces, artifacts, and the cruise experience itself. The classification of the people on the cruise is made in relation to the self. Because all on board consider themselves part of the ‘‘middle class,’’ they perform an operation of internal classification which, from their perspective, recognizes three strata, in this paper called ‘‘traditional’’ middle-class, high ‘‘new’’ middle class, and low ‘‘new’’ middle class. Note that this perspective depends on a selfassigned position. When passengers see themselves as members of a ‘‘traditional’’ middle class, they recognize the coexistence on the cruise of others who aren’t like themselves in terms of behavior and appearance, and exhibit certain unease in sharing the space with ‘‘other people.’’ The habitus is used, then, as a marker of social class. Beyond economic capital – which, supposedly, is similar – it is the cultural capital that demarcates the differences.