KONSTEN ATT KONSUMERA - En kvalitativ studie om föreställningar, materialitet och identitet inom Every Day Carry

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to study how today’s consumer society can be understood from an analysis of the phenomenon Every Day Carry (EDC). The aim is thus to problematize the daily use of the artifacts that surrounds us and investigate how these can be understood as networks of human and non-human actors, aswell as identity- and meaning-making practices in today’s consumer society. The theoretical and methodical framework is built upon an eclectic variety of consumptiontheories, Michel Callon’s, John Law’s and Bruno Latour’s work on Actor-Network-Theory, Discourse analysis inspired by Michel Foucault, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and an ethnographic methodology specifically adapted for online research. The empirical material consists of photographs and commentaries from two EDC blogs aswell as commentaries regarding EDC from a commentary field on Youtube.com. These are analyzed together with materials in the form of a calendar from the magazine Faktum, internet articles and relevant previous studies relating to EDC. From the material networks of human and non-human actors appears, which is shown to have an important role in how EDC is performed and how identity- and meaning-making thereby are discoursively negotiated, defined and reproduced. EDC is also shown to be a powerful subversive marketing strategy, that allows people to both consume products, meaning, identities and each other. It also shows how people, in power relations, adopt or become assigned different subject positions, which are linked to how a specific conception of gender and class identity, and how specific worldviews regarding them, are discoursively negotiated, defined and reproduced.