No abstract

Consumer's Justification Towards (Un)Sustainable Consumption: Exploring Attitudes Among Urmia Citizens, Iran. This study argues that individuals' consumption patterns should be considered as consequences of the production and reproduction of the public sphere settings that are affected by dominant social, political and cultural structures. Hence, we are aimed to study how a combination of social and individual mechanisms influences (un)sustainable consumption behaviors? The purposive sampling was utilized and data was generated from 20 in-depth semi-structured interviews in Urmia, Iran. Data analyzing revealed 17 subcategories and five main categories including faded trust, deliberate negligence, commoditized human bonding, material self-identification and mental discharge that finally lead to the nuclear category of the study; reflexive consumption. Each main extracted category corresponds to one aspect of consumption. By studying socio-individual reasons for the dominant consumption patterns, this study contributes to obtaining a better understanding of the impacts of social mechanisms in creating (un)sustainable consumption patterns among the target sample.

This article discusses the importance of a multilevel and intertwined understanding of ethical consumption given its conjunction with other social practices. Although the literature on ethical consumption is vast, the role of sociotechnical regimes including technological and cultural elements, infrastructure, market and regulation has been mainly overlooked in this literature. This may be so because ethical consumption practices that refer to other-oriented consumption practices are mainly considered in the view of the motivations and preferences of individual consumers. Due to the insufficiency of individualistic approaches to explain stimulators and inhibitors of ethical consumption, indicates there might be “various constraints” in society and “competing demands” to hamper consumers from acting ethically. Therefore, to avoid an oversimplified view of ethical consumption, this paper contributes with a theoretical discussion on combining social practice theory (SPT) with a multi-level perspective (MLP). Although the SPT is a very well-structured framework in consumption studies, the necessity of a combined approach concerns the often-insufficient attention paid to structural prerequisites of various consumption forms in social practice theories. By understanding ethical consumption practices according to a multi-level framework, the paper emphasizes the importance of structural factors at macro- and mesolevels. It also contributes attention to how ethical consumption grows due to dialectical processes between levels, showing that niche practices can simultaneously challenge and rely on existing regimes.

This article discusses the importance of a multilevel and intertwined understanding of ethical consumption given its conjunction with other social practices. Although the literature on ethical consumption is vast, the role of sociotechnical regimes including technological and cultural elements, infrastructure, market and regulation has been mainly overlooked in this literature. This may be so because ethical consumption practices that refer to other-oriented consumption practices are mainly considered in the view of the motivations and preferences of individual consumers. Due to the insufficiency of individualistic approaches to explain stimulators and inhibitors of ethical consumption, there might be other components in society to lead (un)ethical consumption decisions. Therefore, to avoid an oversimplified view of ethical consumption, this paper contributes with a theoretical discussion on combining social practice theory (SPT) with a multi-level perspective (MLP). Although the SPT is a very well-structured framework in consumption studies, the necessity of a combined approach concerns the often-insufficient attention paid to structural prerequisites of various consumption forms in social practice theories. By understanding ethical consumption practices according to a multi-level framework, the paper emphasizes the importance of structural factors at macro- and mesolevels. It also contributes attention to how ethical consumption grows due to dialectical processes between levels, showing that niche practices can, at the same time, both challenge and depend on existing regimes.