Market Inequalities and Ecological Distinction: The Moral Ruses of Sustainable Consumption across the North-South Divide
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60923/issn.1971-8853/24165Keywords:
Sustainable consumption, Inequality, Lifestyle environmentalism, Social distinction, Consumer economies, Economic sociology, StratificationAbstract
This paper critically explores how social inequalities shape the practice and politics of sustainable consumption. Drawing on a cultural and economic sociology approach and comparing contexts in the Global North (France) and Global South (India), we argue that sustainable consumption is an insufficient motor for eco-social transformation because it relies on and reproduces market inequalities via everyday practices. Dominant middle-class, performative environmentalisms exclude and stigmatize the poor and aspirational working classes, who often lack the surplus time and financial resources to participate in green consumption. As a result, they are unable to attain the moral recognition and social distinction associated with “enlightened” consumption. Rather than attributing this class polarization solely to the cultural dynamics of environmentalism, we argue that it is better understood as a consequence, and driver, of the broader social inequalities that underpin consumer economies — inequalities that are salient to how production is structured in globalized economies and to how markets are organized and communicate cultural values. We contend that this dynamic of inequality within consumerist societies has been largely overlooked in climate policy frameworks and public discourse, to its own detriment.References
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