The object of this study is a program of government that has, as its immediate objective, the modification and regulation of consumer conduct deemed pertinent to climate change. Drawing from the analytical grid and conceptual tools of governmentality, this study has organized and analyzed an archive of documents related to the One-Tonne Challenge, a ‘public education’ program implemented by the Government of Canada from 2003 to 2006. There are numerous forms of conduct targeted by this program, involving many of the mundane and routine practices of everyday life. Despite their heterogeneity, the targeted forms of conduct can all be measured and evaluated according to the greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, an ecological technology of government that has had its application extended to the ‘personal’ level. As consumers increasingly engage in practices that are energy efficient, a ‘low intensity GHG emission lifestyle’ will emerge as a new societal norm, which is declared to be the ‘ultimate strategic objective’ of the program. The analysis indentifies and describes two rationalities of government articulated within the archive of the program. Liberal principles and assumptions regarding the market economy are ascendant in practice; they delimit the range of governmental techniques that can be put into operation by the state. Nevertheless, the objectives and technologies of this program belong to an ecological rationality of government. It problematizes the liberal emphasis on ‘voluntary action’ and advances state planning of the market economy through price formation as a necessary governmental technique with which to manipulate the demand for energy and ensure that consumers become energy-efficient. The conclusion interprets and diagnoses the main dangers that could arise from the radical transformation of the market economy that would be brought about by an ecological political reason.

The object of this study is a program of government that has, as its immediate objective, the modification and regulation of consumer conduct deemed pertinent to climate change. Drawing from the analytical grid and conceptual tools of governmentality, this study has organized and analyzed an archive of documents related to the One-Tonne Challenge, a ‘public education’ program implemented by the Government of Canada from 2003 to 2006. There are numerous forms of conduct targeted by this program, involving many of the mundane and routine practices of everyday life. Despite their heterogeneity, the targeted forms of conduct can all be measured and evaluated according to the greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, an ecological technology of government that has had its application extended to the ‘personal’ level. As consumers increasingly engage in practices that are energy efficient, a ‘low intensity GHG emission lifestyle’ will emerge as a new societal norm, which is declared to be the ‘ultimate strategic objective’ of the program. The analysis indentifies and describes two rationalities of government articulated within the archive of the program. Liberal principles and assumptions regarding the market economy are ascendant in practice; they delimit the range of governmental techniques that can be put into operation by the state. Nevertheless, the objectives and technologies of this program belong to an ecological rationality of government. It problematizes the liberal emphasis on ‘voluntary action’ and advances state planning of the market economy through price formation as a necessary governmental technique with which to manipulate the demand for energy and ensure that consumers become energy-efficient. The conclusion interprets and diagnoses the main dangers that could arise from the radical transformation of the market economy that would be brought about by an ecological political reason.

This thesis places the values shared by recreational hikers, backpackers, kayakers, and others within the British Columbia Forest Debate in the second half of the twentieth century. Using the 1985-86 Wilderness Advisory Committee as a case study, it argues that the interpretation of the concept of “wilderness” expressed by these outdoor enthusiasts can only be understood through the study of North American consumer culture. They valued “wilderness” as a commodity, not unlike the ways that forest and mining companies did, yet also expressed environmentalist concerns about protecting “wilderness” areas from resource exploitation and overdevelopment.

This dissertation explores the ways in which various Western yoga teachers have interpreted and presented yoga to an American audience, and how media outlets have represented those yoga practices to a broader American audience between the 1890s and the 2010s. In particular, the case studies illuminate the ways in which contemporary concerns have influenced how yoga teachers and media reports have framed and responded to yoga practices. In this dissertation, I present a series of Western yoga practitioners that embody the most interesting and distinctive representations of popular understanding of yoga for their individual historical moments. Though the chapters do not reflect a linear development, recurrent discourses concerning Orientalism, post- colonialism, race, gender, sexuality, and class in the United States re-emerge in each chapter as different yoga schools respond to local and global concerns. Through these different vignettes, a trajectory of American yoga as taught and practiced by Westerners in the United States historicizes yoga in ways that are often overlooked in favor of the “timelessness” of the practice. / text

This thesis places the values shared by recreational hikers, backpackers, kayakers, and others within the British Columbia Forest Debate in the second half of the twentieth century. Using the 1985-86 Wilderness Advisory Committee as a case study, it argues that the interpretation of the concept of “wilderness” expressed by these outdoor enthusiasts can only be understood through the study of North American consumer culture. They valued “wilderness” as a commodity, not unlike the ways that forest and mining companies did, yet also expressed environmentalist concerns about protecting “wilderness” areas from resource exploitation and overdevelopment.

The object of this study is a program of government that has, as its immediate objective, the modification and regulation of consumer conduct deemed pertinent to climate change. Drawing from the analytical grid and conceptual tools of governmentality, this study has organized and analyzed an archive of documents related to the One-Tonne Challenge, a ‘public education’ program implemented by the Government of Canada from 2003 to 2006. There are numerous forms of conduct targeted by this program, involving many of the mundane and routine practices of everyday life. Despite their heterogeneity, the targeted forms of conduct can all be measured and evaluated according to the greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, an ecological technology of government that has had its application extended to the ‘personal’ level. As consumers increasingly engage in practices that are energy efficient, a ‘low intensity GHG emission lifestyle’ will emerge as a new societal norm, which is declared to be the ‘ultimate strategic objective’ of the program. The analysis indentifies and describes two rationalities of government articulated within the archive of the program. Liberal principles and assumptions regarding the market economy are ascendant in practice; they delimit the range of governmental techniques that can be put into operation by the state. Nevertheless, the objectives and technologies of this program belong to an ecological rationality of government. It problematizes the liberal emphasis on ‘voluntary action’ and advances state planning of the market economy through price formation as a necessary governmental technique with which to manipulate the demand for energy and ensure that consumers become energy-efficient. The conclusion interprets and diagnoses the main dangers that could arise from the radical transformation of the market economy that would be brought about by an ecological political reason.

One of the main goals in this study is to investigate how young children's identity formation and social relationships are depicted by today's consumer society.  In order to reach the goals of the study I also concentrated myself on questions regarding the reflection of symbolic aspects consumption in younger children's interaction and preschool-teachers' ideas about how and in what ways children's consumption patterns are created and developed nowadays. In order to answer the presented research questions I used the theoretical arguments of researchers in the field of pedagogy Gert Biesta in connection with the ideas and concepts of the consumer society characteristics developed by the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. The thesis' methodological approach consists of a combination of semi-structured interviews with teachers and observations of children's interaction, which contributed to a systematic investigation of the thesis' problem area and served as a tool for obtaining answers to the research questions. The results demonstrate that consumption occupies a lot of space in young children's lives, which means that it greatly affects their social relationships today. Both consumption and knowledge of the known brands prove to be the child's path to the desired community on the one hand, and the children's way to the consumer world on the other (hand), which in turn points to an obvious dependence between children's consumption and their social relationships. The results also show that there is a tension between the perception of identity formation as preschool-policy-document on the one hand and the attitude of the identity prescribed by consumer society norms and regulations on the other. / Denna studie lyfter upp frågor som samtida föräldrar och pedagoger dagligen ställs inför. Dessa frågor behandlar barns tillvaro i dagens konsumtionssamhälle. Resultaten av flera vetenskapliga studier visar att samtida marknadsföring märkbart genomsyrar barns liv idag. Barndomen blir alltmer kommersialiserad av marknaden som med hjälp av kända konsumtionssymboler dagligen bygger en drömvärld bestående av sagolika figurer från barns fantasier. Denna värld har blivit samtida barns verklighet. Samtidigt pekar resultaten av ett antal studier på att den ekonomiska situationen i olika hushåll utmärks av en kraftigt växande klyfta då många familjer lever med små ekonomiska resurser vilket i sin tur innebär att det är långtifrån alla barn som ges plats i den sagolika bilden som marknaden målat ut. I samband med detta uppstår en fråga om vad som händer med de barn som inte har tillgång till kända konsumtionsvaror och hur denna situation påverkar deras relationer med omvärlden.  Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur yngre barns sociala relationer ser ut i dagens konsumtionssamhälle samt att ta reda på hur vissa förskolepedagoger resonerar kring yngre barns identitetskonstruktion i den samtida konsumtionsvärlden. Jag har också fokuserat på hur konsumtionens symboliska aspekter återspeglas i yngre barns interaktion och även på hur informanterna beskriver sin handlingsberedskap i relation till barns konsumtionsmönster och identitetskonstruktioner. Studiens resultat visar att konsumtion tar mycket plats i barns tillvaro vilket gör att den avsevärt påverkar deras sociala relationer idag. Det visar sig att barnen har omfattande kunskaper om samtida konsumtionssymboler som de ofta använder för att vinna uppmärksamhet och för att uppfattas som populära bland jämnåriga. På så sätt får de tillträde till en önskad gemenskap. Man kan även tala om barns investering i det egna sociala medlemskapet i form av konsumtion av populära konsumtionsvaror. Studien har även kunnat visa på ett rådande spänningsfält mellan den syn på identitetsskapande som förskolepedagogerna har och den inställning som konsumtionssamhällets normer och regler föreskriver vilket i sin tur pekar på behovet av utveckling av en mångfacetterad pedagogisk diskurs om barns utveckling och identitetsskapande i det samtida konsumtionssamhället. Samtidigt har denna studie belyst problematiken i de förhållningssätt som används i relation till värdegrundsfrågan på förskola och i förskoleklass. Detta faktum har även synliggjort behovet av ett nytt pedagogiskt förhållningssätt som ska bidra till utveckling av kritiskt tänkande kring konsumtionskultur och marknadsföringsfrågor hos barn som lever i den samtida konsumtionsvärlden.

Thesis (M.Arch.)(Prof.)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Includes summary. Includes bibliography. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

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This study provides institutional and economic analysis of the phenomenom of consumerism in China. It identifies confucianism, maoism and dengism as key determinats of its development. As confucianism as well as maoism both declined consumerism as way of life from cultural point of view consumer society could develop in China only after ideological redefinition of what socialism is. As in 1979 chinese socialism was defined as system generating material wealth consumer society together with rapid economic growth started arising. From economic point of as China was agrarian economy with low rate of urbanization only after deep structural economic changes consumerism could arose. That happened after 1979. Deng Xiaoping reforms proved to be key break point for rising Chinese consumer society.