Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The thesis explores the role of semiotic structuring of health information in relation to language, multimodality and health literacy and the affordances for agentive participation among consumers of two leading South African medical schemes - Discovery Health Medical Scheme (Discovery Health) and the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS). The focus is on who has access to health information, how this information is constructed and what the semiotic health habitat looks like for citizen-consumers. Through a virtual ethnographic approach the thesis explores the design of genres of health information artefacts: application forms, application guides, a comic book, and a variety of website images. The choice to study the commercial package of a private health industry is aimed at finding and defining codes of practice in health communication that could be replicable in the public health sector. A new perspective emerging out of the thesis is how semiotic structuring of style, stance-taking, and choice of registers affects reading positions, and how these determine with what voice citizenconsumers can engage with this information.

<p>In contemporary public debate there is currently a great deal of focus attached to environmental problems and social responsibility. This trend is noticeable within the clothing industry, where it has become increasingly popular for new brands to market themselves with an environmental and ethical profile. An anthropological approach has been used to investigate how individuals understand ethical dimensions of clothing, and relates to the consumers’ ideals that are pronounced by clothing companies with an environmental and ethical profile. Interviews have been conducted with young men, a group often absent in accounts of ethical consumption. From these conversations, it is possible to discuss wider processes going on in society at large. Contemporary discourse on ethical shopping appears to rest on the assumption that the individual is able to freely choose among merchandise available on the market, and is placed in a central position of responsibility towards human and non-human others. There is a need for research that challenges this view. From the material it became visible that there existed a strong boundary from the informants´ point of view of what was mentioned as social problems or global issues, and of what they considered reasonable of themselves to bear responsibility for. Distrust was expressed against ongoing public debate that was considered to be too one-sided. Barely any references existed of ecological and fair made fashion, suggesting a generational gap in experiences of this kind of clothing. The study is considered to stimulate for further research in the area of ethical shopping of clothes.</p>

In contemporary public debate there is currently a great deal of focus attached to environmental problems and social responsibility. This trend is noticeable within the clothing industry, where it has become increasingly popular for new brands to market themselves with an environmental and ethical profile. An anthropological approach has been used to investigate how individuals understand ethical dimensions of clothing, and relates to the consumers’ ideals that are pronounced by clothing companies with an environmental and ethical profile. Interviews have been conducted with young men, a group often absent in accounts of ethical consumption. From these conversations, it is possible to discuss wider processes going on in society at large. Contemporary discourse on ethical shopping appears to rest on the assumption that the individual is able to freely choose among merchandise available on the market, and is placed in a central position of responsibility towards human and non-human others. There is a need for research that challenges this view. From the material it became visible that there existed a strong boundary from the informants´ point of view of what was mentioned as social problems or global issues, and of what they considered reasonable of themselves to bear responsibility for. Distrust was expressed against ongoing public debate that was considered to be too one-sided. Barely any references existed of ecological and fair made fashion, suggesting a generational gap in experiences of this kind of clothing. The study is considered to stimulate for further research in the area of ethical shopping of clothes.

Although the United States is the world's leading consumer nation, limited empirical research exists on the relationship between consumer choices and political participation. This study provides the first quantitative analysis of the demographic characteristics, motivations, and political activities of political and ethical consumers in the United States. Ethical consumers are broadly defined as socially responsible consumers including the subset of political consumers. Political consumers, while also socially responsible, are primarily concerned with achievement of political or social change through purchasing decisions. While political and ethical consumers engage in similar behaviors, the distinguishing factor between the two is motivation. Participation in both political and ethical consumerism is measured through buycotting (intentionally purchasing) or boycotting (intentionally abstaining from purchasing) of particular products or companies. Based on data from the 2002 National Civic Engagement Survey II, this study finds income and education significantly predict participation in political and ethical consumerism, while race and gender do not. Across political parties, the stronger a respondents' political affiliation, the less likely they are to boycott or buycott. This study also finds the primary motivation of participation for 80 percent of boycotters and buycotters is altruistic (ethical consumerism) rather than the achievement of political objectives (political consumerism). Additionally, political and ethical consumers indicate little belief in the ability for their purchases to alter business practices and do not consider their actions a part of organized campaigns. Political and ethical consumers are politically active and individuals who contact public officials, protest, and sign email or written petitions are significantly more likely to boycott or buycott than those who do not. In lieu of these findings, suggestions are offered to consumer-activist groups and social change organizations concerning rationales of consumer motivation and political engagement in the hopes this information will be utilized to mobilize a broader base of citizen-consumers. / Ph. D.

A small proportion of people claim to live and consume in ways they consider more sustainable in social and environmental terms. As yet, we do not know how many exactly, but possibly no more than 5-10% of the population. The thesis intentionally focuses on this minority finding there are at least three reasons why it is interesting to do so. First because they are all but ignored in sociologies of practice in the context of sustainable consumption which considers this minority an insignificance and focuses almost exclusively on 'mainstream' majority which more closely maps onto the stereotype of 'consumer society'. Second because we think we can learn much from juxtapositioning this group empirically against the spectrum of theories of practice to devise more robust and appropriate theoretical explanation of how these subjects, in the context of everyday practice, negotiate the many interpretations and contradictions involved in trying to put 'sustainability' into practice. Third because by understanding them better we can reflect on theoretical, empirical and policy implications for nudging this minority of the population to a higher percentage. The thesis sits at one end of a spectrum of positions in theories of practice applied to consumption, and in particular with a normative interest in sustainable consumption. It aligns with those who seek to re-insert the reflexive agent into accounts of practice, with particular reference to the conceptual construct of the 'citizen-consumer' and the context of political consumption (Spaargaren & Oosterveer 2010). Referring to theories of consumption, the thesis adds perspectives on how people negotiate multiple domains of consumption simultaneously since everyday practice involves interactions across multiple domains (such as eating, mobility, householding); and yet typically in theories of practice these are artificially separated into single domains. The study therefore considers the implications which domains have on how particular practices are carried out, first separately (per domain) and then as they come together (in a cross-cutting domain perspective). The study then takes theories of practice as a springboard to develop a theoretical position and framework which better fits the narrated accounts of the 37 subjects who participated in this study. In iteratively co-developing a theoretical framework and multiple 'stages' of empirical research (using grounded theory methodology) the study seeks to explain theoretically how subjects justify their 'doings' (drawing on 'conventions' and 'orders of worth' (Boltanski & Thévenot 2006)); how they appear to muddle through as best they can (introducing 'bricolage' (Lévi-Strauss 1972)); and how subjects appear to devise decision short-cuts when approaching decisions characterised by the multiple contradictions of sustainable consumption and incomplete or 'too much' information (introducing heuristics (Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier 2011)). In joining calls to re-insert the reflexive agent to account for how, when and why subjects enact changes towards trajectories which they consider 'more sustainable' in their own terms, the study takes inspiration from Margaret Archer's morphogenesis approach (1998) and explores her model of multiple modes of reflexivity, announcing certain modes as 'better fitting' conditions of late modernity. The study finally finds that contrary to a notion of the un-reflexive agent, the citizen-consumer is able to articulate visions of the 'good life'. In addition she is able to fold these visions back onto everyday practices performed in the past, present and future, laying out normative guidelines and positive accounts of how to achieve personal or societal well-being and happiness. The overarching positioning of the study is much inspired by Andrew Sayer's (2011; 2000) 'normative turn' calling upon social sciences to re-instate research into the things about which people care. The study is therefore guided by the overarching question of how people translate their environmental and/or social concerns into the ways in which they live and consume.

Sustainable consumption is seen as a crucial political issue on the global agenda by politicians, the scientific community, and citizens who are worried about unsustainable consumption. However, several studies have shown that some consumers with "green" values do not consume sustainably – there is often a gap between attitude and behavior. One explanation is that the commitment to sustainable consumption is discouraged by barriers to action. For example, the supply of sustainable goods may be inadequate or the products too expensive. Such goods may be perceived as ineffective in their purpose to promote sustainable development, or perhaps it is believed that there are not enough other people who consume sustainably to make the individual effort worthwhile. However, some studies have indicated that there are also "reverse gaps". That is, there are people who are not particularly motivated to engage in sustainable consumption, but who do so anyway. The study examines why consumers sometimes engage in sustainable consumption (operationalized as a choice of environmental and Fairtrade certified products) but do not at other times. Research questions include which individual prerequisites (motivation and resources) are important for sustainable consumption, how they are distributed among citizens in Sweden, and finally whether perceived opportunities for sustainable consumption can form not only barriers but also "bridges" for engagement and how these are formed. The latter could explain the "reverse gaps" mentioned above. The author builds on the discussion about the challenges that sustainable development poses for the concept of citizenship. Researchers argue that sustainable development requires a transformation of traditional citizenship theory into a "sustainable citizenship". This is not limited by nation-state borders, takes into account past and future generations, and is open to the idea that responsibility-taking can, and sometimes should, be carried out in the private sphere. The dissertation is based on quantitative analysis of a (Swedish) representative survey and shows how consumers can be divided into different clusters based on their individual prerequisites: "Capable Critics", "Capital Weak Critics", "Conditionals" and ”Skeptics". Even if it is only the Capable Critics who have both the high motivation and a high level of resources that theoretically could be assumed to be necessary, there are a significant amount of consumers who choose environmental and Fairtrade labeled goods regularly across all clusters. These types of consumers encounter bridges to action by particularly positive perceived opportunities that make the engagement a little less demanding on individual prerequisites. The bridges are not the same for all clusters though. Their particular approach to sustainable consumption determines which factors are most important. / Det hållbara medborgarskapet