Consumer in the world-systems: understanding narratives on environmental and social impacts of consumption from Melbourne, Australia.

Abstract: In this thesis I set to examine, through the lenses of world-systems and ecological unequal exchange theories, stories of how individuals relate to their consumption and its environmental and social impacts. I will examine how people relate to these issues through a particular perspective of a consumer identity. I could observe, from various statistical data, that the metropolises of Australia bear some characteristics of a core in terms of how and where from their inhabitants obtain goods and services. From this particular perspective I intend to inquire how individuals, who live in Melbourne, Australia, see themselves connected, through the experience of consumption, to the environmental and social costs their consumption is inflicted in. With the use of qualitative interviews I will confront stories of two groups of people for whom consumption has played an important role but for two different reasons: people who are part of the network of the Ethical Consumer Group and people who define themselves as shoppers. The research questions that underpin my investigation are: How does a person who lives in a big city of Australia and identifies her/himself as a consumer position him/herself against the environmental and social impacts consumption brings? How does one describe possible ways of enacting their agency as a consumer?