Rethinking Consumption: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Perspectives

An interdisciplinary workshop organised by the History and Methodology of Economic Thought research group to examine consumption from multiple angles.

Programme:

10 September

13:00 – 13:15 | Arrival

13:15 – 13:30 | Welcome Address

13:30 – 15:00 | Session 1: Constructing the Consumer: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives [Sponsored by THETS]
"Consumption is the Measure of Reproduction" (Richard van den Berg, Goldsmiths, University of London)
"Consumption and the Reciprocity of Trade. Revisiting Sir James Steuart's 'Mercantilism' in the Trump Era" (Constantinos Repapis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)
"Fuel Consumption and Needs Satisfaction. A History of Domestic Economy in Nineteenth-Century Victorian England" (Louise Villeneuve, CIRED/CNRS, Paris)

15:00 – 15:30 | Coffee break

15:30 – 17:00 | Session 2: The Consumer in Context: Institutions, Culture and Economic Theory
"The consumer movement in the 1960s-1970s in the US" (David Gindis, University of Warwick)
"The Dynamics of Positional Consumption: An Interdisciplinary Theoretical Synthesis" (Mehmet Karakoch, Goldsmiths, University of London)
"Changing Consumption Patterns in Higher Education: Testing the Substitution vs Complementarity Hypothesis of Online Courses" (Paolo Seri, Kore University of Enna)

17:00 – 17:30 | Coffee break

17:30 – 18:30 | Keynote Lecture
"Beyond Consumerism: the Critique of Consumption, Democracy, and the Politics of Prosperity" (Katherine Soper, London Metropolitan University)

18:30 – 19:30 | Aperitivo

11 September

9:30 – 11:00 | Session 3: Values, Habits and Impact
"Parental Acceptance of Food-Marketing Regulation: The Role of Household Constraints – Evidence from the UK" (Ada Maria Barone and Tiziana Foresti, Goldsmiths, University of London)
"Consumer Resilience in an Era of Disruptions" (Shaheen Hosany, Hult International Business School)
"Cultural Consumption and Pro-environmental Behaviours: Evidence from Italy" (Giulio Pedrini, Paolo Seri, and Raffaele Scuderi, Kore University of Enna)

11:00 – 11:30 | Coffee break

11:30 – 12:30 | Keynote Lecture
"Consumer to Collective? Probing the Opportunities and the Limits of Individual Behaviour Change" (Ganga Sheedhar, London School of Economics)

12:30 – 13:30 | Light lunch

13:30 – 15:00 | Session 4: Consumption as Meaning-Making: From Needs to Narratives
"The Statistical Construction of the Latin American Working Class. A first few thoughts on their Consumption" (Cecilia Lanata-Briones, University of Warwick)
"Biological and Social Needs, economic preferences, and democratic planning in British scientific humanism, 1930s-1940s" (Antoine Missemer, CIRED/CNRS, Paris)
"On the Meaning and Historical Roots of the Concept of Sustainable Consumption" (Marco Vianna Franco, Goldsmiths, University of London)

15:00 – 15:30 | Coffee break

15:30 – 16:30 | Keynote Lecture
"Consumption, Regeneration, and the Circular Flow. A Perspective from Economic Theory" (Roberto Scazzieri, University of Bologna and Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome)

16:30 – 16:45 | Concluding remarks