Abstract
This book forms part of the shift away from the focus upon individual consumers within sociological studies of consumption toward centering everyday and mundane practices of consumption. A central tenet of the book is the suggestion that we need to understand the connections between the home and urban environment as they impact the capacities of people to consume. By building on the mobilities literature within geography, the authors develop the concept of “consumer logistics” to explore how people are able to navigate the urban environment as they go on a shopping trip. By highlighting the interactions between bodies and technologies (such as prams) and the environment, the book takes an actor network theory approach as the authors suggest that humans and non-human “actants” (such as bags, forms of transport) are situated within wider socio-technical systems. The book draws together the literatures on mobilities, life phases, and actor network theory to develop a theory of consumer logistics by focusing on two consumer groups: the elderly and families with small children. By considering two distinct phases within the life-course—which each pose different issues relating to mobility, technological requirements, and the capacity to consume—the authors point toward the need to develop more inclusive cities.
The book draws on ethnographic research in two sites—Toulouse and Gothenburg—adopting multiple methods such as observations, diaries, and interviews with both sample populations. The multi-dimensional methodological approach allows for data that capture the challenges and practices of moving in different cities through different forms of transportation. Interestingly, while the data is gathered from two cities in different countries (Sweden and France), this does not form the basis for a comparative analysis. The two sites are not explicitly contrasted, but instead the analysis centers on cross-cutting themes, acknowledging difference in geographical sites where this is seen to be significant. The approach works well throughout the data analysis chapters; however, in the conclusion, drawing more explicitly on a comparison between sites would have advanced the discussion of how to develop more inclusive and sustainable cities.
The book has a clear and logical structure; the introductory section sets out the theoretical framework of “consumer logistics” as well as justifying the focus on life phases and mobility before moving on to a discussion of sampling and methods. The data analysis includes two main chapters—divided by the different life phase and consumer groups—families and the elderly. Both of the empirical chapters are organized in the same fashion into the themes of project—the planning andpurposes of the shopping trip—and passage—how people move to, within, and from the shops. In both of the empirical chapters, the authors present a wealth of their empirical data—photos, excerpts from interviews—to build up a convincing sense of the challenges of moving through the urban environment with small children or as an older person with more limited mobility. However, these sections would have profited from revisiting and reflecting on the literature and theories to add more analytical depth.
Both chapters outline the role of particular non-human actants, such as shoes and bags, that make shopping possible, as they are put together in clusters or assemblages to make up for bodily limitations. It would have been beneficial to reflect upon and discuss further the implications and possibilities of the theoretical frameworks here. There is ample data of different forms that build up a picture of the consumer logistics for both life phases, yet perhaps what is lacking is more ethnographic “warmth” and sense of the participants, as well as the theoretical reflections suggested.
By way of a conclusion, the book offers an explicit comparison of the two life phases—the elderly and families—highlighting the similarities and contrasts in the consumer logistics for each group. The conclusion very effectively manages to highlight these continuities as well as disjunctures through the themes of location, consumer equipment, and emotional investment in relationship to infrastructure and pace/time. The final aim of the book is to explore the implications of thinking about how different, often excluded, groups move through the city to develop more inclusive and sustainable cities. While the conclusion makes a clear case for how cities can be more sustainable, it fails to fully explain what sustainable consumer logistics are and how these could be used in practical terms.
Overall, this book will be of interest to academics and students in the fields of aging, the life course, consumption, and urban sociology. It offers a clear and original theoretical perspective on everyday consumption by developing the concept of consumer logistics. This work could be extended in interesting ways to research into disability and the urban environment. The book is clearly written and organized and has a wealth of different forms of data to highlight how different life phases impact the capacity to consume. Although the focus of the book is on how people plan and manage shopping trips, given that the two life phases incorporate limitations and challenges of mobility, the absence of any discussion of internet shopping is notable. A consideration of this in relationship to technologies and ideas of sustainability is one that lends itself to much of the theoretical frame that the book draws on. Rather than see this as a separate field of empirical study, thinking about it in conjunction with how people move through urban environments might allow us to think more broadly about issues of inclusivity and sustainability at the level of the urban environment, technologies, and wider socio-technical systems.