Centre for Research into Sustainability

Venue: Senate House, Room 1-06

The seminar will discuss the relation between social movements and political consumerism, illustrating how market-based actions have been deployed by SMOs over times and in diverse organizational fields. Besides traditional consumer organizations that seek to protect customers from corporate abuse (such as unsafe products, predatory lending or false advertising), political consumer practices have also been widely employed to achieve diverse political and social goals. Calls to citizens to take action in their role as consumers have been made by social movement organizations of different types, either to build transnational awareness so as to step up pressure on corporations or to facilitate the purchase of goods/services that meet specific ethical criteria. As I will underline, over the years the use of political consumer practices by social movement organizations has become increasingly important. Along with large-scale boycotting and global fair-trade initiatives, market-based actions have entered the repertoire of actions of a number of local grassroots organizations seeking bottom-up solutions for sustainable development, within which the act of shopping moves beyond a form of merely individual responsibility to provide fully fledged citizenship-driven alternative styles of provisioning.

Short-Bio

Francesca FORNO (PhD University of Strathclyde) is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Trento where she teaches Sociology and Sociology of consumption. Her research interests include political consumerism and sustainable community movement organizations. A special focus in these areas is on the consequences of the spread of market-based forms of action for citizens’ participation and mobilization. She has published on civic participation and social movements, conducting research on political consumerism, collaborative consumption, grassroots initiatives on social eco-innovation and alternative food networks (AFNs). Her work has appeared in the following journals, among others: the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Journal of Consumer Culture, International Journal of Consumer Studies, South European Politics and Society, the Annals of the Feltrinelli Foundation, and anthologies published by Oxford University Press, Wiley-Blackwell, and Zed Books.

We will adjourn to a local pub for drinks and further discussion after the seminar.