Consuming Ambivalences

Abstract

Consumers handle politicized consumption practices such as food risks in more ambivalent ways than is often assumed in public debate about such issues. This article attempts to show the analytical relevance of clarifying and using the concept of ambivalence in analysis of consumer culture. In particular, this is because societal problems of ambivalence are often framed as personal problems for consumers via campaigns to make consumers discipline their so-called problematic practices. The article argues in favour of working with a concept of ambivalence that is sensitive to a variety of socio-cultural ways of handling ambivalence in consumption practices. Theoretically, the article connects such a concept of ambivalence to an understanding of consumption that is grounded in ‘weak’ constructivist everyday life sociology. Empirically, the article presents examples of experiences of ambivalence from a Danish qualitative study of consumers' handling of environmentally related food risks