From Bourdieu to Lahire: A Necessary Turnaround to Understand Comic Book Consumption? An Extended Abstract

Abstract

What brings a consumer from upper middle class to read Marcel Pagnol’s novels, discussing Albert Camus’s work with his/her spouse, reading comic books on a tablet, and wanting to pass its superheroes passion to his/her 2-year-old son? How to explain the existence of pluralist consumption practices for a same individual? Does the existence of the pluralist individual announce the end of the determined approaches of behaviors? Could we only see here weakening of primary socialization frame, as family or school in the consumption ways construction? This doctoral research suggests to discuss the extent literature about consumption research from Pierre Bourdieu’s work (1979, 1980) and the recent reinterpretation from Bernard Lahire (2001, 2004, 2005, 2012, 2013). Analysis of a first set of 15 exploratory interviews seems to show us interest of this perspective concerning the consumption research from the comic book case.