Consumption As Use: Our Relationship to Commodities

Abstract

If consumption mechanisms and discourses about consumption also influence our use of goods, they can shed only limited light on the basics of those everyday uses. In this final chapter I intend to look more closely at consumption as use, giving special focus to the co-existence of consumer and commodity, which lies at the very heart of the event of use. My aim is to create a general framework for the everyday use of commodities, a ‘theory of use’, if you like, and at the same time demonstrate that commodities are central to the functioning of our social networks.