Elsevier

Geoforum

Volume 50, December 2013, Pages 88-96
Geoforum

Gifts, sustainable consumption and giving up green anxieties at Christmas

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.08.004Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We propose that gift theory can advance sustainable consumption theory.

  • Gifts embody social relations that shape sustainable consumption.

  • Gifting practices do not necessarily foreground environmental considerations.

  • Social concerns can outweigh anxieties with environmental impact of gifts.

Abstract

This paper explores the proposition that gifting is a little recognised yet important practice bound up in the quest for sustainable consumption, which has largely been studied with reference to market rather than gift economies. It draws on gift theories in economic anthropology which explain gifts as engendering social relations of reciprocity and beyond, and shaping social life differently to commodities. Understanding how and why commodities become gifts (and vice versa), we contend, provides a new way of understanding some of the complex ways in which social relations are implicated in sustainable consumption. We use a study of Christmas gifting practices within a group of environmentally engaged households to begin to empirically explore if and how environmental considerations are expressed in the gift economy. We conclude that the fashioning of a particular social identity, namely, the ‘green consumer’ can operate very differently in the context of gift-exchange than in the context of non-gifting consumption.

Introduction

The role of gift-giving has been little explored in research into sustainable consumption. In the quest to understand the possibilities and limitations of sustainable consumption as a tool for political and environmental change, what insights can be gleaned from analyses of gifts and gift economies? Far from being trivial, practices of gift giving have long constituted some of the most important modes of social exchange in human societies, pre-dating commercial markets and continuing to operate alongside and in interaction with them. As Yan (2005, p. 246) explains, ‘the give-and-take of gifts in everyday life creates, maintains and strengthens various social bonds – be they cooperative, competitive or antagonistic.’ In this paper we explore the proposition that gifting is a little recognised yet important practice bound up in the quest for sustainable consumption, which has largely been studied with reference to market rather than gift economies (cf. Miller, 1998, Miller, 2001). Specifically, we draw on theories of gifting that insist that gifts always engender social relations of reciprocity and beyond – they are always more than ‘disguised payments’ of economic exchange, and hence must be understood as shaping social life differently to commodities (Osteen, 2010, Callari, 2002). As gifts are given and received, identities are both cemented and augmented, and social and kinship relations are affirmed and extended. The things we call ‘gifts’ are a product of meaning accumulated over time, and the meanings attached to gifts are subject to change as they circulate (or not) among different people or groups (Osteen, 2002). Understanding how and why commodities become gifts (and vice versa), we contend, provides a fresh means of understanding some of the complex ways in which social relations are bound up in the quest for sustainable consumption. We use a study of Christmas gifting practices within a group of environmentally engaged households to begin to empirically explore if and how environmental considerations are expressed in the gift economy.

We proceed as follows. First, we explore theories of gifts, examining in particular how apprehending gift economies may be able to expand our understanding of sustainable consumption as a complex, incomplete project bound up in social relations. Then, we turn to gift-giving at Christmas, and consider the environmental anxieties associated with this practice. We draw on a study of environmentally engaged households that we conducted in Wollongong, Australia to examine empirically how environmental concerns and gifting practices are negotiated at Christmas. We conclude that the fashioning of a particular social identity, namely, the ‘green consumer’ can operate very differently in the context of gift-exchange than in the context of non-gifting consumption.

Section snippets

Gifts and sustainable consumption

The utility function of Homo economicus has been understood overwhelmingly in terms of consumption in an ordinary sense. Allowing the purchase of a gift for another to count as consumption has been a concession from which nothing has followed. If one emphasized the pleasure Homo economicus takes in the pleasure of gift recipients, the inconsistency of not allowing him or her to take pleasure in any other enjoyment by others would be too striking to be tolerable. The concession to this enjoyment

Christmas gifts and environmental anxieties

Christmas, we contend, is a useful festival for an empirical scoping study of gifts and sustainable consumption because of its importance in both social and market relations, even if Christmas gift-giving practices are unique to the season: ‘Christmas is a cultural event of immense economic significance – or an economic event of immense cultural significance’ (Thrift and Olds, 1996, p. 311). Christmas gift-giving is a social practice central to Christmas celebrations, a time for negotiating

Methods

This section explains our research methods, chosen to advance understanding of those who affirm a green self-identity and attempt to further their professed environmental concerns in individual and household consumption practices: do these ‘green consumers’ also engage in what they perceive to be green gifting at Christmas? We conducted a qualitative study of environmentally engaged households, defined as households whose members express concern with environmental issues and appear to attempt

Christmas gifts and green identities in Wollongong

Lauren, a married mother of four embraced the celebration of Christmas with her extended family wholeheartedly. Environmental anxieties did not arise as a result of their gifting practices. Lauren loved entertaining at Christmas, and enjoyed Christmas shopping, although she disapproved of Christmas goods on display in the shops as early as October. For Lauren, attempts to curtail gift exchanges among members of her extended family were ‘really mean’. Gifts had been bought for everybody in the

Discussion

Are Christmas gifts bound up in social relations which deny or confirm opportunities to identify as green? Among the households in this study, there were frequent mentions of attempts to create boundaries around ‘too much stuff’ at Christmas, with householders sometimes instituting rules, usually in negotiations with extended families. These rules were both quantitative, about how much can be spent and the number of gifts that are appropriate, and qualitative (for instance ‘not going crazy with

Concluding remarks

This study has suggested a new dimension to sustainable consumption, namely, that concern about environmental impact in gift-giving practices may be different than for individual or household consumption. Our empirical study confirms difference, and indeed that for a particular group of self-identified green consumers in Wollongong, Australia, green gifting is not foregrounded at Christmas. We have shown that environmental considerations can detract from the ability of gifts to embody a valued

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