We are seeking 2 other participants to put together a panel on the effects of the rise of consumerism on cities in modernizing countries at the European Social Science History Conference, to be held in Lisbon, Portugal on 27 February - 1 March 2008.
We are both working on different aspects of Belgrade, Yugoslavia - the only European socialist country that allowed a relatively free consumer culture to develop. Brigitte Le Normand looks at the repercussions of consumerism on people's fantaisies of home-ownership, and how this ultimately affected the development of the city. And Nicole Münnich is working on the influence of the introduction of a modern Western-style supermarket in Belgrade on urban society. We wish to break out of the mold of "socialist studies", believing that there are many interesting points of comparison between the case of Yugoslavia and other modernizing states in the period between 1950 and 1975.
In Yugoslavia and in many other countries, the 1960s were an important turning point, witnessing the take-off of intense economic growth and rapid urbanization. Essentially, we want to ask: How did the advent of mass consumption shape cities in predominantly agricultural states that modernized rapidly in the second half of the twentieth century?
The programming of consumption into new planned cities like Brazilia, the bottom-up development of consumer practices and attitudes in spontaneous settlements on the peripheries of big cities, the relationship between consumption and upward mobility in urban society - these are only three examples of potentially fruitful avenues of inquiry.
Other interesting angles include:
- the effects of consumption and consumerism on the spatial organization of the city
- the importing of "Western" concepts of consumption, their transformation through local circumstances, and their transformation of local practices
- the political implications of consumption as manifested in the city
- the effects of the emerging consumerism on everyday life, society and popular culture