Ertman, Martha and Joan C. Williams. 2005. Rethinking
Commodification: Cases and Readings. NYU Press, August 2005.
This collection is a great review of past theoretical arguments
against commodification. It then moves on to a contemporary reevaluation
of commodification in terms of diversity, context, and personal
relations.
Gronow, Jukka. 2003. Caviar with Champagne: Common
Luxury and the Ideals of Good Life in Stalin's Russia Oxford:
Berg, 2003. The book is dedicated to a subject that may sound
like an oxymoron: mass production of luxuries in Stalin's pre-war
Russia.
Leiss, William, Stephen Kline, Sut Jhally and Jacqueline Botterill
(eds.). 2005. Social Communication in Advertising: Consumption
in the Modern Marketplace (3rd edition). Substantially revised
and updated and nearing classic status in some circles, this book
offers historical, conceptual and empirical material suitable
for undergraduate and graduate courses as well as for scholarly
consultation.
Manning, Robert D. 2005 Living With Debt: A Life Stage
Analysis of Changing Attitudes and Behaviors. This report,
which was commissioned by Lending Tree, examines how attitudes
and behaviors related to consumer debt have changed between generations,
and also how these attitudes and behaviors progress throughout
the various stages of adult life. The full report, as well as
the executive summary of highlights, can be downloaded at http://www.lendingtree.com/livingwithdebt.
Miller, Daniel (ed). 2005. Materiality. Duke University
Press. An edited collection of diverse empirical and theoretical
work which seeks to situate studies of material culture within
larger conceptualizations of culture.
Rivoli. Pietra. 2005. The Travels of a T-shirt in the
Global Economy. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. The author
uses the life cycle of a t-shirt--from the Texas cotton farm,
to the shirt factory in China, to the market for recycled goods
in Zambia--to illuminate the economics and politics of globalization.
The book was recently named a finalist for the inaugural Financial
Times/Goldman Sachs business book of the year award.
Sammond, Nicholas. 2005. Babes in Tomorrowland: Walt
Disney and the American Child, 1930-1960. Duke University
Press. An examination of how Walt Disney and his company, specifically,
and media and consumption generally relied upon extant notions
of the "normal child" arising from developmental psychology and
actively forged and deployed representations of this child for
commercial and cultural ends.
Seiter, Ellen. 2005. The Internet Playground.
Peter Lang. An ethnographically-based look into how race, class
and ethnicity informs the use of computers and the internet of
children aged 8-12 in Southern California.
Van Proyen, Mark and Lee Gilmore (eds.). 2005. After
Burn: Reflections on Burning Man. 2005. University of New
Mexico Press. This anthology's essays examine several aspects
of Burning Man, the annual temporary community of 35,500 people
known for its counterculture and interactive art, utopian gift
economy, emphasis on participation, and rejection of passive consumption.
Williams, Christine. 2006. Inside Toyland: Working,
Shopping and Social Inequality. University of California
Press.
An ethnographic exploration inside the world of toy retailing
where the relationships between buying and selling, gender and
class and race and inequality play themselves out on the retail
floor of toys stores.
Zelizer, Viviana. 2005. The Purchase of Intimacy.
Princeton University Press. An in-depth examination of the tensions,
overlaps and interconnections between market and emotional values
in history, law and everyday action.