Why people who cut consumption face social backlash—and how to fix it
A Swedish study reveals that people trying to reduce consumption hit real social friction, but reframing the shift as an act of care—rather than deprivation—helps them stick with it. For companies and policymakers betting on voluntary consumption cuts, understanding this identity challenge is crucial to scaling sustainable behavior.
Originaltitel: Caring and striving: toward a new consumer identity in the process of consumption reduction
<p>Adoption of sufficiency-oriented lifestyles is an important part of curbing overconsumption, yet many individuals who try to reduce their consumption volumes experience social difficulties. Combining the perspectives of care and sufficiency-oriented lifestyle changes, this article aims to contribute to the understanding of why such social obstacles occur, how they might be counteracted and in what ways social relations instead may facilitate consumption reduction. Starting from an interview study with 25 Swedish consumption reducers, this article builds on a processual theory of consumer identity and the perspective of care to explore how care and consumption are (re) negotiated in the different stages of reduction. The results highlight the different aspects of care involved in consumption reduction – from motivations for change to negotiations toward a more holistic understanding of care – and show that consumption reduction in many ways is an ongoing process of both caring and striving. By emphasizing how care is renegotiated in a gradual construction of a caring consumer identity, this article discusses the importance of maintaining a sensitivity to the multi-faceted nature of care, acknowledging it both as a source of difficulties and as a key driver for sufficiency-oriented lifestyle changes.</p>