CONSUMER SOCIETY AND THE SENSES AND SOCIAL MEANINGS OF THE MINIMALIST CONSUMPTION NARRATIVE

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to understand, from a sociological point of view, the construction of narratives that serve as guidelines for new consumption practices in contemporary society, especially those that are under the aegis of what is conventionally called minimalist consumption. Therefore, we analyze the contents of these narratives produced in electronic social networks, specifically through some public profiles on the social network Instagram, where we perceive links and contradictions between the construction of these narratives and the dynamic of constitution and consolidation of the modern consumer society. Finally, it was identified that, much more than a mechanism of social activism, which would be marked by the incentive to forms of collective action as a reaction to the consumption system itself, what is at stake in the construction of these narratives is the appreciation of micro social processes of individuation that, through minimalist consumption practices, would reinforce consumer relations as an expression of subjectivities.