The Cute and the Cool

The Missing Child in Consumption Theory

“…Similar points could be made about a number of significant works that have been important to the rise of contemporary consumer culture theory (e.g. Csikzentmihayli and Rochberg-Halton, 1981;Appadurai, 1986;Kopytoff, 1986;McCracken, 1988;Baudrillard, 1990Baudrillard, [1970Featherstone, 1991;Falk and Campbell, 1997;Bauman, 1998;Zukin, 2004;Arnould and Thompson, 2005). Lacking explicit recognition and a purposeful, studied inclusion of children and childhood, attention is largely directed to a sometimes diverse, but temporally static, adult world in which status display, pleasure seeking and meaning making take place by and for adults, and for their own personal edification.…”

“…In sociology, anthropology, communication studies, consumer behavior and history, the lines drawn that facilitate this dichotomy tend also to indicate political positions. Those critical of capitalism and consumer culture lean toward the 'exploited' view (Kline, 1993;Steinberg and Kincheloe, 1997;Linn, 2004;Schor, 2004); those who see children as active and agentive beings present a generally agnostic view of the role and place of consumption and media in children's lives (Buckingham, 2000;Cross, 2004;Jacobson, 2004;Marsh, 2005;Martens et al, 2004). One significant exception here is Elizabeth Chin's (2001) ethnography of poor African-American girls, where she finds both empowerment and exploitation in their lives as consumers.…”

“…At the same time, research and writing about the consumer preferences, culture and practices of children has, since the early 1990s, grown at what seems to be an exponential rate. Stephen Kline (1993), David Buckingham (2000), Ellen Seiter (1993), Marsha Kinder (1998), Dan Cook (2004a), Gary Cross (2004), Heather Hendershot (2004, Juliet Schor (2004), Elizabeth Chin (2001), Viviana Zelizer (2002) and Anne Allison (2006) are some of the more visible among sociologists, historians, communications scholars and anthropologists who are involved in rising tide of academic research and accompanying public interest in the issues surrounding children's engagement with, and place in, commercial life. Add to these notables the recent special issues of journals, mini-conferences and research projects being undertaken on children's consumption in North America and Europe 1 and my contention that consumption theory does not know or engage with children and childhood may appear quite dubious.…”

“Small Sales Agents (of Nationalism) Inside the House”: Childhood, Consumer Culture, and Nationalism in the Jewish Yishuv of Interwar Palestine

“…15 Others believe that the expansion of consumer culture to include children reflected adults' hidden longing to be part of childhood pleasures that they themselves had had to suppress. 16 Other studies emphasized the meaning given to objects by children themselves and saw them as independent agents who were active participants in the temptations of consumer culture-in a way that was not essentially different from adults' participation and with the same dilemmas about consumers' range of free choice versus the extent to which they are "manipulated" by merchants and advertisers. This perspective underestimates the watershed between the 1920s and the Victorian Age before it, when middleclass children had no spending money of their own.…”

Disarming the Toy Store and Reloading the Shopping Cart: Resistance to Violent Consumer Culture

“…Peace-focused organizations, often led and supported by pacifist women concerned about their children and their communities' children, played a leading role in this movement, though in fits and starts, and at the price of earning reputations as radicals and crusaders. 73 Violent toy campaigns differed in tactics and rhetoric depending on whether activists were operating in times of war or in times of relative peace; whether they were focusing seasonally at yearend gift giving holidays or embarking on year-round campaigns; and whether their targets were low-tech toys and board games or high-end media-based games.…”