A tale of two teens: disciplinary boundaries andgeographical opportunities in youth consumption

and sustainability research

Rebecca Collins and Russell HitchingsDepartment of Geography, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

Email: rebecca.collins@ucl.ac.uk; r.hitchings@ucl.ac.uk

Revised manuscript received 25 November 2011

Our understanding of how and why young people consume, and thus how easy it might be to encouragemore sustainable modes of consumption amongst this group, is currently patchy and somewhat ham-pered by the preoccupations of those who have concerned themselves with this subject so far. This papersubstantiates this claim by presenting two caricatures of how youth consumption has previously beenframed. We suggest geographical studies are well placed to establish the degree to which each holds truein specific spatial and material contexts and thereby demonstrate how such studies could usefullycontribute to wider scholarship on this topic.

Key words: consumption, youth, sustainability, disciplinary boundaries

IntroductionYoung people1, because of their purported enthusiasm fortackling environmental problems and driving socialchange, are often framed as key actors in the quest formore sustainable societies. Yet, while both academics andpolicymakers have been keen to emphasise their potentialin this regard (Bentley et al. 2004; Forum For The Future2008; Juris and Pleyers 2009), focusing on the future canblind us to capabilities possessed in the present. Tomor-row’s leaders are already today’s consumers. In 2009, forexample, the cost of the average UK adolescent’s lifestylewas estimated at £9000 per year, with £2000 of this beingautonomous personal spending (Osborne 2009). Theirspending power is now such that the everyday lives ofyoung people already have significant implications for ourability to find less resource hungry lifestyles (Autio et al.2009). While young people are heralded by some aschampions of a more sustainable future, the reality of theircurrent consumption casts doubt on their willingness toassume this role.

Such conflicting accounts should probably not sur-prise us. The consumption of young people and itsimplicit relationship with sustainability is inevitablycharacterised by contradiction and contestation. In part,this is symptomatic of the fluidity of youth identities and

the shifting priorities that characterise this group (Skeltonand Valentine 1998; Valentine 2003; Worth 2009).Rather than attempting to construct a definitive picture,this paper highlights how some of these identities areplayed out as consumption decisions are made, showinghow different disciplines naturally focus on specificfacets of the processes involved in a way that inadvert-ently fixes elements of young people’s identities, therebyfeeding popular (mis)perceptions about contemporaryyouth. The caricatures we employ to illustrate this situ-ation – the (un)happy hedonist and the citizen-consumer– are then reconsidered with regard to the spatial andmaterial sensitivity that characterises geographicalwork on both young lives and consumption.

While it may be true that ‘young people are on geog-raphy’s agenda more than ever before’ (Vanderbeck 2008,394), their consumption experiences – both spatial andmaterial – have so far remained relatively distinct fromsustainable consumption research within the discipline.Despite demonstrable geographical interest in sustainabil-ity and the agency of young people, along with the sug-gestion that young people could be especially capable ofpromoting new ways of consuming (Wilska 2003), thesetopics have continued to talk past, rather than to, oneanother. Our aim here is to encourage a more directconversation – one that engages with the contextual

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experience of consuming and uses this engagement toidentify where and when young people might be inclinedto embrace more sustainable ways of doing so.

A tale of two teens: the (un)happy hedonistand the citizen-consumerResearch on the material facets of young people’s con-sumption to date has been dominated by two distinctapproaches. The first, drawn largely from consumerbehaviour studies, focuses on acquisition. While thisapproach acknowledges the role of peer and media influ-ences on consumption, its tendency towards providing a‘snapshot’ of buying decisions can obscure wider socio-cultural pressures. The second approach, commonamongst environmental educators and psychologists,considers the motivations for, and obstacles to, pro-environmental modes of behaviour. These studies focuson the role of education and specific interventions inencouraging sustainable consumption. Yet here, too, thebroader social context has often been overlooked. As aresult, the images of youth consumption emerging fromthese two disciplinary silos create a skewed sense of whatconsumption is about for young people. These images canbe characterised as the (un)happy hedonist and thecitizen-consumer.

The (un)happy hedonistFocused largely on motivations for acquisition, muchyouth research within the consumer behaviour literaturepaints a picture of adolescents as hedonistic – but notnecessarily happy – consumers. The accumulation ofanalogous conclusions coupled with, until recently, littlechallenge from other disciplines has helped cement thehegemony of this image. In turn, this feeds into popularconsciousness and is further fed by the glossy media ofmagazines, celebrity culture and currently popular realityTV series such as The Hills and Made in Chelsea, whichemphasise pursuit of the latest trends as they depict theglamorous personal lives of particularly privileged youngpeople in parts of Los Angeles and London.

The figure that results eagerly embraces the acquisitivedesires encouraged by the media and the market, and isalso in possession of the necessary financial means. Thehedonist revels in changing trends and keeping pace withnew fashions by being the first to own new things (Wilska2003). These aspirations are associated with impulsiveconsumption, particularly amongst girls, to which Griffinet al. (2005) suggest it is increasingly easy to succumb asa result of the low price of many consumer goods. The fallin the relative cost of many popular ‘youth’ items in recentyears, such as CDs, DVDs, clothes and consumer elec-tronics including mobile phones, has further opened upan expanded menu for young people’s autonomousconsumption.

Cheap goods are not the only purported driver,however. The satisfaction gained from acquiring newthings has been described as fleeting due to the increasinginsatiability of young people’s wants (Langer 2005), inline with wider studies of ‘manufactured need’ (Maniates2009). While investigations of how young people feelabout their new things post-purchase are largely absentfrom the youth consumption literature, a tendencytowards acquisition for short-term pleasure has been iden-tified (Autio and Heinonen 2004). All this, of course,should come as no surprise since understanding thenature of post-purchase dissatisfaction is not top priorityfor consumer behaviourists whose ultimate aim iscommonly to understand, and sometimes encourage,demand. Furthermore, a fixation with markets canobscure individuals’ attempts to resist the exhortations ofadvertising to consume more.

Yet resistance seems far from easy. While the hedonistmay experience bursts of short-term pleasure, this enjoy-ment may be overshadowed by anxiety. Young peoplehave reported considerable social pressure to ‘keep up’with new purchases they are ‘supposed’ to buy (Russelland Tyler 2005) or feeling obliged to leave shops withsomething in order to appear ‘respectable’ (Griffin et al.2005). The result is that many appear to experienceunhappiness and lack of fulfilment within a consumersociety in which it is exactly these feelings which per-versely are portrayed as key drivers (Bentley et al. 2004),thus forming a parallel with wider studies of the ultimatelyunsatisfying experience of contemporary consumption(Schor 1999).

This lack of fulfilment may simply fuel the fire of con-sumerism – consider the popular notion of ‘retail therapy’– and validate our perception of the hedonistic youngconsumer. Studies of young people’s emotional relation-ship with materialism suggest those with higher self-esteem or life satisfaction are less materialistic than thosewith lower levels (Chaplin and John 2007; Gaterslebenet al. 2008). Further, Warde (2005, 148) suggests experi-encing a sense of proficiency when engaging in particularconsumption practices can ‘deliver satisfaction and self-esteem’. Thus, for those young people who lack a sense ofself-worth from other life experiences, consuming – anddeveloping a sense of proficiency in consuming – couldrepresent a rare opportunity to gain and express confi-dence. The sense remains, though, that despite acts ofconsumption existing predominantly as facilitators ofbroader social goals, for the unhappy, unfulfilled hedo-nist, consuming is both cause and cure of their discontent.

It is telling, however, that the acquisitive traits whichpurportedly characterise current adolescent consumptionare not necessarily looked on favourably by young peoplethemselves. Situating themselves amongst their peers,Wilska’s respondents were keen to present themselves as

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less materialistic than ‘everyone else’ (Wilska 2003).Perhaps even the hedonist considers ‘excessive’ con-sumption undesirable, if not always easy to resist. Thishints at a second perspective which considers adolescentconsumption in a rather different light.

The citizen-consumerFrom the youth delegations that rounded upon the Copen-hagen and Cancún climate summits to the protests againsteducational reforms that have recently shaken cities inChile, Colombia, Ireland and the UK, many young peoplehave made clear their willingness to step up to the role ofcitizen, demanding economic and political change with aview to safeguarding their futures. However, in momentswhen the responsibilities of citizenship blur with thetemptations – and indeed the necessity – of consumption,driving change may be less about directing the actions ofothers than questioning one’s own. While the idea of a‘citizen-consumer’ emerged from interest in the politicaldimensions of consumption as explored by various disci-plines (Trentmann and Soper 2008), it is also useful indescribing how youth consumption is often framed inenvironmental education and environmental psychology.

From this vantage point, young people are viewed assomething of a holy grail by academics and policymakersalike, with environmental education researchers beingsome of the most emphatic promoters of young people’scapacities as agents of positive change (Ballantyne et al.2006; Bentley et al. 2004). Although the interactionsbetween environmental values and consumption choiceshave, so far, been infrequently documented for this group,the alleged importance of material possessions for youngpeople suggests their everyday consumption mightprovide a convenient context for action, and one in whichtheir potential contribution to sustainability could beconsiderable.

Of interest to educators and psychologists concernedwith how to effect such transformations have been thesocial networks of young people within which mundaneencounters are framed as key moments of potential influ-ence. Peer influence amongst young people is now widelyaccepted2, but they are also influential family members.Consumption research from a range of disciplines hasascertained that young people and their parents are bothsources and recipients of mutual influences (Bentley et al.2004; Griffin et al. 2005; Russell and Tyler 2005; Shimet al. 2011), and environmental educators have been swiftto spot the potential of this influence to re-shape familybehaviours. Here, young people are viewed as ‘Trojanhorses’, capable of sowing seeds of positive change withinnetworks of family and friends (Ballantyne et al. 2006;Uzzell 1999).

However, while research shows that sometimes merediscussion between young people and parents about pro-

environmental actions can have positive impacts onhousehold habits (Ballantyne et al. 2001), the fragility ofthese newly acquired behaviours has also been noted(Payne 2005). It is worth remembering these actions aresituated in specific spatial and temporal settings that arecharacterised by reflexivity and change, and, as a result,their durability may depend on individuals’ preparednessto challenge both personal habits inside the home andprevailing norms outside it. This topic remains underex-plored, but it has been young people’s willingness tochallenge conventions that, within this account, putsthem centre stage in the push towards householdsustainability.

Yet only a few environmental education studies haveexplicitly investigated the relationship between youngpeople’s environmental concern and their personal sus-tainable consumption intentions and actions (Autio andHeinonen 2004; Autio et al. 2009 in Finland; Bentleyet al. 2004 in Australia) – a topic explored in geography interms of the ‘value–action gap’ (Barr 2006; Blake 1999;Hobson 2008; Reid et al. 2010). Revealing the limitedextent to which intention leads to action, these studiesunderline the complexity of the values systems informingyoung people’s consumption choices and highlight mul-tiple barriers to pro-environmental action3. Nevertheless,for those who follow intention through to action, feelingsof self-worth have been reported as the reward (De Young1996; Ojala 2007), and in light of the fragility of self-esteem amongst young people discussed above, thisoutcome should not be overlooked.

However, reaching the point at which the citizen-consumer is sufficiently empowered to spread changethrough their social network requires individual senses ofagency to first be firmly established. At present, the sort ofpositive encounters that result in affirmation of self-efficacyare experienced by only a minority due to multipleobstacles ranging from pessimism about the environmentto self-confessed laziness regarding the ‘inconvenience’ ofmore sustainable behaviours (Ojala 2007 2008). As aresult, transforming consumption amongst young peopleby encouraging pro-environmental inclinations seems byno means a foregone conclusion.

Two teens united?While the citizen-consumer may be aware of environ-mental issues and feel a sense of responsibility to maketheir consumption more sustainable, this awareness doesnot necessarily translate into an intention to act accord-ingly or a determination to forgo the pleasures of hedo-nistic consumption. Even young people interested insustainability sometimes prioritise their consumer desiresabove their citizenship responsibilities. Thus the hedonistand the citizen-consumer appear to be facets of the sameindividual.

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This fusing of identities is reflected in instances whenconsumption choices originally devised in the spirit ofresistance are assimilated into consumerism (Frank 1997).Consider designer Anja Hindmarch’s cotton shopping bagwhich embodied disdain towards disposable equivalentsby proudly proclaiming ‘I’m not a plastic bag.’ For many,this was the ‘must-have’ accessory of 2007 (BBC 2007). AsGabriel and Lang (2006 [1995]) suggest, such ‘politicalstatement’ consumption is likely to be more popular withyoung people than ascetic ‘do without’ approaches, sinceit allows them to appease their desire to perform acts ofcitizenship (drawing attention to a cause, if not alwaysfollowing through with personal actions) without threat-ening the social priorities within which consuming playssuch a central role. This suggests that placing acts ofconsumption at the centre of the drive towards sustain-ability may elicit engagement from a wider range of youngpeople. And this, in turn, raises important questions as towhich aspects of youth consumption might be most use-fully – or most appealingly – framed in these terms.

Acknowledging that individuals ‘do’ consumption dif-ferently as a result of priorities that shift according tocontext may seem an obvious statement in light of itswidespread acceptance in the consumption literature(Strannegård and Dobers 2010), yet it is worth remember-ing in view of the contradictory perspectives that reflectthe current status of youth consumption research. In onesense the inconsistencies described above may simplyreflect a tendency amongst young people to switchbetween affiliations or frames of reference according tothe social situation at hand, or even their mood. But, atthe same time, they may also reflect the preoccupations ofdisciplines that have concerned themselves with thissubject so far, and how they naturally drift towards con-clusions that sit comfortably with the world views thattypify them. If young people’s consumption – and theircapacity to drive change towards sustainability – is a keyconcern for academics and policymakers alike, we mustfind ways of reconciling the insights emerging from bothcaricatures. It is here that geographers may have much tooffer.

New geographies of youth consumption andsustainability: exploring spatial andmaterial contextsTaking features of our caricatures as signposts and build-ing on recent work regarding the spatial and materialdimensions of youth consumption, we suggest someways in which geographers might respond to the abovesituation. As the caricatures reveal, accounts of youthconsumption currently lack the socio-cultural contextu-alisation that makes the actions that are their focusmeaningful to both the young people experiencing them

and researchers aiming to understand them. Exploringthese contexts has been core business for geographersand, as such, geographically sensitive studies could notonly refine understandings of ‘the young consumer’ butenrich the field of consumption geographies as a wholein the process.

To date, the primary focus of geographers studyingyouth consumption has been the experience of consump-tion spaces such as shopping malls (Matthews et al. 2000;Thomas 2005; Vanderbeck and Johnson 2000), whereemphasis has been placed on young people’s feelings ofmarginalisation, concerns around safety, and negotiationand conflict with other inhabitants. While they point topressing questions about the consumption of physicalspaces by youth at a time when public spending cuts arebiting hard on opportunities for the young, there is alsoscope to extend these inquiries by incorporating a moreexplicit engagement with the material. For instance, towhat extent might the material objects of consumption bemore or less important to young people than their need forsocial spaces of their own? If material acquisitiveness is,even in part, symptomatic of young people’s socialisationin consumption spaces due to lack of feasible alternatives,environmental as well as social imperatives lend weight tothe need to create and safeguard less commercial recre-ational spaces for youth.

Interest in the inhabitation of particular spaces alsolinks to questions about the possibility of resistancethrough consumption raised by the two caricatures. It hasbeen suggested, for instance, that young people’s attemptsat resistance are often marked by a tendency to inhabitmarginal spaces (Bottrell 2007; Jeffrey 2011). It could,therefore, be pertinent to investigate marginal socialspaces – peer group affiliations set apart from the ‘main-stream’ and arranged around particular values, interests orbeliefs. While the (un)happy hedonist is preoccupied withpersonal image and the citizen-consumer with ambiva-lence and sporadic self efficacy, Bottrell (2007) suggestsyoung people’s attempts at resistance are, similarly,closely linked with identity work, status and reputation.Thus, association with others committed to the sameideals may offer young people the means to gain theesteem and self-efficacy to which the caricatures aspire.Engaging in acts of resistance that are visibly shared withlike-minded others could lead to solidarity in the courseof affirming new identities that are sustainable both envi-ronmentally and in terms of lasting beyond the short term.When acting in concert with others, it is possible thatsustainable modes of consumption may start to seem notonly feasible but also desirable.

To gain a fuller picture of how and why specific formsof consumption-based resistance gain momentumamongst young people, other research might exploretheir associations with social groupings that, while not

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‘mainstream’, may no longer be ‘marginal’ either. Food-related consumption (see, for example, Edwards andMercer 2007) might prove an illuminating starting point.Often rooted in environmental concerns, these consump-tion choices can extend beyond food to objects includingclothing and household items, and involve direct nego-tiation with those sharing living and eating spaces. Incor-porating questions around self-efficacy, personal andgroup identity, and resistance to cultural norms, this lineof enquiry would also bring geographies of sustainablefood consumption (Maxey 2007) into dialogue with youthconsumption in ways that further expand our understand-ing of how, why and where particular forms of consump-tion are practised.

Developing work on how consumption experiences areshaped by the physical spaces in which they take place,there are pertinent questions to ask about spaces beyondthe shopping mall. Building on the work of Crewe, forinstance, who has explored the socio-cultural dimensionsof consumption as practised in various sites of acquisition(Crewe 2000), questions might be asked about how youngpeople’s experiences in specific consumption spacesimpact upon their practices of material consumption boththere and in other locations. We might, for instance, askhow consumption at home, particularly practices shapedby family routine, influence decisions made by youngpeople about acquisition. Reid et al. (2010) have recentlychampioned the household as a unit of analysis in pro-environmental behaviour research and the active pres-ence of young people within households should not beoverlooked, particularly in view of environmental educa-tors’ hopes to deploy them as agents of change withinexactly these contexts.

Indeed, bringing young people into investigations ofroutine consumption at home would forge timely linkswith the material practices of ordinary consumption within‘adult’ worlds since these practices are increasingly tied tothe theme of sustainability (Southerton et al. 2004). Themateriality of young people’s consumption remains, atpresent, an under-researched topic, despite the fact thatexamining how material objects are practically employedcould reveal much about the nature of the concerns,priorities and norms amongst different groups of youngpeople. Geographers have already taken some steps in thisdirection. Hitchings and Lee’s (2008) study of young Sin-gaporeans’ use of air conditioning, for instance, connectssocial norms and expectations of ambient temperaturewith changing ideas about acceptable physical experienceand the management of comfort through clothing. Gram-Hanssen (2007) has similarly connected Danish youngpeople’s use of water in bodily cleanliness practices withfamily and peer norms, revealing suggestions about sus-tainable showering which the studies associated with thetwo caricatures would have been unable to expose.

Given the importance of material ‘things’ to youngpeople, there is also much to learn about exactly how andwhy certain material items are valued and how they areimplicated in the reproduction of particular youth con-sumption practices. Studies tracing the use of specificobjects – mobile phones, for instance – could be especiallyrevealing here.These may go some way towards addressingone of the most significant gaps in youth consumptionresearch and an equally important tenet of sustainability –the nature of young people’s (dis)satisfaction with certainpossessions, and what it means to have ‘enough’.

These are just a few directions future enquiries mightfollow. There are potentially many other ways for researchwith youth to connect with wider consumption geogra-phies and the manner in which those working in this fieldhave explored their spatial and material contexts (Barnettet al. 2005; Gregson 1995; Mansvelt 2008).

ConclusionThe consumption practices of young people has been mostfully evaluated within disciplines with markedly differentagendas. On the one hand, the tendency of consumerbehaviourists to capture only ‘snapshots’ of acquisitionhas contributed to a perception of youth as impulsivepleasure seekers. On the other hand, environmental edu-cators and psychologists have been keen to position youthas the ‘holy grail’ of sustainability, but they have yet toengage fully with the impact of cultural context on thelikelihood that young people will deliver on this promise.This, as our caricatures demonstrate, has resulted in anincomplete and often contradictory picture of their expe-riences. With this in mind, we have sought to examinehow geographers could usefully bring their contextualsensitivity to the youth consumption studies table. Webelieve pursuing this line of enquiry could be valuable forat least two reasons.

First, understanding the interplay of values, dispositionsand priorities that shapes young people’s consumption isimportant since many are likely to be carried through intoadulthood when increasingly impactful consumption deci-sions will be made. If young people truly are the Trojanhorses of sustainability that environmental educators hopethey are, such an understanding will be fundamental indriving change. Whilst acknowledging the contestednature of the term, youth is necessarily about transition andthus may be characterised by greater reflection on one’schoices – from the significant to the mundane – than weentertain at later points in life. Not only can young people’sworlds be considered a microcosm of the challenges andopportunities presented by contemporary consumption,they can also be viewed as potential crucibles of positiveresponse. We would do well to remember that youth is atime of both identity crystallisation and habit formation,

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such that the practices embraced at this time may provequite obdurate thereafter.

Second, and as illustrated by the two caricatures, thereare multiple consumption ‘personalities’ that all of us, butperhaps particularly young people, adopt. Bringing a con-textual sensitivity to the processes through which we findourselves picking one over another into dialogue withwider consumption scholarship could help refine existingcharacterisations of how and why we consume and evenuncover new ones. In this respect, trying to understandwhat differentiates the situations in which young peopleare more inclined to act as ‘citizens’ than ‘consumers’might be a good place to start, and geographical perspec-tives on the spatial and material elements involved couldprove especially helpful here.

To paraphrase Holloway and Valentine (2000), thevalue of conducting research with young people is notonly to consider how their worlds are unique and inter-esting for their own sake, but also to see how their expe-riences speak to wider debates in academia and beyond.Building on the two caricatures presented here, wesuggest that geographical studies at the intersection ofyouth consumption and sustainability are in an excellentposition to corroborate this claim.

Acknowledgements

Our thanks to Ben Page for helpful conversations early in thelife of this paper. This article draws on Rebecca Collins’s doc-toral research, which is funded by an ESRC studentship, no.ES/G017581/1.

Notes

1 Definitions of ‘youth’ and associated descriptions of thisportion of the life course are notoriously difficult to delineate.The literatures referred to in this paper describe their partici-pants as being, variously, ‘teenagers’, ‘adolescents’, ‘youth’ and‘young people’. These largely describe individuals aged 13–20,although Bentley et al. (2004) include ‘young people’ up to theage of 28 in their research. As Skelton and Valentine (1998)note in their excellent discussion of this subject, the boundariesconstituting these definitions depend largely on who is doingthe defining and to what ends. For the purposes of this paper,we refer predominantly to young people aged 13–20, whomight therefore also be described as ‘youth’ or ‘adolescents’. Itshould be noted, however, that the arguments of the paper mayalso have relevance for young people in their twenties who arevariously described as youth, young people or, sometimes,(young) adults.

2 Peer influence amongst adolescents has been explored across anumber of disciplines and in the context of issues ranging fromsmoking, drinking and drug use to eating habits, risk-taking andanti-social behaviour.

3 This includes external barriers such as infrastructural con-straints (lack of facilities, for example) and internal barriers,such as doubts as to the efficacy of personal action.

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