A Pleasure Greater Than Myself. Consumption, Pleasure and Sustainability.

In recent years, sustainable consumption has often been studied through the lenses of practice theories which have largely moved beyond a concern with subjectivity and pleasure. This paper considers the discourse around sustainable consumption as a fundamental territory where visions of subjectivity are produced and reproduced, and new definitions and experiences of pleasure are possible. Different dimensions of sustainable consumption – practical, symbolic and moral – are explored by looking at empirical research on alternative food networks and the way they involve new visions of consumer sovereignty. These visions articulate both a notion of authenticity which is contextual and relational and a vision of wellbeing which stretches beyond the present into projects wider than the self. It also comes with a reappraisal of the notion of quality of goods – including fairness as well as aesthetic qualities. Potentially alternative to neo-classical and neoliberal views, such a vision of consumer sovereignty adumbrates pleasure as a form of responsibility for personal, creative well-being and fulfilment which is meant to be opposed to mere acquisition and spending power. Consumers’ capacity to develop and elaborate new pleasures in sustainable consumption is thereby to be taken seriously. Pleasure is not only an important element of the experience of sustainable consumers, but it is also a crucial element in the promotion of sustainability in consumption. The paper concludes by exploring how pleasure is re-defined and re-organized in the promotion of alternative food networks, stressing longer temporalities, thicker relationships and more reflexive relation with materiality.