The Unmanageable Consumer

Yiannis Gabriel is Professor of Organizational Theory at Bath University. Yiannis has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College London and a PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.  Yiannis is well known for his work into organizational storytelling and narratives, leadership, management learning and the culture and politics of contemporary consumption. He has used stories as a way of studying numerous social and organizational phenomena including leader-follower relations, group dynamics and fantasies, nostalgia, insults and apologies. He has also carried out extensive research on the psychoanalysis of organizations.  Yiannis is founder and coordinator of the Organizational Storytelling Seminar series, now in its fourteenth year (See http://www.organizational-storytelling.org.uk/), the author of nine books and numerous articles. He is elected to the board of EGOS and is currently Senior Editor of Organization Studies. His enduring fascination as a researcher lies in what he describes as the unmanageable qualities of life in and out of organizations.Tim Lang has been Professor of Food Policy at City University′s Centre for Food Policy since 2002. With a PhD in Social Psychology from Leeds University he became a hill farmer in Lancashire, North of England, in the 1970s. Over the last four decades he has engaged in public and academic research and debate about food policy: what sort of food system do we want? What do we mean by progress? He has written and co-written 10 books and many reports and papers on the trends, problems and policy frameworks in the food system. A constant theme is how public health, environment, social justice and consumer rights do and don’t connect. Besides his academic work, he has been an advisor to many bodies including the World Health Organisation, the EU Environment Commissioner, the Mayor of London and many civil society organisations. He was the UK Government’s Sustainable Development Commissioner for food and land use in 2006-11. All this enquiry and engagement spawned and retains his keen interest in the issues analysed in The Unmanageable Consumer.

• The Emergence Of Contemporary ConsumerismThe Consumer As ChooserThe Consumer As CommunicatorThe Consumer As ExplorerThe Consumer As Identity-SeekerThe Consumer As HedonistThe Consumer As VictimThe Consumer As RebelThe Consumer As ActivistThe Consumer As CitizenThe Consumer As WorkerThe Unmanageable Consumer

The Unmanageable Consumer has long been one of my favorite books in the sociology of consumption. This long overdue third edition has updated and revised the basic argument in many ways. Most importantly, it now offers a new chapter on the consumer as worker or, more generally, the prosumer. It also takes into account the fact that consumption, better hyper-consumption, is not only still with us, but if anything it is accelerating. The continued increase in hyper-consumption and the rapidly changing nature of consumption/prosumption, as well as their relationship to one another, make this edition more relevant than ever. Assign it to your classes (I have… and will again) and read it for your edification.