Cultura e consumo: uma explicação teórica da estrutura e do movimento do significado cultural dos bens de consumo

RAE-CLÁSSICOS

Cultura e consumo: uma explicação teórica da estrutura e do movimento do significado cultural dos bens de consumo

Grant McCracken

Harvard Business School

RESUMO

Numa sociedade de consumo, o significado cultural se move incessantemente de um ponto para outro. Na trajetória normal, o significado cultural se move primeiro do mundo culturalmente constituído para os bens de consumo e desses para o consumidor individual. Diversos instrumentos são responsáveis por esse movimento: a publicidade, o sistema de moda e quatro rituais de consumo. Este artigo analisa o movimento do significado cultural do ponto de vista teórico, demonstrando onde reside o signifi cado cultural no sistema de consumo da América do Norte e os meios por onde o signifi cado se transfere de um ponto do sistema para outro.

Palavras-chave: Antropologia, bens de consumo, significado cultural, sistema de consumo.

ABSTRACT

Cultural meaning in a consumer society moves ceaselessly from one location to another. In the usual trajectory, cultural meaning moves first from the culturally constituted world to consumer goods and then from these goods to the individual consumer. Several instruments are responsible for this movement: advertising, the fashion system, and four consumption rituals. This article analyses the movement of cultural meaning theoretically, showing both where cultural meaning is resident in the contemporary North American consumer system and the means by which this meaning is transferred from one location in this system to another.

Keywords: Anthropology, consumer goods, cultural meaning, consumer system.

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AGRADECIMENTO

O autor agradece às seguintes pessoas por sua contribuição a este artigo: Michael Ames, Duncan Joy, Mary Ellen Roach-Higgins, K. O. L. Burridge, e aos revisores anônimos deste periódico.

Este artigo é de propriedade exclusiva da University of Chicago Press, tanto quanto sua licença de uso, e é protegido pelo Copyright e pelas leis de propriedade intelectual. É um material destinado a uso pessoal e não comercial. Qualquer outro tipo de uso deste artigo é estritamente proibido. O usuário não poderá modificar, publicar, transmitir, participar na transferência nem na venda do material, reproduzir, criar trabalhos dele derivados (inclusive material didático), distribuir, realizar apresentação nem fazer nenhuma utilização do seu conteúdo, inteiro ou em partes. Este artigo foi traduzido objetivando expressamente esta publicação. The University of Chicago Press não assumirá nenhuma responsabilidade por erros de interpretação causados pela tradução. O artigo "Culture and consumption: a theoretical account of the structure and movement of the cultural meaning of consumer goods", do autor Grant McCracken, foi originalmente publicado no Journal of Consumer Research, v. 13, n. 1, p. 71-84, 1986, e reproduzido com sua autorização.

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Artigo convidado.

Aprovado em 01.02.2006.

Grant McCracken

Professor da Harvard Business School.

Interesse de pesquisa nas áreas de antropologia do consumo, antropologia e economia, marketing.

E-mail: [e-mail]

Blog: <http://www.cultureby.com/>

Datas de Publicação

• Publicação nesta coleção
  31 Maio 2012
• Data do Fascículo
  Mar 2007

Histórico

• Aceito
  01 Fev 2006
• Recebido
  01 Fev 2006