SY2025:04
Consumption and Leisure
Cairns
HECS Band 1
26 hours lectures, 24 hours tutorials. Semester 1.
Staff: Dr R Wilkinson.
The increasing importance of consumption and leisure for members of advanced societies is one of the most marked socio-cultural trends of the twentieth century. The advent of ‘consumer society’ in the mid-twentieth century was associated with fundamental changes in capitalist economies and the rise of an affluent working class, while recent decades have seen an increasing link between consumption and diverse ‘lifestyles’ in the context of an emerging global economy and culture. This subject reviews the socio-cultural significance of these trends, linking them to other major processes and structures and showing how they can be analysed from a range of sociological perspectives. The specific forms of consumption and leisure to be studied include shopping and fashion, food and eating habits, spectator sports and tourism.
Learning Objectives:
- identify the major changes to consumption and leisure practices in Australia and elsewhere during the twentieth century;
- understand and use the sociological concepts and arguments that help to explain those changes;
- relate patterns of consumption and leisure to broader socio-cultural patterns in contemporary Australia and elsewhere.
Assessment by tutorial activities (10%); essay (40%); final examination (50%).