From Thin to Thick Relationships with Objects: Constituting Subjectivity through Consumer-Object Folds

Abstract

Overconsumption is often blamed for upholding unsustainable ways of living and producing thin relationships between consumers and objects of consumption. This conceptual chapter offers an alternative view by focusing on the constitution of consumer subjectivity. It focuses especially on how the different wasteness of consumption objects, such as bananas, smartphones, and used armchairs, shape our subjectivity and the relationships we have with the objects. With the wasteness of consumption objects, the authors refer to the tendency of all objects to turn into waste. As the chapter illustrates, wasteness is a quality that is always present in all objects and thus not only related to the acts of disposing and excluding unwanted things. We argue that the wasteness of objects is not always a negative quality in an object, but instead it may be understood as a quality for making the relationship between consumers and the objects thicker and more caring.