Consumption Modes and Lifestyles: when the Ones' Understanding help to better grasp the Others

International audienceNordic countries have often been considered as among the most concerned countries to display the most complete equality possible among their citizens--thereby reducing the mechanisms of distinction and imitation associated with consumption and specific lifestyles. Perhaps this image has always been rather excessive. After all, it is probably not by accident that the very concept of "conspicuous comsumption" was developed in 1899 by an American scholar of Norwegian origin, Thorstein Veblen, in his theory of the Leisure class. In fact, the view of strictness and asceticism often projected on Nordic citizens is probably exaggerated. Moreover, it partially contradicts their image as pioneers of sexual and gender liberation which is also attributed to them. Our goal is to revisit these culturalist "easy" approaches by giving an overview of the variety of Nordic consumption practices, and by showing the ways in which global patterns of consumption and cultural developments are interrelated. In so doing, this issue echoes the transformations which occurred in the social sciences during the last fifteen or twenty years, with a particular interest placed on the role of objects on the one hand, and on the methods liable to account for them on the other hand