Consumer revolution in People's Poland: Technologies in everyday life and the negotiation between custom and fashion (1945-1980)
Streszczenie
Drawing upon ethnographic data, this article discusses the adoption of technologies into
everyday life in People’s Poland, in the wider theoretical context of the consumer
revolution or a shift in consumption patterns towards fashion. There were two mechanisms
of the consumer revolution in People’s Poland: collective usefulness and modern
hedonism. For the mechanism of collective usefulness, the main factors in the shift in
consumption patterns were the state-controlled propaganda of ‘progress’ and the
domestication of technology. Household appliances were adopted as necessities that
helped people fulfil their needs, in line with the idea of ‘progress’ propagated by the
authorities of People’s Poland in the post-war period. In the process of the domestication
of technology, customarily female activities were changing into flexible practices
of using household appliances driven by fashion. In the case of modern hedonism, the
main factor in the shift towards fashion was the ‘advertising’ of a Western standard of
living in American films shown on television in the 1960s. The course of the consumer
revolution was diversified by gender, social class and generation.
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