Social Sciences in China Review

No.3, 2018

Consumption Space: A Perspective of Relationalism（Abstract）

Zheng Zhen

Social space is a form of social relationship woven by the significance of practice. Consumption space is an important mode of existence within modern social space. It is a network of practical relationships that has the meaning of pre-reflective, pre-objective and pre-discourse consumption at its core, and it is a product of practice and cooperation between consumers and producers. Its form is the symbolic space where goods with social identity and differentiated values and their use are the important symbols. Consumers’ symbolic practices contain great power of group identity and distinction, which demonstrates that consumption space is divergent and unequal. The inequality is constructed by modern people to demonstrate the value of their existence and by their paradoxical pursuit of a sense of security.