1. This study examines how fashion consumption influences identity development among university students in Lima, Peru. It finds that the students see themselves as having academic, economic, and social strength compared to previous generations, allowing them to overcome historical segregation.
2. Fashion consumption acts as a tool for social mobility and communication of evolving identities. Students use clothing to project future leadership roles and navigate different social spheres. Mothers especially influence fashion choices as a way to advance the family name.
3. Identities are flexible and combinatorial, allowing students to strategically present themselves differently in various social contexts. Fashion brands provide "pieces of a puzzle" to construct identities seen as desirable within social groups.
Igniting Next Level Productivity with AI-Infused Data Integration Workflows
#Consumption and Identity
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FASHION CONSUMPTION AND IDENTITY IN EMERGING PEOPLE: A CULTURAL APPROACH
NICOLAS ORTIZ ESAINE
Sr. Lecturer - Communication, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Perú
ABSTRACT
Study on youth and the influence of fashion consumption in developing their identity and culture, seeking to understand the
interrelationships between consumption and identity. This study is focus on fashion consumption (dress and grooming) because this issue is
representative of contemporary consumption society, also in terms of intensity contain the dynamics of supply and demand, and also its
potential to include symbolic elements on your purchase, use and subsequent experience. The study focuses on emergent young people of
Lima, as the sector greater social , economic and demographic dynamism of the capital of Peru, in a context of economic growth
internationally recognized. Specifically, we have segmented the universitary young people, because constitute a symbolic population of
generational change and social mobility on this regional context of economical and social changes.
KEYWORDS: Antropología Del Consumo, Moda, Identidad, Cultura, Jóvenes Universitarios, emergent markets.
INTRODUCTION: “Any act or great voice comes from the village and goes to him, front or transmitted by incessant blades, by pink smoke
bitter passwords without fortune”.
César Vallejo
The study of young people in emerging cities has been abundant studies in terms of political and socio-economic nature , viewed
from the perspective of voting population and at light of social problems. But this youth population is studied as an anonymous mass , without
understanding its impact on the cultural implications of consumption and fashion, also as generators of social reality, perceptions and
contemporary symbolism.
The young people of emerging middle class, are agents of change in any society approach. These people generate as new perspectives
in the way of understanding the world as radical changes on society; also act as aesthetic´s referents and consumption´s guides, could
redirecting supply and demand. Their strategies of adquisition motivate to re- conceive the ideal of being of our postmodernity. An examples
is the rapid penetration and influence of information technologies, that are causing changes in the way of socializing, being the young early
adopters these media and the forms of interaction that its technology supposed.
Eventual, journalists take part on young people but only in the sense of new fashion trends and extremely fun, support the vision of
the other like an exotic alien, for a hearing that they supposed to be classical and urban. This intensify an adult look, sometimes moralistic,
when in charge of recording social phenomena triggered by some cultural consumption such as music, dance and its relationship with the
adolescent eroticism, besides tattoos and gangs, youth media idols, drug use, graffiti and neighborhoods. In other hand, the positive end of this
newsworthy speech on economic progress documentary rises to attempt the discovery of subcultures, moved or new lifestyles, where urban art
decorates these chronic in theater, adventure sports, musicians that exceed the social exclusion, among other stories with some melodramatic
style.
BACKGROUND
2. 2
Nationalism and individualism have ruled the study of the behavior of subjects in relation to consumption, isolating the person in a
brace called behavioral personality, a fact that intensifies in the literature under the premise of "brain decoding". This suggests a modern
subject isolated from the rest, under identification numbers, minimizing the influence of cultural and social context that surrounds it. The
modern ideal of rationality to explain behavior becomes ideological, and seeks to raise the animal condition of the common man to become
the supreme being of the nature and its resources. Prototype ideal of human being that would differ from the other species by its free ability to
choose rationally disarming biological, emotional or cultural impulses.
This paradigm founded the “economist theory” who heads the literature, academia and business credo, which lead to the assumption
that consumption choices are mathematical operations performed by the cerebral cortex of subjects, systematically and consciously logic. This
model finds its limits when it seeks to predict economic cycles and market trends based on these logical -rational assumptions of subjects.
Ergo, it is difficult to understand logic of practicality, or criteria decision making in a social laboratory of trial and error. Rationalist model
that resists incorporating novelty, also biological, cultural or psychological imprints of subjects. In that vein, the theory neo - classical appeal
to consumption lass rational consumption decisions. This economic approach is limited in front of a hyper - stimulated consumer, with a a
vast and changing offer, and not a uniformity global socio-culture.
The psychological theory is based on the definition of personality or a "personal - deity " (dixit) that explain everything and , while
not explain anything concrete consumer behavior (Hevia , 2002). And the behavior of the contemporary subject , defined in most of their daily
circumstances as a consumer, cannot be understood as a summations of individuals, not understanding how this fit your environment. It is
important to understand how variables geographical, social, historical, linguistic, mythological, socializing perform their perceptions.
It is therefore necessary to have multiple approaches, which help to understand the different influences on the decision-making of the
modern subject, or consumers. These should help understand your reasons for behavior and test predictive models of their consumption, as
well as the impact of their decisions on economic, social and cultural cycles. The concept of pecuniary emulation explains the importance of
conspicuous consumption factor; it turns to kind of a language used to identify, communicate status and generate mechanisms of interaction
between family groups as basic economic and social unit (Veblen, 1955). This author integrates social perceptions the economy, the dynamics
between the use value and symbolic value. Also, for Bourdieu the "distinction" deepens the differentiating role of consumption in the social
whole, from its analysis of the criterion of taste in cultural goods (Bourdieu, 1988).
Modernity and globalization bring us daily information more comprehensive and durable world. But the media reality speaks of a
new generation of children, sons´s of immigrants, who are empowered by the Internet, the study of foreign languages and their massive
inclusion in higher education. With this, they become important players in the consumer society, bringing an air of modernity; despite of they
had not been covered by traditional marketing. Modernity, for Deleuze, is face the untimely repetition of accelerated, due to the changes of
globalization of information, markets and consumers (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004). Young emergent consumers have mobile identities and
enormous possibilities of reinvention, but with resistant ancestral influences for their strong family ties and affective dependance.
People play different roles in everyday life, breaking the notion of a monolitic personality. In this case, identities are tested in a theater of
operations or social laboratory (Goffman , 1994). Also, this approach is useful as a hermeneutical criterion for understanding the limits of the
researcher to take part of the social question. The dramaturgical approach to social study overcomes the interpretive dilemmas of subjectivity
of the subject, to reveal the social purpose that met your actions in certain social contexts. Aims to identify the script that participants play in
the social scenario, where they could assume multiple roles and actoral performances; beyond to a positivist approach of interpretation of
social behavior. The reconstruction of the social script allow us analyze the game multiple personalities of the people , their forms of
interaction - communication and social structure underlying . Social situations became the object of study, and may interpret or anticipate
them, according to the roles assigned by the social situation behaviors.
3. 3
In traditional research techniques such as focus groups or interviews (called "in deep") the respondent tacitly he assumes a collaborative work,
product of the negotiation of the own studio. They give answers deliberately seeking acceptance , showing a collaborative attitude or trying to
achieve a sufficiently logical answer. The interviewed plays a dramatic role, it becomes a joint work or a speech built on consensus between
the interviewer and interviewee; rather than a real intervention in the life of the person. These techniques work to validate , in retrospect,
historical phenomena but that do not guarantee provide a pattern certain future behaviors .
To Golte, the usual instruments such as interview, life history , participant observation , discourse analysis would be irrelevant to
understanding a changing perception of identity and reality of the youth ( Golte & Leon, 2010). This is true if we consider the inability of
traditional investigative techniques to reflect becomings in a population, especially the young audience that is marked by the immediacy and
planned obsolescence. Techniques are limited by isolating the subjects of their actual consumption and socialization contexts, and the
producing artificial laboratory environments ( Gesell how the camera). Moreover, these techniques produce descriptive research and only
reach the conscious state of the subject, with answers that are limited by social desirability or the power exercised by the researcher and the
situation on the respondent; in a foreign environment. These techniques , especially in industrialized market research, do not allow to
contemplate the dynamics of personal transformation and disruptions , because its premise is to reduce costs and produce more studies in an
economy of scale. Therefore, the reasons for the behavior can not be understood by rational decisions under the scheme of classical
behaviorist , without analyzing the context through which interprets their needs and the influence of culture on perceptions .
The subject, from birth, requires share the lifeblood of another human being. Forming a first unit with the mother, then faces the
mirror to be recognized as a third party. While forge a deep inner world and accumulated patterns of behavior , this individuality is marked by
the influences of their original groups and interactions to which it is subjected to ensure survival. They are beliefs, values and behaviors under
a collective corpus called culture there is consensus as to the members of his community and has been validated by the subject to their
acceptance in the group. Particularly consumption often involves intensive social moments . The views on things and events generate a shared
understanding that lodged in the collective and individual minds. The ability of consumer research will seek to identify those impressions and
package them as a proposal for offer of sense, a cognitive solution in exchange of a commercial transaction. The new young educated, of the
new emerging middle class, in a social circumstance as is consumption, operates and is the subject of views on others in the context of social
interaction.
METHODS
For the present study, we analyzed the role of consumption , specifically fashion , in defining the identity of young people and their
cultural settings , understanding how these elements I would link from a case study of university students in the emerging area North Lima.
We start from a concept of social influence the new young educated middle class emerging in a social circumstance as is consumption, who
operates and is the subject of views on others in the context of social interaction. From this experience, we can understand that the researcher's
work would be based on its ability to record and interpret the multiple combinatorial identities and tribes consumer environments ,
transactions, symbolic objects , rituals , languages , myths and discourse of consumption.
We searched seeks to understand the correlation between the consumption of Fashion and the construction of identity from a case
study of university students in North Lima . The methodology used in this research was qualitative type : Depth Interviews (20 ), semi structured , which includes the different variables of consumption, identity and fashion ; Focus Group ( 02) Divided by (06 ) and men (06 )
women studying in North Lima ; field observation in public places ( 03) shopping centers , clubs , universities, including a record field of the
selected target audiences. Additionally, self-observation, divided by ( 10) and men (10 ) women students of North Lima .
4. 4
The group of participants consisted of young women and men , taking into account that they had between 18 and 24 years, and 5
years of permanence in the northern districts of Lima . They all have in common as having completed or be currently enrolled in university
studies.
FRAMEWORKS
En la medida en que se comprendan los mecanismos sociales que intervienen en el consumo, se puede comprender la conducta
individual y colectiva en la era posmoderna, ya que la vida viable en la sociedad a través de la satisfacción de necesidades, desde las básicas
hasta trascendentales.
N1
Pyramid
Identity
N3
Consumption
Matrix
(fashion)
N2 Social
Influence
Network
Figure 1: Correlation Identity, Social Influence and Consumption of Fashion
To do this, the analysis of the information collected in relation to consumption seen as motivated by social activity that raises Veblen,
who believes that understanding the consumer acts be reckoned consider social influence exercised is presented on the subject and the social
consequences of acts of consumption.
RESULTS
The youth of North Lima are in a stage of transition in terms of class identity, a critically generational differentiation with their
migrant parents and a constant struggle for acceptance in academic , social and labor circuits. The challenge is even greater if we consider that
no previous history or enjoy relating to socialize effectively in these new scenarios. Finally, the next step is to conquer the monopoly of taste,
in which the symbolic struggles and cultural production is the key to who will become the triumphant face of a region on economical rising.
From the review, the following results on the relationship between identity and consumption of fashion on university students in North Lima
are established:
1.
The "Effort´s speech" permeates Identity of youth, being the only means to achieve personal and family goals . But in turn , divide
two strategies and groups: those who opt for a pragmatic course work versus those who opt for radical artistic intellectualism
(supported by a rise in living conditions).
5. 5
2.
Youth are self- defined as a population with academic, economic and social strength . Thus evade the mechanisms of racial
segregation that historically limited their relatives, generating a wave of neo - sincerity , that breaks the monopoly of appearances
(taste´s monopoly) governed by the Creole middle classes.
3.
They project their future identity, associated with an image of leadership. Power that would border with some forms of
Authoritarianism, playing roles of differentiating power within society according to North Lima educational and commercial access;
mechanism segmentation own of consumerist capitalist system.
4.
Mothers are the most important and notorious social influence. Exert their dominance through financial logistics of fashion
consumption . And it is through their clothing educated children , they mobilize their own family name and identity to new
educational and labor groups, where they have will be constantly challenged for their origin and evolution.
5.
Consumption of Fashion is a thermometer of own discourses of identity in contemporary times. In that sense, the pursuit of "comfort
in dress" is a strategy to address the multiple social spheres in which these young people live (modern urbanizing).
6.
Consumption of fashion is a means of communication, to make possible the expression of their emotion. Maybe, is a strategy of the
satisfaction of tastes and desires, or a stage after of have exceeded the purchase for necessity.
7.
Consumption of Fashion can reveal social mobility associated with : generational conflicts parent - child , economic , social and
productive transformations . Changes not only permeate the structure, also is shaping new cultural nuances to master the mechanisms
of social and productive inclusion.
Generation
Thermometer
System
Thinking
Social
Mobility Tool
Lifecycle
Planner
Media
Figure 2: Fashion consumption´s Matrix
CONCLUSIONS
In postmodernity, identity becomes plastic and ductile. Rather than preserving the origin, is strategic camouflage through
combinatorial personal appearance and conspicuous consumption of fashion items. The body is covered not only with the clothes and
accessories, also make an exo-skeleton of Identities on construction; flexible interacting in different social theaters. Rhizomatic game of
surfaces, in setting of skins and images offering a vast information and multiple potential logical. The clothing brands are pieces of a puzzle
probable of identities defined in terms that allow a directory than advisable, desirable or acceptable by the groups. Fashion and group
language and recognition codes in a young population in transition to new social horizons from the education and employment. As more
individuals and groups are introduced into the market dynamics, the symbolic consumption becomes more necessary and explicit. Young
6. 6
people choose their identities from catalogs social groups representing academic , professional and amicales those who are incorporated. This
personal and group redefinition, rather than being a mechanical fashion adoption cycle, it becomes an interactive experience of cultural codes.
In a context where any common subject can become stellar thanks to social networks ( in the media's tendency to discover talents);
fashion consumption communicates. Generation with the ability to self- produce collective content ( Youtube , broadcast yourself or
prodúcete yourself) and catalog their own faces (Facebook) . Interactive channels, where control is decentralized production to users, making
the people became the message in media. Consumption tensions between modernity and conservatism are externalized; dividing Trend
Hunters between mass followers. The Pioneers enjoy of social credibility to assume a role of aesthetic´s disruptors, and breakers of conceptual
paradigm prevailing in fashion, before to be appropriate for the market to its mass distribution. These steps involve processes of choice,
agency , acculturation and socialization of most interest to the current social analysis. Through the consumption of fashion, also the dilemma
between identity and personal image are externalized . This dilemma requires third party intervention in decisions about personal appearance ,
invoking the voice of social consensus in constant redefinition between "should" and "being". Market logic that test the limits of individual
freedom and expression in public space , through personal appearance, to which the youth of the emerging middle class face , against the
sanction of taste or social acceptance; which is still exercised by the traditional middle class.
Conclusions that allow us to outline the following perspectives to understand the contributions that provide an Anthropology of Consumption
in our social context:
1.
Lets build the cultural codes of the growing middle class and the current country ; modelers consumption in the near future given its
economic, social and socio- cultural significance and its growing role in mass media.
2.
Anthropology brings battery consumption ethnographic techniques that allow a thorough , systematic and detailed homes,
communities or regions in which recognition is sought to focus . The developer of anthropology is its ability to find the differences
from the borders or boundaries of normality, the boundaries of digression and his pursuit of the processes of cultural change and
intersection , thereby moving away from the obsession with the average reference or conservationist classical psychology or
behavioral economics classical.
3.
The shopping center as places of study. For young people in Lima Norte, the Malls are also anchored in local realities, turning into
"almost-places" to create contexts that encourage socialization in a daily struggle between recognition and inclusion. The
ethnological cultural analysis can assimilate products and brands to the symbolism of the markets and advertising in today's society,
in a context of consumption - citizenship.
4.
Ethnography as a principal method to study consumption and innovation. This requires the creation of an atmosphere of trust, a
contingency pursuit of empathy and provoke conversation , the unveiling of unexpected angles on the subject by questioning the
objects. The ethnographer is exposed to discover, not only fulfills asking.
In the postmodern scene , are the conversations that allow capturing the emotional status of subjects because , for this is triggered ,
requires an understanding of the context in which it occurs and the condition of the person to be operated . Also, it is not a subject
matter governed by questions of a interviewer, placed in the position of expert, also a dynamic flowing from two or more people.
5.
Rituals set the postmodern consumer emotion. The rituals provide symbolic aspects of cognitive, emotional and conative level , in
space and time a group of active involvement . For the advertising industry, this ensures posting of messages through intense
experimentation in the event, being direct witnesses or special characters.
6.
Brands like Mythologies of consumer . Detects belief systems that have to explain the subject's actions as a consumer. Identities and
myths claiming that stifle disruption attempts, the permissible and the forbidden. The referential meaning of myth, based on
archetypes and legends deemed valid, create a reference system . In terms of consumption, generate rules of the sacred and the
7. 7
profane in a contextualized way. Myths that are marked by the symbolic spirit of consumer objects, in this case the modernity´s
spirit. Also operates to make sense of things.
7.
Consumption studies are relevant also to contextualize market disciplines or advertising, from the recurrence of the past to the
changing trends and then the immediate future conversion of these discoveries. Prospectively analyzed the collective, which becomes
strategic in the context of rapid change, and social and economic variability sum. Also serving an inclusive role in the discursive, to
generate visibility of previously marginalized people, to convert them to major players in consumer sectors; despite of still
mantaining with a frivolous and exotic approach
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