THE DEMAND FOR MORE/PRIVILEGED (THINGS): Leisured Women, Consumption Practices, and Gated Community

Authors : Nilüfer TALU, Burcu TAŞKIN

Pages : 425-442

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Publication Date : 2016-12-01

Article Type : Conference Paper

Abstract :The great body of people struggles for identity construction through the things and practices to live up to a lifestyle. Living in the gated community means bordering the lives from the city life. By means of privileged houses, a gated community functions for the terms as privilege, prestige, safety and hygiene. This study questions consumption practices of women of a gated community in Izmir. While the informants having different education levels, they spend their leisure times in a similar scheme of life. They behave as social club members. They alter their personalities through their possessions, commodities and daily life objects that consumed in terms of design, fashion, style, and brand articulations. This paper analyzes consumption practices as leisure time activities and discuss material relations as the values of commodities in this socio-spatial context. Their happiness, the issue of ‘demand for more’ and satisfaction levels in relation with this living concept are emphasized
Keywords : Consumption Culture, Leisured Women, Consumption Practices, The Values of Commodities, Gated Community