What Do We Really Need? Questioning Consumption Through Sufficiency

Hélène Gorge (), Maud Herbert (), Nil Özçağlar-Toulouse and Isabelle Robert
Additional contact information
Hélène Gorge: LUMEN - Lille University Management Lab - ULR 4999 - Université de Lille
Maud Herbert: IMMD - Institut du Marketing et du Management de la Distribution
Isabelle Robert: IMMD - Institut du Marketing et du Management de la Distribution

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This article introduces the concept of sufficiency, its specific dual nature (voluntary and obligatory), and its collective implications to the literature on sustainability. Sufficiency implies a reorganization of consumption priorities and is introduced by a discussion of consumerism and the dominant social paradigm. Long interviews with sufficient people show the complexity of the construct, which creates semantic oppositions around the notion of having (everything vs. nothing and not nothing vs. not everything). After a semiotic analysis of people's interpretation of sufficiency, we propose a reflection about the use of macromarketing tools to better enhance and enact sufficiency in a collective way.

Date: 2015-03
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04214053
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Journal of Macromarketing, 2015, 35 (1), pp.11-22. ⟨10.1177/0276146714553935⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-04214053/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04214053

DOI: 10.1177/0276146714553935

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().