Sustenibilidade e novos olhares sobre a soberaneia do consumidor

The chapter looks at the political investment of the consumer, critically considering the deployment of market choice, exit and voice for ethical, political and environmental reasons. The dialectic of globalization is at the heart of contemporary forms of political consumerism: as we know, global capitalism has tended to raise local hackles, provoking resistance in many different forms, including fundamentalist ones. As globalization proceeds, it is especially large multinationals that have become the targets of growing critical attention within environmentalist organizations and the alter-global movement. In introducing innovations which alter the routines of consumption, in expanding the relevant human community, in promoting the dis-embedment of economic from socio-cultural processes, globalization creates a space to address both commodities as vectors of social relations and the re-embedment of economic process. The paper closes with a discussion of the scope for transforming conventional consumer capitalist market relations through ethically charged consumer initiatives.