Why is it fruitful to study the connections and interrelations between consumption and politics? On the one hand, consumer politics and consumer representation have become an increasingly important political arena in the 20th century, not only in the U.S. and Europe, but – at least after 1945 – worldwide. On the other hand, (new) consumption practices and developments in the sphere of consumption have transformed politics: New forms of political participation have emerged and aspects of the social that were not considered to be political before have become politicized.

How the political sphere and the political can be conceptualized in consumer societies is one of the questions the workshop will tackle. Against this background, the workshop also aims to discuss the political dimensions of the historiography of consumption itself. Of particular interest for the research on historical consumption regimes and practices might be a discussion of the methodological implications of the notion of “consumer society” as it is related to some of the central narratives of the history of the 20th century.