ABSTRACT
Contemporary social sciences define consumption as a complex and fascinating activity which encompasses a diverse set of practices, tastes and values (Brewer and Trentmann, 2006). If this feature makes it a vital and challenging object of research and reflection, it also poses significant challenges in terms of the best and more productive ways to address it. Given the great variety of practices and settings contemporary consumption entails, and the prolificness of existing theoretical frameworks at use in the social sciences, researchers are often confronted with the need to make choices which necessarily have great impact on their research and, most importantly, on how consumption is acknowledged in the wider spheres of public discussion.
