Trust, participation and political consumerism among Brazilian youth

Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 93e101

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Trust, participation and political consumerism among Brazilian youth Livia Barbosa a, Fátima Portilho b, *, John Wilkinson b, Veranise Dubeux c a

Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil c ESPM, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil b

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 9 December 2012 Received in revised form 26 August 2013 Accepted 31 August 2013 Available online 26 September 2013

In the last few years, research carried out according to different theoretical traditions has identified a transnational process of politicization of consumption. Civic values have been related to consumption, pointing to a possible breaking down of the borders between citizens and consumers. Several theories, developed mainly in sociology and political science, focus primarily on the decline of trust in traditional political institutions and the emergence of sub-politics in their interpretation of this phenomenon of political consumerism. The thesis of post-materialism provides another interpretation, suggesting that the broad satisfaction material of needs has led to a reorientation of values and to a change in the repertoire of political action. This paper maps the profile of political consumerism in Brazil, focussing in particular on young people who live in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Our results show that while involvement in political consumerism among young people in Brazil is low, this is not explained by levels of institutional trust, or an inability to adopt political positions; nor is it related to a reorientation of values associated with meeting material needs. Rather, we point to the way that young people in Brazil remain under the influence of the family much longer than is customary in European and North American societies, and therefore do not have to perform household tasks or face the dilemma of making consumption choices. We also point to the importance and activism of Brazilian social movements that are responsible for many social changes, thereby rendering individual action somewhat secondary. We finally point to another relevant cultural aspect of Brazilian society, namely the way that individuality and a sense of responsibility are formed. We conclude, therefore, that while global tendencies may be identified in many countries, the way these develop depends on the institutional configuration of each society. Explanations based only on trust and post-material values are not sufficient to help us understand the phenomenon of political consumerism if cultural points of view are disregarded. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Political consumerism Trust Political participation Youth Brazil

1. Introduction Over the last few decades “a growing variety of discourses, both within the market place and outside it, in politics and civil society”, both at the individual and institutional level, has emphasized the role of the consumer as a moral subject, and consumption as a tool for implementing changes in society in general (Sassatelli, 2006, pp. 240). Civic values such as citizens’ rights, equity, ethics, sustainability and social responsibility have been related more and more frequently to terms such as consumption and consumers, pointing to a possible breaking down of the borders separating these two * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ55 21 22248577. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (L. Barbosa), faportilho@yahoo. com.br (F. Portilho). 0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.08.044

worlds that have traditionally been strangers e when not opposites e to one another (Hirschman, 1977; Gabriel and Lang, 1995). The joining together of these two words raises interesting questions in that the historical origins of both are based on quite different principles, values and traditions. Notions of citizenship and citizens go all the way back to Athenian democracy, and in modern days have been reinterpreted by the American and French Revolutions. These concepts imply equality among the members of a community, as well as freedom of thought and action. Fixing roots locally, defending the community, giving way to the will of the majority, and the feeling of defending and being responsible for the world around us are the most characteristic features of citizenship. This is the symbolic representation of political man who believes that a “good, fair and happy life” can be achieved through collective action.

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Consumers, on the other hand, were and are still defined as subjects who come from an amorphous and territorially transcendent world. Their actions are not permeated by blame or social responsibility; they are not obliged by the community to give way on behalf of a greater good; they are subjects whose autonomy of choice reflects their own interests. Private pleasures are their principal objectives, and they are associated with voluntarism, social atomism and the idea that a “good, fair and happy life” is to be found in the market and in the seduction that goods and services exert over them (Simmel, 1978; Marx, 1978; Bauman, 2007). Given these different historical and ideological roots, it is by no means odd that this discursive approximation should provoke a certain discomfort or even outright rejection in many authors, social movements and the media, who see in the society of consumption and its ideology e consumerism1 e a perverse threat to civic values that will reduce citizens to consumers and shoppers (Bauman, 2007; Ewen, 1992). However, authors whom Horowitz (2004) calls “post-moralists” e such as Michael Schudson and Daniel Miller, among others e have rejected this opposition between consumers and citizens, and the negative reactions to their association. In his article “Citizens, Consumers and the Good Society”, Schudson (2007) claims that the time has come to discard rather than recycle this opposition which romanticizes both and belies their respective practices. Likewise, transforming consumption and consumers into villains cannot resist in-depth scrutiny. In many cases, consumption involves positive political values, just as political actions can often be driven by the same petty-minded interests that are attributed to consumers (Hirschman, 1977). Despite the disputes that the joining of such actors and worlds might provoke among some academics, in the media and public opinion, the fact remains that the link between consumer and citizen has been defended in the work of many authors such as Canclini (2001), Halkier (1999), Paavola (2001), Micheletti (2003), Portilho (2005), Stolle et al. (2005), Trentmann (2006, 2007), Sassatelli (2006), Schudson (2007), Binkley (2009) and many others, indicating the existence of a new area of academic interest that considers certain changes in consumer behaviour, rooted in environment and ethical concerns, to be a relevant phenomenon worthy of analysis. These changes and the “growing variety of discourses”, (Sassatelli, 2006), that approximate civic values and consumption can be understood in a wider contemporary social context where social and environmental problems are confronted through the practices and choices of consumers. The implicit goal of these discourses is to transform traditional, automatic and private acts of consumption into responsible practices in which considerations of an ethical, social and sustainability-minded order play a key role in people’s choices at various levels of their private lives. In this context, shopping, eating, and the use of energy, water and transport are evaluated according to their overall social and environmental impacts.2

1 The word “consumerism” has two different meanings. While it can be used to express an ideology of the excesses of material consumption, especially of a conspicuous nature, it also can be used to refer to the social movements related to consumer protection and consumer rights. 2 Eating, for instance, is no longer seen as an activity based on personal preferences and tradition, focused on individual pleasure and sociability. It has become a highly conscious, regulated and ideological activity that entails considerations about the quality of the productive processes and the socio-environmental impacts of what we eat. Such considerations now become essential to our choices and provoke significant changes in the way we eat and think about food (Micheletti, 2003; Sassatelli, 2006; Barbosa, 2009).

The analysis of consumption as an instrument of political action and social transformation includes a variety of characterizations, such as responsible, green, conscious, ethical, critical or sustainable (Stolle et al., 2005; Sassatelli, 2006; Clarke, 2008).3 Although such terminology can represent different and in some cases even opposite strategies (Portilho, 2005), in this paper we prefer to use the term “political consumerism”, as defined by Micheletti (2003) which is more comprehensive and indicative of the on-going process of using the practices of consumption as a tool for social change. According to this author, political consumerism can be defined as “actions by people who make choices among producers and products with the goal of changing objectionable institutional market practices”. Political consumers are defined as “people who engage in such choice situations. They may act individually or collectively. Their market choice reflects an understanding of material products as embedded in a complex society and a normative context” (opus cit, pp. 02). In addition, these individual or collective actions involve organisation, mobilization, protest and the attempt to influence both public policies and markets, as in the case of the fair-trade organizations. 2. Design of research Although the theme of political consumerism is new both in the United States and Europe, much research in the areas of sociology, anthropology, political science, geography and history has already been undertaken (Halkier, 1999; Paavola, 2001; Micheletti, 2003; Stolle et al., 2005; Trentmann, 2006, 2007; Sassatelli, 2006; Schudson, 2007; Halkier and Holm, 2008; Binkley, 2009). Such research has registered the growth, dynamics and the variables that bear most on political consumerism. By contrast, only a few research initiatives have been undertaken to date in Brazil on this theme, whether academic (Echegaray, 2010; Castañeda, 2010; Carneiro, 2012), governmental (Crespo, 2012; MMA, 2012), or market inspired (Akatu, 2012). Nevertheless, several signs point to changes in Brazilian consumer practices that might be interpreted as a growing politicization of consumption. In the first place, a number of NGOs have been set up specifically on this theme, such as Repórter Brasil, Instituto Faces do Brasil, Instituto Kairós, Instituto Akatu para o Consumo Consciente, and Instituto para o Consumo Educativo Sustentável do Pará, among others. Governmental and non-governmental programmes on “education for conscious consumption” are yet another example of this same phenomenon. The volume and frequency of reporting on “sustainable”, “responsible” or “conscious” consumption in the different mass media have increased significantly. The emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, the profusion of certification and labelling systems, as well as the strengthening of the so-called “new economic social movements” (Gendron et al., 2006) which presuppose the existence and action of “conscious consumers” e such as the solidarity-economy, fair-trade and slow-food movements e are other important signs of the growth and engagement of different levels of Brazilian society in political consumerism. Despite these signs, academic data on political consumerism as experienced by the different social strata in Brazil are all but non-existent.

3 Besides the differences in emphasis posed by each of these adjectives, the initial interest of certain academic fields (such as political science or anthropology) is also responsible for the terminology adopted. A good example of this situation is the article by Clarke (2008) which maps out the reasons why the term “ethical consumption” is used more in England, while “political consumerism” is used more in Scandinavian countries. In Brazil, this nomenclature is used differently according to the type of institution: governmental institutions have used “sustainable consumption”, NGOs have used “responsible” or “ethical consumption”, while market institutions have preferred “conscious consumption”.

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In this article we seek to contribute to remedying this lacuna by presenting a survey4 conducted in 2010, among 457 young people aged between 16 and 25, belonging to upper (A), middle (B) and lower middle (C) socio-economic segments, all living in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.5 The research was divided into two different phases: one quantitative, the other qualitative. Here we will present only the results of the quantitative phase. The reason for choosing to work with young people is based on the fact that this generation has grown up in a context where environmental concerns have become disseminated, especially those associating the causes of current environmental problems to lifestyles and consumption choices. As pointed out by Stolle et al. (2005), these young people are part of a generation exposed to environmental education campaigns and projects at school and socialized within an awareness of environmental values.6 Given that these young people have systematically and nonsystematically received information that was absent from the education of the generations before them, it is justified to assume that they are more aware and mobilized by socio-environmental matters and their multiple implications. Young people are also considered the vanguard of green and ethical consumption styles (Autio and Wilska, 2005). The participants in the research, therefore, were no strangers to the questions and situations posed to them throughout the research. In addition, demographically, Brazil is still a “young country”, with the majority of its population e 100,811,688 people e in the 0e30 age bracket, and by 2020 the country will be enjoying what demographers call “a window of opportunity”. Finally, our choice of this age bracket also allowed us to establish a minimum parameter of comparison between our data and those of other countries. In this context, our main reference7

4 The survey took place between 24 June and 1 July 2010. The sample was selected by a process of systematic and random choice by income category, that is, for each residence selected, the interviewer asked the resident if there was a young person aged between 16 and 25. If the answer was affirmative, the Brazilian Criterion of Economic Classification, was applied to identify the class and qualify e or not e the interview. If there were no young residents, the next residence was visited. Once the interview was over, the interviewer skipped three residences and made a new approach. In addition, a minimum number of respondents was established to represent the segments A, B, and C grouped in order to facilitate data analysis. The interviews lasted on average one hour and 40 min. The research data were collected in questionnaires printed and stored in an Excel for Windows (Microsoft Corporation) databank. The software SPSS for Windows (Statistical Package for the Social Science), Version 18 was used for the analysis and interpretation of the data, which relied on the following statistical tools: analysis of data related to simple and accumulated frequency, average and standard deviation; statistical inference tests and multi-variety analysis methods (Cronbach’s Alpha and Factor Analysis). The Confidence Level adopted in this research was 95% and the error rate by income category 7%, a margin considered statistically acceptable. Thus, the minimum number of individuals to ensure the representation required by the study subjects, taking into account the margin for error, was 450. After validating the questionnaires collected in the field, we reached the number of 457 respondents, of which 228 are residents in Rio de Janeiro and 229 in São Paulo. This study does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the diffusion of political consumerism among the Brazilian population as a whole, or even among young Brazilians in general, beyond the two cities and specific income brackets used in the study. For an explanation of the Brazilian Criterion of Economic Classification see footnote 5. 5 The criterion for choosing the participants in the research was based on the CCEB (Brazilian Criterion of Economic Classification), a research tool for the social and economic segmentation of the Brazilian population, created by the Brazilian Association of Research Enterprises, (ABEP), which is permanently updated accordingly to economic and social changes in Brazil. The classification is based on a set of domestic features such as the presence or not of certain items of consumption goods, occupation and the level of education and income (www.abep.org.br). 6 This process began in Brazil in the late 90s with the introduction of environmental-education programs into the formal curriculum of schools. 7 Although the Stolle, Hooghe & Micheletti article is our reference, we do not intend to make a direct, point by point comparison since we are working with a different sample. Contrary to these authors, we did not research only socialsciences university students but youngsters between the ages of 16e25 of three different income brackets defined by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistic, (IBGE) and educational level.

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was the research coordinated by Michele Micheletti on 1015 young social sciences students in three countries (Sweden, Canada and Belgium) for the purpose of gauging new forms of political participation, including actions related to political consumerism (Stolle et al., 2005).8 However, unlike the research carried out by these authors, for the Brazilian survey we decided to broaden our universe and consider young people with different levels of education. Our decision took into account the Brazilian tradition of a high degree of politicization among social-science students and the deep influence of Marxist thought on the teaching of these subjects: factors that could bias the results considerably. We also considered that in the absence of information on the theme of political consumption it would be interesting to begin by setting up a broader sample allowing us to include further questions that we judge important to be researched. The choice of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro was based on the relevance of both cities for Brazilian society in demographic, economic, political and cultural terms. Brazil is a highly urbanized country, with 85% of its population concentrated in cities. São Paulo, a metropolis of 20,500,000 million inhabitants, is considered the economic centre of Brazil. Rio de Janeiro, the second biggest city in the country, with 12,000,000 inhabitants, was until 1965 the Brazilian political and administrative capital. To live in either of these urban centres means to be exposed to a wider variety of discourses, debates about social and environmental questions and new trends of behaviour than in any other city in the country. Accordingly, what happens in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo can be used as a thermometer for what might come to prevail in other urban centres in Brazil. In this context, the main focus of our research is to map out the values, information level, levels of institutional and personal trust,9 and the consumption practices of these 457 young people. From this initial basis we investigate if and to what extent their practices and the discourses justifying them are related to the practices and values of political consumerism. The relationship established between the reported practices and their justifications is one of the main concerns of this paper. Also investigated are a range of further questions raised by the literature on political consumerism, including, perceptions of the responsibilities attributed to the individual and to the state, the force of “habitus” as against individual consciousness at the moment of making a purchase (Bourdieu, 1977; Binkley, 2009) and the role that cultural aspects of Brazilian society play in the behaviour of these young people. The next section provides a brief review of the literature and the different practices of political consumerism. Section 4 presents the research and our findings, which is then followed by a discussion of the results (Sections 5 and 6) and some final remarks.

8 The research also relied on the participation of Dietlind Stolle (McGill University, Canada) and Marc Hooghe (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium). These authors warned that their research was not representative of the population of these countries, or even of the student population of these countries or universities, but only a pilot survey to explore whether political consumption can be considered a consistent pattern of behaviour and if it has been used as a form of political participation. 9 In this article, we used “trust” in the following sense: belief and confidence in the moral uprightness and competence of the social and political institutions of a country to fulfil the objectives and functions attributed to them. This understanding of the meaning of trust, also used by Micheletti (2003), Stolle et al. (2005) and Micheletti et al. (2006), was tested in a pilot study involving 60 young respondents with the same characteristics as our sample. Other references for the discussion of trust can be found in Kjaernes et al. (2007), Barber (1983), Luhman (1979), Misztal (1995), Pharr and Putnam (2000) and Seligman (1997).

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3. Political consumerism: a brief theoretical literature review There are several competing views on the meaning and interpretation of the notion of political consumerism. One view emphasizes the changing configurations of politics and society on a global scale. It presupposes a transition from modern society to reflexive modernity and centres its analysis on the shifting location of politics itself: from traditional political and civic institutions to more spontaneous grassroots networks centred on individualistic and daily life concerns. This is the case of authors like Beck (1994), Giddens (1994), Lash (1994) and Bauman (2007). According to them, contemporary societies face the loss of trust in traditional political institutions such as parties, trade unions, elections, institutionalized social movements, and so on, particularly among the younger generations. This has led to a noninstitutional rebirth of the political sphere in which different social arenas hitherto not thought of as political undergo a process of politicization, as is the case of the Internet and the market. In this context, new political subjects have emerged (Canclini, 2001; Giddens, 1994; Beck, 1994) and political action overflows into daily life and the private sphere. Such a process constitutes a new pattern of political engagement based on innovative, individualized, less hierarchical and non-institutionalized forms of political participation, which Alexander (1995) labels as “romantic-individualist” and Beck (1994) captures in the concept of “sub-politics”, that is, politics at the margin of and beyond the political institutions of the Nation-States. Political consumerism would be one of these instances of sub-politics. Another well-known and much discussed interpretation of political consumerism is the theory of post-materialism, developed by Ronald Inglehart in the late 70s. This theory suggests that the rapid economic growth enjoyed after the Second World War led to meeting the material needs of the vast majority of the population of the more advanced societies, which in turn led to a reorientation of values towards those that the author calls “post-materialist”, that is to say, those that emphasize the quality of life, self-expression, the environment, human rights and animal welfare, among others. This phenomenon brought about changes in different areas of social life, above all in the political sphere, since this reorientation of values was accompanied by a critical attitude to conventional political institutions, such as parties and trade unions, and by lower rates of conventional political mobilization. According to the theory, however, this is not a sign of political apathy but rather of a change in the repertoire of political action, since post-materialist values are associated with non-conventional political actions (Ribeiro and Borba, 2010). Inglehart’s interpretation, however, fails to take into account the emergence of post-materialist values and movements even in the so-called “developing countries”, where various studies indicate the presence of behaviour and values that can be interpreted as “post-materialist”, such as political consumerism. More recent views, like those of Micheletti (2003), Micheletti et al. (2006) and Stolle et al. (2005), who draw on a variety of academic fields, interpret political consumerism as a sign of democratic maturity and renewal, attractive to non-traditional groups such as women and youth, due to its sometimes playful, nonhierarchical, non-bureaucratic forms of engagement and participation. What is argued is that consumers are increasingly predisposed to link their everyday choices e in the supermarket, at the grocery store, in their urban mobility and many other arenas of daily life e to the broader context of social and environmental consequences brought about by their lifestyles. This spontaneous and conscious attitude of the consumer, acting as a citizen, on an individual or more organized basis, may substitute or complement traditional political processes and create a new form of political participation and political culture.

Another interpretation of political consumerism can be found in the so-called “new economic social movements” (Gendron et al., 2006). This can be understood as a new type of social movement to the extent that it is based on new forms of collective action e NGOs and networks rather than trade unions and political parties. The “new economic social movements” direct their demands primarily to the market rather than to the State. A further characteristic of these new market-oriented social movements is their effort to redefine the producereconsumer relationship. A common feature is their focus on the producer community rather than the product, or more precisely the social and environmental conditions of production, as constituent elements of the “qualification” of the product. To a large extent they can be understood as a new style of consumer movement, mirroring the “buyer-driven” rather than “supplier-driven” production chains which are seen to typify current global production networks (Gereffi, 1994). While at an analytical level the distance between producer and consumer is a social one, capable in principle of being reduced or eliminated by new contractual arrangements, transparency, independent certification and auditing systems, in practice the promotion of new consumer awareness tends to lead to a preference for closing the physical distance between consumer and producer (Wilkinson, 2008). In this process, a new culture of political action has emerged, characterized by a direct re-appropriation of the economy in which achieving recognition and redistribution in the sphere of consumption is the central motivation. These movements extend from those that defend consumers’ rights and advocate responsible consumption to counter-consumption movements, including those that valorise territorial characteristics and “traditional” productive systems such as geographical indication, together with the fair-trade, solidarity-economy and slow-food movements. This interface between social movements and markets has been identified as the most outstanding, differentiating and polemical facet of present-day political mobilizations (Wilkinson, 2008; Conroy, 2001; Gendron et al., 2006; Tallontire and Vorley, 2005). Explanations and interpretations of political-consumerism revolve around a number of key questions. Perhaps the most important of these concerns the implications of this “new form of participation” for traditional politics. Others questions identified by Portilho (2005) include: what is the dynamic of this new type of participation? Is political consumerism a positive new form of social participation or just a question of individualistic behaviour, entailing “low-cost participation”, rather than a form of real engagement with the community and contemporary problems? Is it an elitist form of participation available only to those who can afford the higher costs of green products and services? Or is it an opportunity to broaden and renovate the political field through its capacity to stimulate group activity which could then take on new responsibilities, increasing interest and daily participation in social and environmental affairs? Are we observing the rise of a new type of political culture and practice or are we witnessing a depoliticization of society? 4. Political consumerism in action Consumer and shopping behaviour rooted in ethical, social and environmental concerns can be materialized in different practices. Boycotting, “buycotting”, consumer cooperatives, communicative actions, and the rational use of water and energy at home are some of the forms through which political consumerism expresses itself. Of these modalities, the oldest and best known is the practice of boycotting, understood as the planned and organized refusal to buy the products and services of a certain firm, shop or country as a form of pressuring and provoking changes in policies or forms of

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production perceived as ethically, socially or environmentally unacceptable. Famous boycotts include the campaign launched against Nike and the use of child labour in its supply chain in China; Nestlé and its promotion of powdered milk in Africa as a substitute to breast-feeding; the “Mind the Gap” campaign related to the Gap company’s use of sweat shops; Shell and the case of the Brent Spar oil spill, and many others.10 Brazil has not experienced boycotting as frequently as Europe and the United States, although it has been the target of several boycotts related to social and environmental causes. More recently, however, this picture has begun to change and we have seen an attempt to boycott Zara on the basis of its use of slave labour, and the creation of the site “Boycott Arezzo” on the grounds of its ill treatment of animals. The growing influence of the social media in Brazil may explain these new forms of action. 65 million people in Brazil use Facebook, which ranks the country in second place in the number of participants in this social network. The signing of petitions for a range of different motives has seen a rapid increase. Although these movements may not inflict a great amount of loss on the target companies, they at least call in question their reputations and make people aware of many problems they had not previously considered before (Cruz and Ross, 2012). The opposite of boycott is “buycott”, a neologism referring to the motivated purchase of products and services perceived as socially and/or environmentally ethical and “friendly”. A significant example of “buycotting” is the purchase of labelled products, as for example fair-trade and organic food. These labels attest that these products were made according to appropriate social and environmental criteria and provide support for productive processes seen as less aggressive to the environment and healthier for the farmers. Political consumerism is also expressed in the way consumers organize in associations or cooperatives in an attempt to “bypass” the large-scale commercial circuits (Carneiro, 2012). Such cooperatives tend to seek greater proximity with small producers, often supporting organic agriculture on the basis of collective purchases without intermediaries and without passing through the large supermarket chains. In addition to better prices and more confidence in the quality of the products, the aim of these consumers’ associations is to contribute to strengthening family farming by paying a fair price for their products without generating profits for the dominant wholesale and retail networks. Symbolic inversions, or “cultural jamming”, can also be considered a form of political consumerism (Stolle et al., 2005). Through acts of cultural interference promoted by groups that use mass media, negative comments are made about a product or a brand by inverting the meaning that the original announcement wished to convey to consumers. The proposal of the jammers is to shake consumers out of their habitual practices, arousing their attention by parodying the advertising claims and revealing what the major brands conceal or omit. The jammers, however, do not necessarily have a concrete proposal as far as changing market and entrepreneurial practices and policies are concerned. They are cultural mobilisers, more interested in denouncing than in proposing alternatives (Klein, 2000). This process of symbolic inversion, also called “subverting” or “adbusting”,11 is present in several media, such as Youtube, outdoors, t-shirts and publicity films, as

10 Many authors dispute the effectiveness of acts of boycotting due to the difficulty in obtaining the necessary data to evaluate their economic and financial results. Knight and Pretty (2000) evaluated Shell’s loss in the Brent Spar case as around 10e15 million dollars per day in 1999. Greenpeace, in turn, claims that Shell lost 7% of its market after its decision not to sign the Kyoto Protocol (Aaker, 2004). Other studies on boycotts include Micheletti et al. (2006) and Drillech (1999). 11 Adbusters also became the name of one of the best-known NGOs that promotes “cultural jamming” (http://www.adbusters.org/).

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Table 1 Sample: income segment and city. Income segment

São Paulo

Rio de Janeiro

Total

A B C Total

76 78 75 229

75 76 77 228

151 154 152 457

Source: Youth, consumption and citizenship: a quantitative Brazilian research, 2010.

well as in “flash-mobbing” in commercial stores in large NorthAmerican and European urban centres. Examples of cultural jamming are those promoted by the San Francisco Suicide Group on billboards in the United States and Canada and the more recent Occupy Wall street; bring a tent, promoted by Adbusters in 2011.12 5. Political consumerism among Brazilian youth How do the consumption and shopping-related practices of young Brazilians fit into the context of the proposals of political consumerism? Can these practices be explained in the terms of the theories used to explain them? To answer these questions we conducted a survey of quantitative data collected by means of home interviews in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, applying a structured questionnaire with 100 open and closed questions, as explained above. The research involved a total of 457 individuals, 228 residents of Rio de Janeiro and 229 of São Paulo, aged between 16 and 25, belonging to the three top socio-economic segments of Brazilian society, according to Tables 1e3 The research controlled for six variables (income, religion, gender, age, city and level of education), which were then correlated with 11 themes: (1) expectations for one’s personal future, the world’s future and that of the country; (2) level of information; (3) political values; (4) trust in people and institutions; (5) interest in politics and social issues; (6) type and frequency of political participation; (7) perception of the responsibility of different actors to improve social and economic conditions; (8) practices of political consumerism; (9) knowledge and practice of consumers’ rights; (10) knowledge of campaigns and certification labels, and (11) fair trade. In this article, we only present and discuss the results related to the questions specific to political consumerism as discussed in the literature. These include: the level of trust in institutions; awareness of and concern over the social and environmental problems facing Brazilian society and the world more generally; the practice of boycott and buycott; knowledge and implementation of consumer rights; current level of participation in political activities;

Table 2 Sample: sex. Sex

Male

Female

Total

52%

48%

100%

Source: Youth, consumption and citizenship: a quantitative Brazilian research, 2010.

12 Given this diversity, there are several different classifications of types of boycott and cultural jamming. For instance, the several parodies of the Dove Natural and Real Beauty Campaign to be found in the Youtube promote exactly the opposite values to those privileged by the original campaign, providing an example of the use of cultural jamming for motives other than those linked to political consumerism.

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Table 3 Sample: age. Age

16e18

19e20

21e25

Total

30%

29%

41%

100%

Source: Youth, consumption and citizenship: a quantitative Brazilian research, 2010.

and the criteria used in shopping for choosing products. Analysis of the data presents us with the following picture. 60% of the respondents declared that they do not consider people trustworthy and 75% feel that, if given the chance, people always try to gain advantage. To assess young people’s trust in institutions, 21 options were offered on a scale of 1e10, where 10 corresponds to the highest grade of trust and 1 to the lowest. The institutions considered most trustworthy are: the family (average of 8.9), the church (6.8) and school (6.4), while those considered least trustworthy are precisely political institutions such as political parties (average of 3.1), followed by the city government (3.7) and the National Congress (3.7). The low level of trust in relation to these last three institutions fits well with Inglehart’s analysis discussed above. On the other hand, this low level of institutional trust is not accompanied by an increase in alternative forms of participation, as post-materialism theory would lead us to expect. The three leading categories in terms of trustworthiness, (family, church and school) can be grouped together under the broader category of “traditional institutions”. The central role of the family is particularly striking and we will return to this as a key factor in explaining our results on the opinions and behaviour of the young in relation to political consumerism. With regard to their involvement in environmental and social issues, the scenario is as follows: only 27% and 26%, respectively, of the respondents consider themselves engaged in environmental and social issues. Nevertheless, when asked to state their position concerning specific themes such as income inequality, poverty, energy and terrorism, among others, the average response was equal to or above 3 (based on a scale of five points that varied from “I completely agree” to “I completely disagree”). In this context, the positions adopted by the young people interviewed could be classified as “politically correct”. Their stance is clearly in defence of the environment; they consider that the Amazon cannot be treated by Brazilians as divorced from the rest of the world; they fully agreed that Brazilians do not appear to be committed to income redistribution. However, when asked to state their position on questions concerning the city, the state and national politics, average answers were around 2.5 or lower (this score was obtained based on statements and a scale identical to the one used previously). Negative opinions on all of these three levels of power received a larger number of “I completely agree” than “I disagree”. This posture is reinforced when we examine the frequency with which the respondents talk about politics: 55% said they never or rarely talk about politics, 28% that they sometimes do, and only 7% declared that they often talk about politics on a daily basis. In a set of 13 options of different types of political participation, 79% declared that they mainly participated in politics through voting. All the other options were below 28%, reaching as low as 7% in the case of affiliation to political parties. Considering that voting is obligatory in Brazil, we can infer that any type of spontaneous political participation ranks below 28%. As far as “alternative” forms of political participation are concerned (youth organizations, social movements, activism via the Internet, volunteer work, consumers’ associations and political consumerism), in the context of 4 options that vary between “I often take part” and “I have never taken part”, the proportion of the young who declared never to have participated in any of the modalities varied between 87% and 96%. For those who declared they had participated in some activities (27%),

10 optional forms of contributing were offered, including items such as donating money to NGOs, wearing campaign lapel-buttons, attending meetings and signing petitions. The most common forms of participation are discussion groups and signing petitions on the Internet (51% e the so-called “one-click participation”), participating in public events and protests organized by institutions (41%) and donating money to institutions (34% e including charity). The least common form of participation was promoting the causes of particular institutions (14%), going to meetings (22%), voting for candidates who defend social and environmental causes (24%). As for the responsibility attributable to different actors for improving the quality of life in society, the federal government (51%), followed by the citizens (40%), the United Nations Organizations (29%) and consumers (24%) were the most mentioned. When questioned if citizens had the power to influence society by boycotting products and services, 32% agreed with the statement, 13% disagreed, and 34% agreed but did not think it was an efficient form of action, because it was considered to be individual rather than collective, and could lead to an aggravation of the problems focused on. When the question was the role of citizens in influencing outcomes and participation through buycotting, 34% agreed that this was a possible way to influence society, whereas 14% disagreed, 25% had restrictions about the efficacy and quality of this type of participation and 28% had no formed opinion. In addition to soliciting their opinions on the possibility of citizens influencing society through consumption choices, we asked whether the respondents had ever actually taken part in any type of boycotting or “buycotting” activity. Our data show that, albeit few in number, “buycott” practices are more frequent than boycotting, as in the research done by Stolle et al. (2005): 98% answered that they never took part in boycotts, but in the case of “buycott” actions 81% answered negatively while 19% responded positively. Price (45%) and distribution difficulties (39%) are the main reasons given for not buying socially and environmentally responsible products. Doubts about certification, personal taste and the quality of the products considered green-friendly complete the range of “other motives”. When asked if they think that citizens are responsible for keeping themselves informed on the socio-environmental practices of corporations, 57% agreed, while 31% answered that they did not know, and 12% felt that this was not their responsibility. On the other hand, 52% of the respondents thought they were well informed with respect to the products they consume, as against 48% who responded negatively. The three types of information on products that they most look at or were interested in when buying were: the expiry date (92%), the brand (50%) and the composition (46%). Information about whether the product was environmentally friendly (10%), certified (5%) and in compliance with fair trade (3%) were answers that obtained the lowest figures. The criteria most used by the young respondents when buying goods and services were the traditional ones of: price (89%), quality (86%), discounts and sales (69%) and brand (55%). The least used are: proper social and economic conditions of production (18%); the product’s source (geographical and social origin), (16%); ethics with regard to animals (13%); and complaints on sites against the product (8%). Only 10% of the respondents affirmed that they knew what fair trade meant, and only 30% of these managed to indicate the correct logo. As for consumers’ rights, 68% were not aware of the existence of the Brazilian Consumer Rights Code,13 while 77%

13 The Brazilian Consumer Rights Code, held by most jurists to be one of the most advanced in the world, is a Brazilian law enacted in 1990 which establishes rules to protect and defend consumers.

L. Barbosa et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 93e101 Table 4 Indices per segment of income.161

99

Table 5 Indices per age bracket.

Indices

Class A

Class B

Class C

Total

Indices

16e18

19e20

21e25

Total

Trust in people Trust in organizations Trust in traditional institutions Social and environmental values Political participation Political consumerism

39.9 39.2 68.9 46.2 30.2 48.2

39.4 40.7 71.3 48.6 25.8 44.5

39.1 41.0 70.7 49.4 24.4 42.4

39.3 40.7 70.8 48.8 25.4 43.7

Trust in people Trust in organizations Trust in traditional institutions Social and environmental values Political participation Political consumerism

38.7 39.4 70.7 49.0 19.2 41.7

40.1 41.0 71.7 48.1 28.6 43.5

39.2 41.5 70.2 49.2 27.7 45.4

39.3 40.7 70.8 48.8 25.4 43.7

Source: Youth, consumption and citizenship: a quantitative Brazilian research, 2010.

Source: Youth, consumption and citizenship: a quantitative Brazilian research, 2010.

had never felt mistreated as consumers; 84% had never lodged any complaint against shops and/or supermarkets, and 97% had never lodged a complaint with legal entities for consumer protection. Those who have complained (16% and 3%, respectively) were from the highest income bracket and over 19 years old. Fifty per cent declared that they knew some organization for consumer protection, the best-known being the public sector organization in defence of the consumer, Procon.14 In order to relate these findings to the variables considered in the research (income, level of education and age), we constructed six indices15 to interpret the research data: 1) trust in people; 2) trust in organizations (private and public); 3) trust in traditional institutions (family, church and school); 4) social and environmental values; 5) political participation and 6) political consumerism. The results showed very few variations in relation to the three variables under consideration (income, level of education and age). The index on trust in traditional institutions presented the highest degree of consistency (see Tables 4e6). As far as the indices of trust are concerned, whether in relation to people, organizations (private and public) or traditional institutions (family, church and school), and the indices of socioenvironmental values, variations were insignificant (one or two per cent) both in respect to income and age bracket, indicating a high level of homogeneity of practices and positions among the young people surveyed. Nonetheless, as far as the indices of political participation and political consumerism are concerned, the results differ a little from the previous ones, indicating a weak but directly proportional relation between higher income, age and education, and greater political participation and political consumerism practices. Nevertheless, this relation is not highly significant, which once again confirms relative homogeneity among the Brazilian youth.

institutions, particularly in formal political institutions, is extremely low in contrast with trust in traditional social institutions such as family, church and school. Nevertheless, this lack of trust in traditional political institutions is not accompanied by an increase in the alternative forms of participation identified with political consumerism that were offered as options in the questionnaire. The role of citizeneconsumer and consumption in changing or improving social and economic conditions was seen in an ambiguous way. There is a general recognition of the citizen’s responsibility in making changes in society. However, when this citizen is seen as a citizeneconsumer, his/her potential role in bringing about changes is seen to be smaller and even negative. There are doubts about the potential of the consumerecitizen to bring about changes and also about the value of this form of participation. The individualistic way of trying to provoke change is seen as inadequate and collective initiatives are considered better and more adequate. Those who claim to participate in some of these alternative forms of political participation often failed to do so systematically. The most common forms of alternative participation are those that demand the least effort and time, as in signing petitions on the Internet, the so-called “one-click participation”. This scenario does not change when we analyze engagement in practices of political consumerism (boycott and “buycott”), the criteria that orient purchasing, and the practice of checking the information on products and services. The criteria most used are those centred on the economic and individual axis. In the case of these young Brazilians, therefore, lack of interest in conventional political institutions, added to the loss of influence and leadership of these entities, has not produced an increase in alternative forms of participation, contradicting the notion of the “non-institutional revival of politics”, as defended by Beck (1994), Halkier (1999) and

6. Young Brazilians and their political participation These results clearly do not suggest an intense engagement or effective political participation, as this is understood by the social (and especially the political) sciences. Trust in people and

14 Procon (Program to Guide and Protect Consumers) is a branch of the Ministry of Justice set up in 1987, with offices in all the Brazilian states and some cities to receive denunciations and provide consumers with information about their rights. 15 Since political consumption is a multi-dimensional phenomenon (attitudes, modes of behaviour, perceptions and motivations), we opted to use the Factor Analysis technique to calculate the indices to be presented. This technique gathers information on the covariance structure, summarized in the correlation matrix, which enables the original variables to be classified according to their participation in the total variance of the databank. Selection of the attributes to be used in calculating the indices of consumption was done by first making a choice based only on the interpretation of the authors. Following this first selection of attributes, two methods of multivariate analysis were used for the exclusion of attributes: Cronbach’s Alpha and Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis e Communalities. All of the statistical developments used in this article are duly based on and proven by specific demonstrations in the referenced bibliography (Hair et al. 2006), dispensing with the need to demonstrate the pertinent theorems.

Table 6 Indices per segment of education level. Indices

Complete primary I

Incomplete primary II

Complete primary II

Incomplete secondary

Trust in people Trust in organizations Trust in traditional institutions Social and environmental values Political participation Political consumerism

32.0 60.9 84.2

31.3 36.9 78.0

39.7 39.0 66.9

40.6 43.4 74.3

40.4

50.0

53.6

49.8

06.7 46.4

12.2 32.6

29.5 35.4

19.8 40.4

Indices

Complete secondary

Incomplete university

Complete university

Total

Trust in people Trust in organizations Trust in traditional institutions Social and environmental values Political participation Political consumerism

37.9 40.1 68.7

41.3 38.2 69.5

41.8 41.4 67.3

39.3 40.7 70.8

50.8

43.6

46.8

48.8

28.2 43.6

29.4 49.7

30.1 56.2

25.4 43.7

Source: Youth, consumption and citizenship: a quantitative Brazilian research, 2010.

100

L. Barbosa et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 93e101

Stolle et al. (2005), among others. At the same time, our data contradict the theory of post-materialism in as much as we found a high degree of homogeneity in political participation and political consumerism among all three income brackets. Should we then subscribe to the thesis that today’s generation is politically more alienated when compared, for example, to the generation of the sixties and seventies, when Brazilian youth mobilized itself against the dictatorship, or even to the generation of the early nineties, when they fought in favour of the impeachment of the President? When we analyze the interests that mobilize these young people (such as poverty and income inequality, among others) and their positive response to environmental, political and social values, the thesis of alienation is less convincing. Our results suggest that the young people interviewed are more interested in social questions, although they also perceive the environment as an important issue for Brazil and the world. However, they do have their doubts and questions, as for instance when they point out in the questionnaire that environmental policies and restrictions might simply be trade barriers erected by the rich nations against the products of the developing countries.17 But on the whole their stance is one which we could define as “politically correct” with regard to socio-environmental issues. Because the “social question” (poverty and inequality) is the main question for these young Brazilians, they have doubts about alternative forms of political participation, since they consider the citizene consumer actions not the most adequate for tackling this subject, which requires not only the intervention of the state but also collective action through social movements. At the same time that they have their doubts, they declare their willingness to participate more in terms of political consumerism when they become aware of what this means, for instance in the case of buycotting. We should also take into account that young people have recently taken to the streets when their economic interests have been directly affected as in the 2013 mobilizations against public transport price increases. On the other hand, the results presented above do not corroborate the post-materialism theory which posits that environmental values, among others, grow stronger as societies manage to provide enough wealth to solve the material problems of their citizens. Besides the numerous objections that we could make to this theory e that it is simply a disguised “Maslow pyramid” or an expression of simplified evolutionism in which people dedicate themselves to reflecting on morally significant values and questions only after their stomachs have been filled e this perspective also stands counter to the history of Brazilian social mobilization, which, above and beyond the struggle for access to the material conditions of existence, boasts myriad environmental organizations geared to “post-materialist” values. Here it is also appropriate to underline, with specific reference to Brazilian environmentalism e and to the countries of the South in general e that social and environmental questions are seen as inseparable (Guha and Martinez-Alier, 2000). This can be confirmed by the creation and widespread use, in Brazil, of the expression “socio-environmental”. 7. Brazilian society and political consumerism: final remarks There are many indications that Brazilian society is experiencing a politicization of consumption and we have referred to the evidence for this at different moments in this article. The emergence of

16 As we explained above, “A” means upper, “B” means middle and “C” means lower middle socio-economic segment. 17 On a five points scale of between “agree entirely” and “disagree entirely”, 30% of the respondents agree entirely and agree with this statement, 40% do not agree nor disagree and 30% disagree and disagree entirely.

consumer-oriented NGOs and the promotion of bodies for the defence of consumer interests by the public sector represent one aspect of this process. Major campaigns such as the “São Paulo Pact” of 2010 to boycott agricultural and forestry products deriving from the cutting down of the Amazon forest and the 2005 mobilization for free public transport for school children and more recently for all people confirm this form of politicization. At the same time, our research suggests that young people in Brazil have little regular involvement in individual acts associated with political consumerism e boycotts, buycotts, petitions and adbusting. This does not imply, however, that they are apolitical and our results show that young people are relatively well informed and are concerned with issues of income distribution, poverty and environmental questions. We suggest that three factors can be identified which go a long way to explaining the low level of individual, habitual, acts of political consumerism. In the first place, both public and private consumer organizations are quite active in the defence of consumer interests and have established themselves as legitimate mediators of consumer concerns. These organizations have been primarily involved in representation rather than mobilization. In our discussion of “new economic social movements”, we have suggested the existence of a positive feedback whereby campaigns can stimulate more committed individual consumer practices. This may well assume greater importance in Brazil and as we conclude this article the Fair Trade movement has succeeded in establishing Rio de Janeiro as a “fair trade” city, along the lines of similar movements in Europe. The second factor relates to a profound cultural trait which characterizes Brazilian society and concerns the way that individuals and their responsibilities are formed in Brazilian society. Analyses of this process (Barbosa, 1999; DaMatta, 1979) indicate that, following Simmel (1968), we can distinguish between two types of individualism, an “individualism of difference” and an “individualism of equality”. In the first case, after sharing a common egalitarian base, individuals seek to differentiate themselves through the cultivation of their individual tastes and idiosyncrasies. In the second, individuals do not seek differentiation but rather aim to attenuate specificities and differences within the group. Although the young people in our survey pointed to citizens as the second most responsible actors for making changes in society (40%), they consider that this will only be effective if “everyone does the same thing”. A situation of social inertia is thereby created where individual action is only perceived as effective if collectivized. Such a stance is reinforced by the strong tradition of collectivism in Latin American culture (Portilho, 2005). The third and most decisive factor, however, relates to the role of the family in Brazilian society. As the classics of Brazilian social science have insisted (Freyre, 1933; Faoro, 1976; DaMatta, 1984; Azevedo, 1996), the family in Brazil is held to be by far the most important institution and functions in large measure as a “total institution” in the sense of Goffman (1961), providing its members with economic, emotional and financial assistance and serving as a buffer in relation to the broader society. In addition, young Brazilians traditionally remain in the family until a much later age than their counterparts in Europe and the US (Micheletti, 2003; Wilska and Pedrozo, 2007). Their physical and social reproduction, therefore, remains overwhelming the responsibility of their parents, and their involvement as consumers is very much reduced. This factor also helps to explain the homogeneity in the responses across social classes. Most young Brazilians are protected within the family from the need to take a clear stance as citizens and assume responsibility for their daily lives. As Dumont (1983) and Simmel (1968), argue, the way the individual is perceived and constructed exerts a fundamental role on practices of political participation.

L. Barbosa et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 93e101

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