Write a paper in which you critically reflect on your and your classmates’ consumption habits in relation to the assigned course readings, films, and discussion board conversations.

Write a paper in which you critically reflect on your and your classmates’ consumption habits in relation to the assigned course readings, films, and discussion board conversations. You should use your analysis to specifically consider the arguments of the theorists we have read about and discussed in class. This means discussing your own consumption habits (or those of your peers) within the context of globalization. It is important to stress that this is a scholarly analysis and you should use it to highlight your critical thinking skills and mastery of course materials. In other words, this is not simply a longer version of your autobiographical sketch. You must have a central argument that you systematically support with evidence from assigned course materials and the data you and your classmates have gathered.You might consider how your spending habits are marked by your class position, both structurally and as demonstrated through your sense of taste. For example, do you “shop too much” (as Schor argues Americans do)? How does your spending or dress relate to class status, such as the idea of cultural capital discussed by Bourdieu? Are your consumer decisions a reflection of the modes of production in which you are located? How does your relationship to the things you consume reflect how those commodities are fetishized (e.g., does a commodity seem like a “false need,” per Marx? To what degree are you aware of the labor that went into its production?) How do they also serve corporate interests? What impact does globalization have on your consumption practices and how does this relate to the homogenization vs. heterogenization debate? Or, you might consider how your consumer choices enable you to construct an independent identity. What do your consumption habits say about who you are? How do you communicate your identity to others through consumption?