Nordic Consumer Culture: Context and Concept

Per Østergaard

Theories of consumer culture are most often rooted in Northern American cultural contexts. A high level of stratification, social differentiation and individually autonomous agents typically characterizes these cultural contexts. In recent years there have been some efforts to develop more localized theoretical conceptualizations of consumer culture theory (e.g., Brown, 2006; Cova & Cova, 2002). While different in their histories and bearing all the specificities of being particular cultural contexts, the particular socio-historic milieu of the Nordic countries has shaped a specific rendition of a glocal (global–local) consumer culture. Previous research indicates that the Nordic societal model of relatively open markets, strong welfare systems, and a relatively egalitarian stance to social differentiation has fostered a different type of consumer culture.