Bring Materialism Back in. Environmentalism and Italian Solidarity Purchase Groups in Times of Crisis and Austerity

Political consumerism is a historical phenomenon shaped by its context and has been used within different settings and meanings (Micheletti 2003). Scholars have mainly framed contemporary political consumerism into post-materialist hypotheses (Inglehart 1990), considering it as a function of the opulent society where citizens prioritize goals as environmental protection, self-expression, quality of life, gender equality, etc. However, the recent economic crisis and the consequent austerity policies should lead us to reconsider such pattern. Contrary to what one might expect when following post-materialist hypotheses, ‘positive’ political consumerism practices have significantly grown under the pressure of hardship in all those Southern European countries where the impact of 2008 crisis and austerity is being particularly severe (Kousis, Giugni forthcoming). This Paper examines the current transformations of Italian Solidarity Purchase Groups (SPGs). SPGs are among the most organized, widespread and popular political consumerism practices in Italy and can be typically considered Sustainable Community Movement Organizations (Forno, Graziano 2014). Although the crucial features of Italian SPGs are already known, how they are changing is still to be in-depth investigated. We particularly wonder if and eventually how SPGs react to the new social and political contexts shaped by crisis and austerity in Italy through a quali-quantitative analysis. First, we explore the quantitative spread of SPGs in Italy from the end of 1990s on and question the reasons of their strong and unbalanced regional presence. Second, we investigate the membership, organizational characteristics, motivational patterns, collaboration networks, mobilization paths of SPGs in two different regional cases (Tuscany and Campania) through an on-line questionnaire, in-depth interviews and participant observation. The analysis shows how, especially in times of crisis and austerity, SPGs innovate the environmentalist practices. They seem to allow environmentalism to bring materialist issues back home and shape new alternative food community networks.