新物质主义视角下的消费地理研究进展与反思

Progress and reflection of geographies of consumption from the perspective of new materialism

新物质主义是对消费地理研究中呼吁"重返物质"的补充和超越,论文旨在从新物质主义的视角审视消费地理的研究进展。首先,简要介绍行动者网络理论、拼装体理论、超越人类理论和非表征理论等新物质主义的相关理论基础,发现新物质主义强调物质的能动性、动态性及其对消费网络的影响能力,受此影响,消费地理研究对空间性、社会性、主体性和物质性的认识也发生了相应的变化。然后,从去人类中心视角梳理了消费地理3个方面的研究议题,包括具身消费实践与消费主体性、消费空间与情感、活态商品与人—地—物关系的建构。最后,基于中国语境对消费地理研究进行了反思与展望。新物质主义为解决消费地理中的主体性和社会性提供了一个新的切入点,有助于在探讨人、地、物关系的反思中跳出人类中心论以及摆脱二元对立关系的长期束缚,对研究当下的消费模式转型与可持续消费发展、动植物商品与消费者情感以及网络、科技与消费空间重构等话题具有启示意义。

There exist two types of epistemology of materialism in current fields of geographies of consumption.One follows the principles of re-materialization on the foundation of dualistic dialectical materialism raised by Marx. Another school relies on the ontology of monism, relationality, and process, which also makes a profound impact on the understanding of geographies of consumption. The latter is classified into the school of thought of new materialism, which provides a more subtle and comprehensive understanding of the nonlinear relationships among places, subjectivities, the environment, material, representation, and so on, endeavoring to break up the long-standing dualism in former research in consumption geography. Thus, this study reviewed and summarized the research progress of consumption geography studies from the perspective of new materialism in order to bring a new ontology and epistemology. Drawing from the actor network theory(ANT), assemblage theory,more than human theory, and nonrepresentational theory, studies followed new materialism highlight material agency, dynamics, and impact on consumption networks. Furthermore, this article indicates the shifting connotation of geographies of consumption: Material in consumption not only acts as the entry point of investigating social relations among people but also actively engages in the process of consuming practices or even reshapes the consumption space;Subjectivities of consumers are produced in events, processes, and relations instead of only produced by social construction or discourse;Socialities are transformed from the linear relationship between consumers and producers to topological relations among consumers, producers, and other nonhuman subjects. On the basis of these shifting contents, this article concludes three different categories of the research process: embodied consumption practice and consumers’ subjectivity;consumption space and affect;lively commodities and human-nonhuman-place relationship. At the end of this article, some reflections and outlooks are brought to fill in the gaps of current geographies of consumption in China. New materialism provides a new entry point in understanding subjectivities and socialities in geographies of consumption,especially insightful in solving transformation of consumption pattern and sustainable consumption;lively commodities and consumers’ affect;Internet, technology, and reconstruction of consumption space.