Sobre as possibilidades de ação política na esfera do consumo / Acerca de las posibilidades de acción política en la esfera del consumo / On the possibilities of political action in the sphere of consumption

O debate a seguir visa a ilustrar o conjunto de estudos e pesquisas que vêm se dedicando a explicar a crescente importância da participação política na esfera do consumo. Em muitos estudos recentes, a politização do consumo é vista como um fator relevante na formação de uma nova consciência de cidadania. Tal politização é frequentemente associada com a participação em movimentos que se organizam para defender os interesses dos consumidores. Seguindo esta linha de raciocínio e usando uma análise comparativa, este trabalho pretende explicitar a conexão entre os principais temas presentes na história dos movimentos de consumidores no Brasil. Como um resultado importante desta análise, destacamos a agenda que orientou os movimentos de consumidores nos anos 1970, a saber, a questão do custo de vida, e o processo de transformação desta agenda, culminando no atual foco da sustentabilidade socioambiental.(AU)

Este artículo tiene como objetivo compilar la amplia gama de investigaciones que se ocupam del consumo como una forma de participación política. En muchos estudios recientes, la politización por el consumo es visto como un factor para la formación de una nueva conciencia ciudadana. Esta politización se asocia a menudo con la participación en los movimientos que se organizan para proteger los intereses de los consumidores. Siguiendo esta línea de razonamiento y el uso de un análisis comparativo, el presente trabajo tiene por objeto aclarar la conexión entre los temas principales en la historia del activismo de los consumidores en Brasil. Como resultado de esta revisión, se destacan la agenda que guió a los movimientos de consumidores en la década de 1970, a saber, la cuestión del costo de vida, y el proceso de transformación de este programa que culminó con el enfoque actual de la sostenibilidad ambiental.(AU)

The following discussion aims to illustrate the range of studies and research that have dedicated themselves to explain the growing importance of political participation in the sphere of consumption. In many recent studies the politicization of consumption is seen as a relevant factor in the formation of a new consciousness of citizenship. Such politicization is often associated with participation in movements that are organized to defend consumers' interests. Following this line of reasoning, using a comparative analysis, this paper aims to clarify the connection between the main themes present in the history of consumer movements in Brazil. As an important result of this analysis, we highlight the agenda that guided the consumer movements in the 1970s, namely the issue of cost of living, and the process of transformation of this agenda until the current focus on social and environmental sustainability.(AU)

Sobre as possibilidades de ação política na esfera do consumo / Acerca de las posibilidades de acción política en la esfera del consumo / On the possibilities of political action in the sphere of consumption

O debate a seguir visa a ilustrar o conjunto de estudos e pesquisas que vêm se dedicando a explicar a crescente importância da participação política na esfera do consumo. Em muitos estudos recentes, a politização do consumo é vista como um fator relevante na formação de uma nova consciência de cidadania. Tal politização é frequentemente associada com a participação em movimentos que se organizam para defender os interesses dos consumidores. Seguindo esta linha de raciocínio e usando uma análise comparativa, este trabalho pretende explicitar a conexão entre os principais temas presentes na história dos movimentos de consumidores no Brasil. Como um resultado importante desta análise, destacamos a agenda que orientou os movimentos de consumidores nos anos 1970, a saber, a questão do custo de vida, e o processo de transformação desta agenda, culminando no atual foco da sustentabilidade socioambiental.

Este artículo tiene como objetivo compilar la amplia gama de investigaciones que se ocupam del consumo como una forma de participación política. En muchos estudios recientes, la politización por el consumo es visto como un factor para la formación de una nueva conciencia ciudadana. Esta politización se asocia a menudo con la participación en los movimientos que se organizan para proteger los intereses de los consumidores. Siguiendo esta línea de razonamiento y el uso de un análisis comparativo, el presente trabajo tiene por objeto aclarar la conexión entre los temas principales en la historia del activismo de los consumidores en Brasil. Como resultado de esta revisión, se destacan la agenda que guió a los movimientos de consumidores en la década de 1970, a saber, la cuestión del costo de vida, y el proceso de transformación de este programa que culminó con el enfoque actual de la sostenibilidad ambiental.

The following discussion aims to illustrate the range of studies and research that have dedicated themselves to explain the growing importance of political participation in the sphere of consumption. In many recent studies the politicization of consumption is seen as a relevant factor in the formation of a new consciousness of citizenship. Such politicization is often associated with participation in movements that are organized to defend consumers' interests. Following this line of reasoning, using a comparative analysis, this paper aims to clarify the connection between the main themes present in the history of consumer movements in Brazil. As an important result of this analysis, we highlight the agenda that guided the consumer movements in the 1970s, namely the issue of cost of living, and the process of transformation of this agenda until the current focus on social and environmental sustainability.

"Write a chapter and change the world". How the Boston Women's Health Book Collective transformed women's health then--and now.

Working together informally, the core group of women who would later form the Boston Women's Health Book Collective wrote a book that would become the bible of women's health, selling more than 4 million copies. They also created an organization that would carry their mission forward. From the first newsprint edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves, which became an underground sensation, to the brand new book, Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth, released in March 2008, the group has educated women and men, critiqued the medical system, examined inequalities based on gender, race, sexual orientation, class, and other categories, and urged readers to move from individual self-help to collective action promoting social policies that support the health of women and communities.

"Be receptive to the good earth": health, nature, and labor in countercultural back-to-the-land settlements.

Modern environmental activists unified behind calls for a change in how humans understood their relationships with nature. Yet they approached their concerns through a variety of historical lenses. Countering arguments that suggest environmentalism had its deepest roots in outdoor leisure, the countercultural back-to-the-land movement turned to a markedly American practice of pastoral mythmaking that held rural life and labor as counter to the urban-industrial condition. Counterculturalists relied specifically on notions of simple work in rural collective endeavors as the means to producing a healthy body and environment. Yet the individuals who went back-to-the-land often failed to remedy conflicts that arose as they attempted to abandon American consumer practices and take up a "primitive" and down-to-early pastoral existence. Contact with rural nature time and again translated to physical maladies, impoverishment, and community clashes in many rural countercultural communes. As the back-to-the-land encounter faded, the greater movement's ethos did not disappear. Counterculturalists used the consumption of nature through rural labor as a fundamental idea in a growing cooperative food movement. The back-to-the-land belief in the connection between healthy bodies, environments, and a collective identity helped to expand a new form of consumer environmentalism.

Progress, public health, and power: Foucault and the Homemakers' Clubs of Saskatchewan.

From 1911 to 1979, the Homemakers' Clubs of Saskatchewan mobilized and monitored extensive study and action in the field of public health. This article explores how these clubs exhorted women to strive for progress, and encouraged women to internalize such striving as fundamental to their own identities. The techniques used included encouraging commitment to shared goals, making such goals personal, structuring action, requiring women to report their thoughts and actions, rewarding certain behaviors, and linking those behaviors with emotionally compelling causes. Rooted in a Foucauldian conceptual framework, this article contributes to the sociological understanding of subject formation and governance.

Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin at 40.

In April 1962, Consumers' Association published the first issue of a British edition of the American Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics. A year later, formal ties with the parent journal were severed, the title was changed, and Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB) was launched. Initially, articles in DTB were brief (each around 500 words), references few (rarely more than five) and the circulation around 5,000. Gradually, articles and reference lists have lengthened, and our circulation has grown to 130,000 (a figure bolstered by bulk purchasing agreements with Departments of Health, or their equivalents, in the UK and Eire).

From ex-patient alternatives to consumer options: consequences of consumerism for psychiatric consumers and the ex-patient movement.

The psychiatric consumer movement in the United States evolved out of the political activism of a small group of antipsychiatry "ex-patients" (former patients) early in the 1970s. The shift in the movement from radical opposition to the medical model to viewing the latter as a possible choice in treatment occurred gradually under a series of social and political changes (e.g., deinstitutionalization), responses to those changes (e.g., the Community Support Program of the National Institute of Mental Health), and the involvement of new actors on the scene (e.g., the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, a family consumer movement). This article traces the evolution of the psychiatric consumer movement up to the early 1990s in the light of these larger social, political, and economic developments. The author then considers the consequences of that evolution for both consumers and the ex-patient movement in the context of the unique nature of consumerism in the United States and the more recent restructuring of mental health services under managed care.