one - Introduction

Summary

“That's what I mean about politics, it's just everywhere, you know. Um, it's a political choice as to what I would order for lunch, you know.” (Patrick, 19 years)

The above quote is taken from research I conducted in Australia (see Manning, 2014). When I met Patrick he was not involved with electoral politics or activism, nor did he regularly volunteer his time for a cause or organisation. Based upon orthodox ways of measuring political participation he would likely be deemed part of that group often invoked in discussions of contemporary political involvement, the disengaged youth. However, Patrick was interested in political issues and, significantly, he understood politics to be a part of everyday life and how we live. He was a committed vegetarian and had concerns about the industrial production of meat. He understood his daily life to be enmeshed with politics, particularly through his consumption choices. He boycotted companies like McDonald's and Nike because he “disagrees with the philosophies behind [them]”. He was a keen recycler and tried to minimise his energy consumption, for example, by using public transport. He avoided processed food and shopped for organic produce and locally produced goods from small local businesses. These personalised, individualised ways of practising politics gave Patrick a sense of political agency. He believed we have “an obligation to not do nothing”, to not “be a part of the problem, basically by agreeing with it, saying, ‘oh, it's just the way it goes’”. While Patrick did want to get involved in more collective forms of political participation, he had already developed a sense of himself as a political being, a person whose everyday life and decisions held broader socio-political meaning and implications.

Patrick's ability to understand himself as acting politically through individualised, everyday activities reflects profound socio-political and cultural changes that have taken place over the last several decades. Firstly, the example of Patrick points to the way politics is now often understood as having a life beyond the institutions and practices of electoral politics. While political consumerism has a long history (for example, see Micheletti, 2003, chapter 2; Kroen, 2004) politics is increasingly understood as occurring through our consumption in mundane places like supermarkets (Stolle and Micheletti, 2013). Further, Patrick's political consumerism highlights the importance of corporate targets, rather than a focus on the state.