Chapter 13 : Consumption and leisure

Abstract

lt is often argued that individuals in contemporary society are being 'marinated into aggressive advertising' that stresses the benefits of consumerism to satisfy 'artificially created needs' (Kamenetz, 2007; Sklair, 2002). Ever since market segmentation replaced the Taylorist theory of the 1960s, individuals felt that they have more choice to consume products that give them a distinctive identity. 'Despite claims that the individualised self living a 'life of one's own' has more liberty of choice in late modernity (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2008), the self is also more than ever dependent upon the consumer market. This chapter contributes to this discussion by presenting the Maltese situation and explaining how the Anglo-American patterns of consumption and leisure are adopted and adapted in Malta. Despite the fact that there is a common trajectory of Western social changes- a transition that Ulrich Beck (1992) refers to as from first to second modernity- the simplification of this process and the assumption that this change happened everywhere at the same time would be misleading. Malta \adapted to the development of the West, however its development process was 'delayed', in part due to its colonial and postcolonial status and Mediterranean situation (Visanich, 2012a). In line with Robertson's (1995) thesis of 'globalisation', it is too generic to assume that individuals in Malta are passively adopting consumer trends without adapting to the local socio-economic and cultural conditions. This chapter builds on this peculiarity, with reference to Maltese studies and data, to explain in detail consumption and leisure tendencies in the Maltese Islands.