A (NÃO) REPRODUÇÃO DE RELAÇÕES SOCIAIS CAPITALISTAS NO COTIDIANO EM CIDADES:

uma ameaça à sociedade de consumo

Abstract

Based on previous investigations of shopping centres and their characteristics as ‘cathedral’ or ‘temple’ of consumption, this work aims to further develop a critical understanding of the term ‘consumption’ as a manifestation of social activities in the city and in everyday life. It is based on Lefebvre's understanding that consumption in neo-capitalist societies is essential for their social reproduction in everyday life and even the capitalist mode of production. The investigation of consumption as a link between production, reproduction and everyday life, as postulated by Lefebvre, will be carried out in four stages. The first, by referring to examples, demonstrates the complex articulation in shopping centers that goes beyond acts of mere ‘consumption’, followed by another step of systematizing a set of critical approaches to the subject of consumer society, to finally discuss the ideological character of the use of the terms consumption and consumer society through the introduction of everyday life. The question of whether everyday life has the potential to contribute to the non-reproduction of capitalist society is raised in the last section through Lefebvre's ‘project’, which points to transgressions that indicate tendencies and tensions that go beyond the current relations of production. This ‘transgression of all transgressions’ can be produced by space.