Consumption and non consumption: flashes of a discussion

Abstract

In the last decades, the classical conception of consumption - the act of acquiring commodities - has expanded from the reflections of scholars from different areas, such as philosophers, anthropologists and sociologists, and is now understood as a complex socio-cultural phenomenon. In this article, we aim to discuss epistemological aspects of consumption and, equally, the non-consumption of goods (material and symbolic), from the short story A temporary question, by the English writer Jhumpa Lahiri, using for this reason elements of literary theory and the precepts of French Speech Analysis.