Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Lifestyle involves the typical features of everyday life of an individual or a group. These features pertain to interests, opinions, behaviors, and behavioral orientations. For example, lifestyle relates to choice and allocation of leisure time; preferences in clothes and food; tastes in music, reading, art, and television programs; and choice of consumer goods and services. At the individual level, lifestyle denotes self-expression, personal taste, and identity ( Featherstone 1991 ). At the group level, the concept refers to shared preferences and tastes that are reflected primarily in consumption patterns and in the possession of goods ( Weber 1946 ). Lifestyles give members of a group a sense of solidarity, and mirror the differentiation between groups in society. The distinctive lifestyles of specific groups may be hierarchically ordered to different degrees, depending on the extent to which a clear system of prestige exists that attaches value to lifestyles ( Weber 1946 ; Sobel 1981 ). Arguably, it is the range and diversity of different lifestyles practiced in a given society that is of most interest, rather than the profile and makeup of a specific lifestyle. A comprehensive lifestyle analysis will emphasize the way in which arrays of lifestyles evolve over time, the degree to which different lifestyles (associated with class, race, sexuality, etc.) are legitimized, and ... log in or subscribe to read full text