Structure and organization of social representation on consumption. The case of the March 18 neighborhood of Minatitlán, Veracruz

Résumé

The environmental problems that can be seen today are presented as a social, political, economic and cultural crisis of a planetary nature, the result of human activity. Our relationship with the environment is perceived as an instrumental relationship whose principle is the exploitation of natural resources for human well-being and development. One of the social practices that contributes to the deterioration of the environment is consumption, this activity is conceived as the acquisition and use of goods and services. The development of marketing and the production system have generated a consumer culture by generating desires and expectations in the consumer, causing a significant impact on the extraction and processing of natural resources. The research at the origin of this text aimed to analyze the social representations about consumption in the inhabitants of the 18 de Marzo neighborhood of the municipality of Minatitlán. The theoretical-methodological approach of social representations allows exploring the subjective reality of social actors and reveals the system of references that the subject has as an action guide, here it is approached from the perspective of Abric (2001) who emphasizes the structural aspect , referring to the content and organization of the representation. With regard to consumption, the perspective of sustainability is assumed. Associative and interrogative methods were applied to a sample of 20 participants. The main findings of the techniques corresponding to the associative method are presented here