Consumerism Among Emirati Female Students: A Socio-Cultural Perspective

This study examines how young consumers in UAE, with special emphasis on female university students, are actively employing consumer goods and services to forge and express their socio-cultural identities. It seeks to explore how consumer practices, especially those related to luxurious products and brands, function as markers of socio-cultural and economic uniqueness. Consumption is interpreted as a sociocultural practice, rather than a pure economic one, where multiple imaginations and images meet and interact. Commodities do not barely serve to satisfy basic needs, but also to create and negotiate identity and distinction. The study adopts an anthropological framework in terms of its methodology and analysis. Ethnographic data were collected primarily through conducting in-depth interviews with 350 students in UAE University in Al Ain city, UAE during the Fall and Spring semesters of the academic year 2016-2017.