Unit rationale, description and aim

Understanding the historical context of consumption is vital for the formation of strategies to face sustainability challenges in the twenty-first century. From the beginnings of global trade in the early modern period to the challenges posed by modern systems such as fast fashion, this unit explores the social and economic motivations for consumption and the processes of globalisation, innovation and colonisation that have enabled it. 

A variety of methods and approaches including material culture, history, economic history, gender history and environmental history, and work with different types of primary (written, visual and material) and secondary sources will be applied. In doing so, we will interpret and reflect on the role of consumer desires and behaviour, global trade and supply chains, natural resource extraction and manufacturing, the rise of modern capitalism and technological innovations, in shaping our relationship with material goods and subsequent sustainability challenges.

The aim of this unit is to equip students with critical knowledge of how historical processes have led to modern consumptions habits, and to reflect on how we might move beyond them to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns in the future, in support of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

2026 10

Campus offering

No unit offerings are currently available for this unit.

Prerequisites

Nil

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

Discuss key historical patterns and changing eleme...

Learning Outcome 01

Discuss key historical patterns and changing elements of the history of global consumption practices and the historical debates surrounding them
Relevant Graduate Capabilities: GC1, GC6, GC7

Explain ideas and concepts relating to consumption...

Learning Outcome 02

Explain ideas and concepts relating to consumption and sustainability to a specified audience using audio, digital, oral, visual or written form as appropriate
Relevant Graduate Capabilities: GC9, GC11

Locate, use and appropriately reference a variety ...

Learning Outcome 03

Locate, use and appropriately reference a variety of primary and secondary materials relevant to studies of consumption in the discipline of history to develop an historical narrative or argument
Relevant Graduate Capabilities: GC3, GC7, GC8, GC10

Critically analyse historical evidence and synthes...

Learning Outcome 04

Critically analyse historical evidence and synthesise scholarship to construct an evidence-based historical narrative or argument through an independently formulated research task related to current historical debates
Relevant Graduate Capabilities: GC3, GC6, GC7, GC9, GC10, GC11

Interpret and reflect on key historical theories a...

Learning Outcome 05

Interpret and reflect on key historical theories and concepts and relate them to real-world situations/case studies relating to sustainability concerns
Relevant Graduate Capabilities: GC2, GC6

Content

Topics may include:

  • Theories behind consumption (Conspicuous Consumption, Luxury, etc)
  • Early global trade and empire – Early Capitalism and Colonisation
  • The Consumer Revolution, Industrious Revolution and Industrial Revolutions
  • Supply chains – Past and Present 
  • The Great Divergence between Europe and Asia
  • History of Shopping / marketing / advertising / branding
  • Fast Fashion and throw away cultures


Case studies may be drawn from:

  • Colonial extraction of natural resources in the Americas, Asia and Africa
  • Waste sites and waste disposal
  • Changing consumption practices in the Global North vs the Global South
  • Oil and minerals, gemstones and mining (16th-21st centuries)
  • Resources for Fashion and Fast fashion (17th-21st centuries)
  • Rise in Plastic and Synthetic materials used in consumer goods (19th-21st centuries)
  • Advertising and branding campaigns, including modern Greenwashing (19-21st centuries)

Assessment strategy and rationale

The aim of this unit is to equip students with critical knowledge of how historical processes have led to modern consumption habits and apply this to challenges today.

The tutorial presentation task ensures critical engagement with the unit materials, particularly its theories, to allow students to develop leadership skills, and to present information and ideas effectively in spoken genre to a diverse audience of their peers.

Students build on this by constructing an investigative research project focusing on a historical instance of consumption in a specific global time and place. Students will demonstrate research skills by locating primary and secondary materials and developing a critical research argument from them. Part A allows students to receive critical feedback on their questions, sources and arguments as they develop their investigative task. Part B requires students to communicate clearly in written form and construct an evidence-based historical argument with appropriate referencing.

The final visualising supply chains task asks students to apply what they have learned about consumption to historical and modern case studies of supply chains of their choosing. It asks students to demonstrate an awareness of how historical events have current, real-world implications and familiarises students with supply chain diagrams commonly used by industry. 

Overview of assessments

Assessment Task 1: Tutorial Presentation (500 wor...

Assessment Task 1: Tutorial Presentation (500 words)

Students will prepare a 5 minute paper discussing one of the set tutorial questions for the week using the assigned primary/secondary sources. At the end of the presentation the student will pose 1-2 discussion questions derived from their understanding of the tutorial content to the class. Students will help lead class discussion with these questions.

The purpose of the task is to ensure critical engagement with the unit materials, to allow students to develop leadership skills, and to present information and ideas effectively in a variety of spoken genres to diverse audiences.

Weighting

15%

Learning Outcomes LO1, LO2
Graduate Capabilities GC1, GC6, GC7, GC9, GC11

Assessment Task 2: Part A: Investigative Task P...

Assessment Task 2:

Part A: Investigative Task Plan (800 words)

Students will present their essay plan (their question, thesis statement, brief outline) and annotated bibliography (at least 5 key sources) for the investigative task outlined in Part B.

Part B: Investigative Task (2000 words)

This task asks students to explore, analyse, and generate arguments about an identified topic of consumption in a specific global historical time and place. This assignment will ask the student to design their research project (including their research question). The essay needs to reflect a clear understanding of the themes of this unit and mount an argument that connects key ideas and sources across the history of consumption. It should refer to a wide range of primary and secondary sources, Essays should be persuasive and clear in argument, make appropriate use of evidence, and the writing should be of the highest possible standard.

The purpose of this task is to allow students to develop their own historical project based on the themes of the unit. They will demonstrate research skills by locating primary and secondary materials and developing a critical research argument from them. Part A allows students to receive critical feedback on their questions, sources and arguments as they develop their investigative task. Part B requires students to communicate clearly in written form and construct an evidence-based historical argument with appropriate referencing.

Weighting

50%

Learning Outcomes LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4
Graduate Capabilities GC1, GC3, GC6, GC7, GC8, GC9, GC10, GC11

Assessment Task 3: Visualising Supply Chains (dia...

Assessment Task 3: Visualising Supply Chains (diagrams + 1000 words)

Students will identify and research a specific supply chain in its historical and modern contexts. They will create two supply chain diagrams based on models we have spoken about. They will assess its sustainability and discuss their diagrams as findings in an essay. This task asks students to demonstrate an awareness of how historical events have current, real-world implications.

The purpose of the task is for students to apply what they have learned about consumption histories to a historical and modern case study of supply chains and assess its sustainability. It also familiarises students with supply chain diagrams commonly used by industry.

Weighting

35%

Learning Outcomes LO3, LO4, LO5
Graduate Capabilities GC2, GC3, GC6, GC7, GC8, GC9, GC10, GC11

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

1) Developing a knowledge of the relationship between historical consumption trends and present-day consumption practices and sustainability challenges through case-based learning.

Students will read a range of texts and case studies in which consumption is a central concern. Students will engage in debates about the economic, social and cultural reasons for consumption, in the past and now, and the ways in which understandings of the past can help inform modern strategies for sustainability.

 2) Sharpening a set of skills fundamental to the discipline of History studies 

The active learning activities in this unit include: reading, writing, discussion and problem-solving to promote analysis; peer-to-peer learning through class-based activities; synthesis and evaluation of class content in the context of lectures, where ideas are presented to students and tutorials where ideas are explored and discussed; locating the material within a real-world context of sustainability challenges. 

To achieve a passing standard in this unit, students will find it helpful to engage in the full range of learning activities and assessments utilised in this unit, as described in the learning and teaching strategy and the assessment strategy.  

Representative texts and references

Representative texts and references

Fenichell, Stephen. Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century. New York: Harper Business, 1996.

Higgs, Kerryn. Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2014.

Jones, D. G. Brian (Donald Gordon Brian), and Mark Tadajewski. The Routledge Companion to Marketing History. Abingdon, Oxon ; Routledge, 2016.

Lemire, Beverly. Global Trade and the Transformation of Consumer Cultures : The Material World Remade, c.1500-1820 : Cambridge, United Kingdom ; Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Pomeranz, Kenneth. The Great Divergence : China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Richards, John F. The World Hunt : An Environmental History of the Commodification of Animals. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2014.

Riello, Giorgio. Cotton: The Fabric That Made the Modern World. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Jon Stobart, ed. A Cultural History of Shopping, Volumes 3-6. Bloomsbury, 2022.

Trentmann, Frank. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption. Oxford: New York, 2012.

Twigger Holroyd, Amy, Colleen Hill, Jennifer Farley Gordon, Colleen Hill, and Colleen Hill. Historical Perspectives on Sustainable Fashion: Inspiration for Change. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts,

2023. 

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