Reimagining omnivorousness in the context of place

Cutts, D and Widdop, P ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0334-7053 (2016) Reimagining omnivorousness in the context of place. Journal of Consumer Culture, 17 (3). pp. 480-503. ISSN 1469-5405

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Abstract

© SAGE Publications. Place is a key driver in the formation and maintenance of cultural lifestyles. Yet, place remains largely ignored in scholarly studies of cultural omnivorousness. After establishing whether there are different modes of omnivorousness as well as distinguishing between other cultural lifestyles, this article then takes a first step in readdressing this anomaly by examining whether clustering exists at the regional level in England. Using a methodologically innovative approach to simultaneously capture latent class typologies and between-group heterogeneity at the area scale, our findings illustrate how place is vital to consumption habits, particularly to voracious omnivores. We argue that the underlying mechanism behind these cultural patterns at the area level is contextual in nature, and in the case of voracious omnivores, primarily due to the supply of cultural items and the importance of likeminded individuals in active networks.