Abstract:
In consumer research, most discussions about goals focus on the specific outcome, for example, how people set and striving for losing weight. However, our lives are not just based on goals, some of our decisions are more complex and involve others aspects of our life such as family, relationship, money. I introduce and discuss in this dissertation the concept of Project which embraces a deeper understating of life decisions we make through our life. This idea, deriving from Sociology, regards on how a person creates, plan and strive something to transform his/her current condition. The aim of this dissertation is to understand how the social trajectory and social bonds lead one person to have a project. Analyzing the trajectories through the life stories, it urged four types of projects according to greater or less predominance of gifted bonds. Some people have delineated projects, which are called: “My Project” or “Our Project.” In the first, the project only involves the person without considering the others. In the second, the person has a broad view of the project and involves all the members of the group, in this case, he/she is concerned to achieved something for all. On the other hand, some people have undefined projects, which are called: “No Projects” and “Someone Else Project”. In the first case, the person never had any willingness to transform his/her condition, he/she just lives and enjoy the moment without worrying about the future. Also, the person focus is to satisfy himself/herself by short-term goals. However, there are individuals who follow “Someone Else Project”, a person obeys what others think it is good for him/her and let others to set the decisions he/she must choose. These four categories represent how people can lead differently about their projects. Also, there are other facts acting on their decisions, such as individual, or collective participation and integration of others, the value of the social bonds, the role of the economic capital, and the social trajectory. This research demonstrates through a longitudinal perspective, the integration of the context and the life stories to understand people´s plans, choices, and decisions. The contribution of this dissertation is the discussion of the project concept on consumer research, and its implications on how this can affect consumption and lifestyles.
