The sociology of consumption group was founded in 2002 by Kai-Uwe Hellmann (Berlin) and Dominik Schrage (Dresden). It is an open forum for sociological research on consumption in Germany. We took that initiative because, on the one hand, in German sociology there is a widespread consensus concerning the general relevance of this subject, but, on the other hand, research on consumption is not very well networked in German Sociology and is mostly situated at the margins of the discipline. The group thus aims to reinforce research and debate on the sociology and theory of consumption via conferences and publications.

A first conference on "Consumption, Culture and Sociology" took place in March 2003 in Dresden, in cooperation with the section of the sociology of culture in German Sociological Association (DGS). The conference papers have been published, together with some additional texts, in the volume "The Consumption of Advertising. On the Production and Reproduction of Meaning in Commercial Culture" (ed. Kai-Uwe Hellmann and Dominik Schrage), with VS publishers in Wiesbaden. With this publisher, we could establish a book series entitled "Sociology of Consumption and Mass Culture", edited by Kai-Uwe Hellmann and Dominik Schrage.

We had a second conference in April 2004 in Magdeburg in the "Sociology of Shopping". Conference papers and some additional texts have been published in the volume "The Management of the Customers. Studies on the Sociology of Shopping" (ed. Kai-Uwe Hellmann and Dominik Schrage), as volume 2 of our book series with VS publishers.

Together with the section of the sociology of culture, the sociology of consumption group held a plenum at the biannual conference of the German Sociological Association in October 2004 in Munich, with the title "Consumption as a vanishing point of Distinction and Mass Culture". In October 2004, another project of our group took place in Wiesbaden, the conference "Extension of the Brand Zone. Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Brand phenomenon", organized by Kai-Uwe Hellmann and Ruediger Pichler. The results of this conference have been published in the third volume of our book series in 2005.

In June 2005, the group held a conference in Giessen on "Politicised Consumption - Consumed Politics", which took place in cooperation with Joern Lamla and the section of political sociology in DGS. The organizers were Joern Lamla and Sighard Neckel.

In the forth volume of the book series, the results of a conference on the "Ambivalences of Consumption and Advertising" have been published. This conference took place in Trier (Germany) in June 2006, the organizer was Prof. Dr. Michael Jaeckel who is also the editor of this volume.

In October 2006, we organized a session on "Vergesellschaftung durch Konsum" at the biannual congress of the German Sociological Assotiation in Kassel. In November, we had another conference on the sociology of commecial market research, in Hamburg. Volume five on "Spaces of consumption" and volume six on the sociology of market research have also been published in our book series. In October 2008, we had another session "Consumption (un)settles" at the congress of the German Sociological Association in Jena (which had the topic "Uncertain Times"). Also in October 2008, we organized a conference on Commercial Communities in Frankfurt. The 7th volume of the book series "Prosumer Revisited" presents the results of a conference which Kai-Uwe Hellmann organized together with Birgit Blättel-Mink and will be published in November 2009.