Prosumption refers to the merging of production and consumption, where the consumer produces that which s/he consumes. The term was first introduced by Alvin Toffler in 1980 in reference the marketplace, and reinvigorated by Ritzer and Jurgenson when they applied it to Web 2.0. In a special issue of American Behavioral Scientist (edited by Ritzer, with an introduction by Jurgenson, and an article by fellow Cyborgologist PJ Rey)I argue for the extension of prosumption into the realm of identity.This was elaborated upon in a Cyborgology post by Nathan Jurgenson and myself.
Specifically, Nathan and I looked at the ways in which new identity categories are prosumed via digital technologies. Digital technologies enable geographically dispersed individuals to meet, interact, and collaboratively write new kinds of selves into being. We then wondered about the destructive effect of identity prosumption on the postmodern project of categorical queering, as well as the liberating result of providing categories into which previously marginalized individuals can fit, finding community and a legitimate label with which to define themselves. It is this last point–the liberating and constraining potential of digitally enabled identity prosumption–that I will further disentangle in this post.