The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies

Do-It-Yourself (DIY)

RANDAL DOANE

Oberlin College, USA

JOE RUMBO

Texas State University, USA

DOI: 10.1002/9781118989463.wbeccs101

The do-it-yourself (DIY) spirit associated with anti-corporatism and alternative music scenes was first articulated in sociological circles in Vance Packard's (1961) celebration of the “do-it-yourself” handyman (p. 76). DIY in general refers to a range of consumer practices in which individuals or groups demonstrate self-reliance in the production (and consumption) of material objects, representations, and cultural events.

The articulation of the DIY and anti-establishment spirit emerged in the late 1960s, and coincided with a shift from DIY material practices to the production, distribution, and consumption of culture. Advocates of lifestyle movements extolled the virtues of naturalness and authenticity, in newsletters and small-batch consumer goods, for an ethically reflexive clientele (Binkley 2007). The DIY spirit was also manifest in the intentional communities of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and elsewhere, as well as the Vortex Festival (1970 and 1971), the Rainbow Gathering (established 1972), and more recently the Burning Man Festival (established 1986). On remote sites, festival revelers constructed temporary autonomous spaces to celebrate free love, egalitarianism, cooperation, and altered states of consciousness.

Coincidentally, rock music in the mid-1970s adopted new scales for concerts and heightened artifice and, in turn, produced a ...