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De-romanticising the market: advances in Consumer Culture Theory

Taylor & Francis
Journal of Marketing Management
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Extending the critical project of interrogating the consumer subject form, in this study, the consumer subject is read as potentially acritical, precarious and psychotic through Dufour’s Lacanian-inspired analysis of neoliberal subjectivity. Reflecting on two case studies from an ethnographic-type study of young women, identity and consumer culture, I demonstrate how participants attempt to fulfil neoliberal ideals related to agency, productivity and creativity. Relying on commodities for symbolic anchoring in doing so, a ‘psychotic’ and precarious subject position is evidenced. While the findings could certainly be interpreted as productive, tendencies toward materialism, uncertainty and anxiety, along with pervasive mental health issues, provided the impetus to further problematize dominant understandings of the consumer. Neoliberal consumer culture is evidenced as a harmful, dehumanizing ideology that fosters competitiveness, individuality and meritocratic tendencies, encouraging a reliance on ever-changing, transient commodities to (in)form the self. This occurs at the expense of compromise, communality and social welfare, through which subjects may find more stable and emancipatory symbolic anchors. Only by recognizing critical theorizations of the consumer as dominant subject positions of neoliberalism can cultural consumer researchers begin to imagine opportunities for resistance and emancipatory change.
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As the challenges of sustainability intensify at a global level, it is becoming increasingly more important to encourage, support and promote the mainstream adoption of mindful and ecologically-viable consumption. Drawing on institutional theory and an interpretive investigation of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight, we explore a relatively widespread phenomenon, the celebrity campaign. We consider how such campaigns galvanise mainstream malcontent by creating mythic plots; personalising adversaries; and framing issues to encourage articulation of malcontent. Though malcontent may be fleeting, we argue that this can set in motion institutional change towards sustainable production and consumption. Celebrity campaigns demonstrate the dynamic and interrelated character of consumer and industry groups in a way that might inform other change efforts.
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Inspired by Askegaard’s thought-provoking commentary in Marketing Theory, this response argues that music is not ‘consumed’. Furthermore, there are many other market contexts where the consumption metaphor is unsuitable. The contemporary meaning of the term derives from its use by early economists like Adam Smith who labelled ‘consumption’ as the opposite of ‘production’. Some of the theoretical and ontological issues underlying the dominance of the concept of consumption in marketing are discussed. Finally, some possible alternatives to consumption as the master narrative are identified, such as those based on experience, service, value, utility, use, satisfaction, pleasure, welfare or well-being.
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The article starts with the assumption that the research community of consumer culture theory (CCT) is materially experienced and negotiated in its continuous rhetorical construction. Here, we use the concept of manifestos to analyze the fragile dialectics of a rhetorical and social praxis. In two manifestary moments in the historical development of CCT, we compare how manifestos materialize the transitions from individuals to the linked subjects by a shared relation to 'the other'. The analysis shows how the 'we' of yesterday was written differently from how the 'we' of the present and the future requires to be articulated. This sense of 'we-ness' is then connected to the changes in the internal and external layers of the academic environment. We conclude that to ensure a sustainable, dynamic development of CCT that avoids disintegration as well as eroding subjugation and stasis, a balance between radical and pragmatic voices has to be established. This balance incorporates the idea that power and knowledge are dynamically intertwined. In this sense, 'we-ness' is not a utopian final state, but a permanent necessity for CCT that emerges out of struggles and engages in conflicts.
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The special issue of Marketing Theory (2013) on consumer culture theory (CCT) updates and restates the main aims and controversies in CCT as well as offers a number of novel interpretations on the history and possible future direction of the movement. Whilst the anchor paper from Thompson et al. (2013) is notable for the invocation of Bakhtin’s concept of Heteroglossia, its main significance is as a reply to ongoing critiques of the CCT project. In this commentary article, we highlight the common tendency among critics to emphasize the paradigmatic and institutional basis for CCT as residing in the context of academic discourse. These accounts utilize what Coskiner-Balli (2013) discusses as the mobilization of cultural myths. One consequence of this process of retelling the CCT creation narrative is that it diverts and obscures other ideological readings of CCT. We highlight what we understand as the underlying neo-liberal sentiment at the centre of the CCT project. A neo-liberal perspective repositions some of the main criticisms of CCT, especially those regarding the overemphasis on consumer subjectivities.
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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the author’s involvement in the paradigm wars of the 1980s in marketing and consumer research. In this paper, the author describes his role in the ecological succession of the discipline at a critical juncture between the early efforts of the pioneering scholars and the establishment of a mature climax community of consumer culture theorists. Design/methodology/approach – The author employs an autobiographical approach. Findings – Among the many contributions of a host of talented and insightful fellow travelers, the author’s penchant for ethnographic research and anthropological analysis helped nudge the discipline into interesting new niches. Originality/value – This personal reminiscence of the philosophical debates surrounding our interpretive turn may be triangulated with others to construct a synchronic account of a moment in disciplinary evolution.
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Beginning in the 1980s, anthropologists began to be bombarded with endless—and often strangely moralistic—exhortations to acknowledge the importance of something referred to as “consumption.” The exhortations were effective; for the past 2 decades, the term has become a staple of theoretical discourse. Rarely, however, do anthropologists examine it: asking themselves why it is that almost all forms of human self-expression or enjoyment are now being seen as analogous to eating food. This essay seeks to investigate how this came about, beginning with medieval European theories of desire and culminating in the argument that the notion of consumption ultimately resolves certain conceptual problems in possessive individualism.
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' You can' t have too much romance, according to the advertising by-line of Mills and Boon, This paper flirts with the carnality of consumption, casts a sidelong glance at the erotics of exchange and draws a discreet veil over the dirty mackintosh wearers of marketing, Campbell s much-vaunted' romantic ethic of consumer society is also dallied with and salacious rumours about the relationship between marketing and romanticism are egregiously spread, Don' t tell anyone. Promise?
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The purpose of this paper is to review various opinions and differences of opinion which have been expressed concerning that aspect of research referred to as "implementation." We have used the term "implementation" to refer to the manner in which the results of scientific effort may come to be used by the manager. The "problem of implementation" is the problem of determining what activities of the scientist and the manager are most appropriate to bring about an effective relationship between the two.