Call for Papers: Special Issue on Moving Consumption

This special issue aims to assume the task by CMC to contextualize consumption, bringing it out of the close circle of the consumer and his/her brain, mind or culture, and in touch with larger structures, as well as with disciplines previously not often used in studies of consumption (for other examples, see Aspara, 2009, on perspectives from Art and Design: Burton, 2011, on whiteness theory 2011: and Borgerson, 2009, on materiality following anthropologist Daniel Miller). In order to move consumer research forward, we propose to study moving consumption.

Historically consumer research moved itself dramatically, notably when it decided to broaden its focus from buyer to consumer behavior, from the shop to the home, from acquisition to disposal, use and discarding, along the idea that consumption activities are not restricted to shopping places and marketing issues, but encompass all aspects of human life. As a consequence, consumption should be studied in all its aspects, be they commercial or not (Holbrook 1984; Holbrook, 1985; Holbrook, 1987). Interestingly, Consumer research accomplished this move in moving itself, in the physical sense of the expression, when in 1986 a team of its leaders decided to travel the routes of American consumption and gather new facts about all aspects of consumption behavior through the well- known adventure of the Consumer Behavior Odyssey (Belk, 1991; Belk and al., 1989). But paradoxically, if consumer research moved both conceptually and physically, we know little about the relationship between consumption and motion.

In order to open up the field of consumption this is precisely this relationship that we propose to explore. We invite contributions along the lines of consumer’s physical but also mental moves: how they move, what they move, and also what moves them. Consumers move from shopping to consuming places, but we should get a better knowledge about what happens during their journeys, “around” and “between” buying and consuming; how physical moves, sensorial moves, market devices and other settings shape consumption.

Our theme “Moving consumption” also implies moving consumer research forward by challenging consumption as a complex field of actors, processes, practices and modes of thought, and arguing that consumption needs to be studied by innovative trans-disciplinary perspectives—perspectives that overcome many of the traditional discursive, theoretical, and methodological dichotomies. This means not only acknowledging the recent interest in consumption studies following the paths opened by Actor-network theory (Brembeck et al, 2007, Cochoy, 2004, 2011), theories of practice (Shove et al, 2007; 2012), and sensory ethnography (Pink, 2010, Valtonen, Markuksela & Moisander, 2010). It also opens up for engaging with mobility studies. The ‘new mobilities’ paradigm encompasses both the large-scale movements of people, objects, capital and information across the world, as well as the more local processes of daily transportation, movement through public space and the travel of material things within everyday life (Hannam, Sheller & Urry 2006). A related issue is that of the role of the larger frames, such as the managerial, technical or governmental constructs and instruments that shape markets at large (see the June 2012 issue of CMC, Geiger and al., 2012) but that also and more specifically “move” consumers from the outside, to the point of challenging the view of the isolated free decision maker and redefining consumer agencies and identities (Moisander and al., 2010; Cochoy, 2011).

Of course, external moves closely interact with internal ones, and such interactions deserve attention. Here, we join the interest of several scholars in the body (Mol, 2002), senses (Pink, 2010), affects (Massumi, 2002), interacting bodies (Degan & al., 2010, Arnoldi & and Borsch, 2007, Piette, 2010), and new forms of technologies tightly coupled to and surveying our bodies and the way they move. This also paves the way for contributions along the lines of sensory marketing (Hultén, 2009) and neuromarketing (Fugate, 2007; Lee and al., 2007, Senior and Lee, 2008, Schneider & Woolgar, 2012).

To our minds consumers form a fleeting entity; they are living, moving and swarming. Hence, if we want to account for them, we should study them in their real life settings (Du Gay, 2004; McFall, 2004, Pink, 2004), and take the senses (Pink, 2010), practices (Warde, 2005,) and also the devices and settings that shape consumption as part of the explanation. We therefore also welcome contributions focusing on inventive methods such as photo-elicitation (Heisley and Levy, 1991), video shadowing (Czarniawska, 2007) go-alongs (Kusenbach, 2003), visual anthropology (Schroeder, 2004, Pink 2007, Piette, 2010), experimental sociology (Gaver, 1999), quantitative ethnography, archaeology of the present, and so on. These are all appropriate tools to capture the elusive consumer (Ekström & Brembeck, 2004) moving in/of complex fields of actors, processes and practices.

Deadline for proposals is November 1, 2012. Proposals should be 2-3 pages long. After preliminary review by the editors, selected authors will be invited to submit full papers by March 31, 2013.

Proposals can be sent to: Helene.Brembeck [at] cfk [dot] gu [dot] se

Editors:

Helene Brembeck, Center for Consumer Science, Gothenburg University, Sweden

Franck Cochoy, Department of Sociology, University of Toulouse II, France

Johanna Moisander, Department of Communication, Aalto University, Finland

References

Araujo Luis, John Finch and Hans Kjellberg (eds.). 2010. Reconnecting marketing to markets: practice- based approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Arnoldi, J. & Ch. Borch 2007. Market crowds between imitation and control. Theory, Culture & Society, 24, nos. 7–8: 164–180.

Aspara, J. 2009. Aesthetics of stock investments, Consumption, Markets & Culture 12, nos. 3: 99-131.

Belk, R. W. (ed.) 1991a. Highways and Buyways, Naturalistic Research from the Consumer BehaviorOdyssey. Provo: UT, Association for Consumer Research.

Belk R. W., M. Wallendorf & J. F. Sherry Jr. 1989. The sacred and profane in consumer behavior:Theodicy on the Odyssey. Journal of Consumer Research 16, no 1: 1-38.

Borgerson, J. L. 2009. Materiality and the comfort of things: drinks, dining and discussion with Daniel Miller, Consumption Markets & Culture 12, no. 2: 155-170.

Brembeck, H., K. Ekström and M. Mörck (eds.) 2007. Little Monsters. (De)Coupling Assemblages of Consumption. Berlin, LIT Verlag.

Burton, D. 2009. ’Reading’ whiteness in consumer research. Consumption, Markets & Culture 12, no. 2: 171-201.

Callon, M., Y. Millo & F. Muniesa (eds.). 2007. Market Devices. Sociological Review monographs,Oxford, Blackwell.

Cayla, Julien and Detlev Zwick (eds.). 2011. Inside Marketing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cochoy, F. 2004. Is the Modern Consumer a Buridan’s Donkey? Product Packaging and Consumer Choice. In Elusive Consumption, eds. Ekström, K. & Brembeck, H., 205-227. Oxford: Berg.

Cochoy, F. 2011. ‘Market-things Inside’: insights from Progressive Grocer (United States, 1929-1959). In Inside Marketing, eds. Cayla, Julien and Zwick, Detlev, 58-84. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Czarniawska, B. 2007. Shadowing: and other techniques for doing fieldwork in modern societies. Malmö: Liber.

Degan, M., G. Rose & B. Basdas. 2010. Bodies and everyday practices in designed urban environments. Science Studies 23, no. 2: 60-76.

Du Gay, P. 2004. Self-service: Retail, Shopping and Personhood. Consumption, Markets & Culture 7, no. 2 (June): 149-163.

Ekström, K. & H. Brembeck. 2004 (eds.). Elusive Consumption. Oxford: Berg.

Fugate, D. L. 2007. Neuromarketing: a layman’s look at neuroscience and its potential application to marketing practice. Journal of Consumer Marketing 24, no. 7: 385-394.

Gaver, W.1999. Cultural Probes. Interactions January-February: 21-29.
Geiger, S., H. Kjellberg and R. Spencer. 2012. Shaping exchanges, building markets Consumption, Markets and Culture 15, no. 2 (June): 133-147.

Hannam, K., M. Sheller and J. Urry. 2006. Editorial: Mobilities, Immobilities and Moorings. Mobilities 1, no. 1, 1-22.

Heisley, D.D. and S.J. Levy. 1991. Autodriving: A Photoelicitation Technique, Journal of Consumer Research 18, no. 3: 257-272.

Holbrook, M. B. 1984. Belk, Granzin, Bristor, and the Three Bears. In, Scientific Method in Marketing, 1984 AMA Winter Educators’ Conference, eds. P.F. Anderson & M.J. Ryan, 177-178. Chicago, IL: American Marketing Association.

Holbrook, M. B. 1985. Why Business is Bad for Consumer Research. In Advances in Consumer Research 12. eds. E.C. Hirschman & M.B. Holbrook, 145-156. Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.

Holbrook, M. B. 1987. What Is Consumer Research ? Journal of Consumer Research 14, June: 128-132.

Hultén, B., N. Broweus and M. och Van Dijk. 2009. Sensory marketing. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kusenbach, M. 2003. Street Phenomenology. The Go-Along as Ethnographic Research Tool, Ethnography 4 (September), no. 3: 455-485.

Latour, B. 1999. Factures/fractures: from the concept of network to the concept of attachment. RES, 36, Fall.

Lave, Jean, Michael Murtaugh and Olivia de la Rocha 1984. The Dialectic of Arithmetic in Grocery Shopping. In Everyday Cognition. Its Development in Social Context, eds. Rogoff, Barbara & Lave,Jean, 67-94. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Law, John and Annemarie Mol. 2008. The Actor-Enacted: Cumbrian Sheep in 2001. In Material

Agency: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Approach, eds. Lambros Malafouris and Carl Knappett, 55-77. Springer.

Lee, N., Broderick, A.J. & L. Chamberlain. 2007. What is neuromarketing? A discussion and agenda for future research, International Journal of Psychophysiology 63 (February), no. 2: 199-204.

Lien, Marianne and John Law (forthcoming). ‘Emergent Aliens’: On Salmon, Nature and Their Enactment, Ethnos. 

Massumi, B. 2002. Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.

Moisander, J., A. Markkula and K. Eräranta. 2010. Construction of consumer choice in the market: challenges for environmental policy. International Journal of Consumer Studies, no. 34: 73-79.

McFall, Liz 2004. The language of the walls: Putting promotional saturation in historical context, Consumption, Markets and Culture 7, no. 2 (June): 107-128.

Mol, A. 2002. The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice (Science and Cultural Theory). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Piette, A. 2010. The Visual Traces of an Ethnographic Investigation; or, How Do People Present Themselves in a Concrete Situation? Visual Anthropology, no. 23: 186-199.

Pink, S. 2004. Home Truths. Gender, Domestic Objects and Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg.

Pink, S 2007. Doing Visual Ethnography. London: Sage.

Pink, S. 2010. Doing Sensory Ethnography. London: Sage.

Senior, C. & N. Lee. 2008. A manifesto for neuromarketing science, Journal of Consumer Behaviour 7, no. 4-5: 263-271.

Schneider, Tanja and Steve Woolgar. 2012. Technologies of ironic revelation: enacting consumers in neuromarkets. Consumption, Markets and Culture 15, no. 2 (June): 1-12.

Shove, E., M. Watson, M. Hand, M. and J. Ingra. 2007. The Design of Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg. Shove, E. M. Pantzar and M. Watson. 2012. The Dynamics of Social Practice: Everyday life and how it changes. London: Sage.

Schroeder, J. 2004. Visual Consumption in the Image Economy. In Elusive Consumption, eds. Ekström, K. & Brembeck, H., Oxford: Berg.

Valtonen, A., V. Markuksela and J. Moisander. 2010. Doing sensory ethnography in consumer research, International Journal of Consumer Studies.

Warde, Alan. 2005. Consumption and Theories of Practice, Journal of Consumer Culture, 5, no. 2: 131-53.