Consumer Culture Theory Conference

POD A: THE DIGITAL & TECHNOLOGICAL

A.01 Experiential Consumption of Augmented Reality: The Nexus between Fun, Authenticity and Self
Khaled El Shamandi Ahmed, Goldsmiths University London, UK

The aim of this research aims to explore experiential consumption aspects of augmented reality. Using the reassembling technique to find the puzzle in the data in consumer culture research (Belk and Sobh, 2019), we will go beyond discussing the experiential consumption of fun to include authenticity and the self.

A.02 Playing the Game of Fashion in the Digital Era: The Dynamic Relationship Between Consumers and Algorithms
Henri Weijo, Aalto University, Finland
Pelin Geyik, Finland, Aalto University
Kelsie Lichtcsien, Aalto University, Finland

This study looks at the phenomenon of consumer-algorithm relationships. Drawing on the context of fashion consumers on Instagram, this study asks “how do fashion consumers interact with algorithms?” Bourdieu’s theory of capital was used to show how fashion capital and technological capital play a role in fashion field maneuvering.

A.03 Knowledge And Action: Understanding the Dynamics of Online Communities
Ana Hungara, GOVCOPP, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
Helena Nobre, GOVCOPP, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal

This article analyses the concepts of consumption communities and communities of practice. Then, it proposes the development and testing of a conceptual framework based on practices and knowledge forms. This work hopefully contributes to the marketing and consumer culture theory through a broader understanding of the dynamics of online communities.

A.04 Does it work? Do I want it to work? Please let it work: The Fraught Meanings and Altered Material Competences of Digital Practices in Wilderness Settings
Nathan B. Warren, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway
Linda L. Price, University of Wyoming, USA
Jared Offei Lartey, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway

As compared to everyday life, in the wilderness, digital technologies have dramatically altered meanings and material competences as elements of configured practices. We attend to whether and how digital elements in concert with other non-digital actors are reintegrated into wilderness practices around fraught meanings and altered material competences.

A.05 “In the Zone:” (Re)productions of space through digital self-representation
Alexandra Rome, ICN Business School, France
Jack Tillotson, University of Vaasa, Finland
Vito Tassiello, Liverpool John Moores University, UK

How does the digital performance of self play into the (re)production of space? Drawing on data collected via Instagram using different geotags related to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and the ghost town of Pripyat, we identify three intertwined, spatio-temporal performances of digital selves that (re)produce the appropriated space.

A.06 Analyzing marketplace sentiment with linguistic tools: Calling out Karen on Twitter
Michael Mulvey, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, Canada
Bart Wernaart, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands
Brishna Nader, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands

Marketplace sentiment research has blossomed with the rise of social media, yet current approaches often struggle with the measurement and calibration of textual data at scale. This study tests three new theory-based text analytic tools that purportedly deliver more precise measures of consumer interest, emotion vocabularies, and moral foundations.

A.07 Fitter Happier: Self-tracking apps and the optimization of daily living
Marina Viotto, FGV EAESP, Brazil
Maria Carolina Zanette, NEOMA Business School, France
Eliane Brito, FGV EAESP, Brazil

The self-tracking phenomenon is rapidly spreading due to the popularization of apps that serve this purpose in different life areas. In this study, we investigated 10 self-tracking apps to show how they articulate self-optimization in daily living, turning it into something to be constantly monitored, managed, and controlled.

A.08 The Transformative Impact of Online Communities on the Wellbeing of Women in a Developing Country
Mariam Abouseif, Lancaster University, UK
Sheila Malone, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
Hayley Cocker, Lancaster University, UK

This study explores how online consumption communities impact women’s wellbeing in a developing and conservative country like Egypt. It draws on the literature on consumption communities, gender within consumer research and wellbeing; under the umbrella of transformative consumer research. The research employs a netnographic approach as well as in-depth interviews.

A.09 Meanings and Materials in The Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Privacy
Johanna Horppu, Tampere University, Finland

The purpose of this study is to explore the cultural meanings attached to data privacy through analysing the sociotechnical imaginaries unravelling in mainstream media content. Privacy is thus approached from a socio-cultural perspective focusing on the visions of its future that are intertwined with and enabled through advances in technology.

A.10 Micro-targeting phenomenon – deficiencies of constructing an advertising message with the five-factor model of personality
Tomasz Serwanski, Warsaw School of Economics, Poland

The paper raises doubts about accuracy of predicting behavior in psychological micro-targeting. It compares the data obtained in Matz et al. 2017 with that used by most market participants (Adstage, Socialinsider) and shows that this technique cannot be considered a “secret key” to the minds of consumers.

A.11 To Have Your Cake and Eat It Too: Retro Gaming, Piracy and Anti-consumption While Still Consuming
Lucas Xavier, FGV EAESP, Brazil

As digital, and unstable objects, old video games can be emulated through piracy in such a way that the very act of playing them becomes an act of anti-consumption. As such, the retro gaming subculture poses an opportunity for putting one defining characteristic of anti-consumption in check: abandonment.

A.12 Taste Regimes and Technology– An Archival study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption
Chrysa Gkotsi, Bayes Business School, City, University of London, UK
Thomas Robinson, Bayes Business School, City, University of London, UK
Fleura Bardhi, Bayes Business School, City, University of London, UK

We address the unexplored relationship between technology and consumer taste formation and practice in sustainable fashion. In an archival study of various news media from all over the world, insights reveal how consumer taste formation and performance are contextualized by the constitutive role of technology in the social field.

A.13 Church Without Walls? Social Media as Ritual Carrier for Megachurch Congregants in the Renegotiation of Ritual Space
Mai Khanh Tran, London South Bank University, UK
Andrew Davies, University of Birmingham, UK

The desire for spiritual experiences, particularly religious rituals, further increased during the pandemic. Through a netnographic examination, this study explains how consumer-congregants of a London-based megachurch renegotiated their spiritual experience and ritual space to create new ‘living-room’ and ‘cyber’ rituals, using the social media platforms as ritual carriers.

A.14 What Drives Harmful Tweets to Go Viral? Exploring the Influences of Sinophobic Message Characteristics on Twitter Engagement
Hyejin Kim, DePaul University, USA
Thyago Mota, Metropolitan State University of Denver, USA
Sanga Song, Indiana University East, USA

Guided by Intergroup Threat Theory, we explored the influences of Sinophobic tweets’ characteristics on Twitter engagement. The findings revealed that the engagement level was not increased by the presence of threat perception keywords per se, but by how the keywords were expressed—in longer sentences or in a negative tone.

A.15 Breaking Branding Boundaries: The Materialization of Brands Between Liquidity and Solidity
Christiane Aufschnaiter, MCI The Entrepreneurial School, Austria
Sarah Schwarz, University of Innsbruck, Austria

This study advances a novel understanding of how liquid consumers relate to solid brands in times of precarity and paradox. Embedded in recent theories on materiality and grounded in Twitter content analysis, we foreground the various functions a brand fulfills to nourish navigations between liquid and solid environments.

A.16 The Dual Role of Authenticity in Pride Branding
Raian Razal, Aarhus University, Denmark
Polymeros Chrysochou, Aarhus University, Denmark

This research studies how consumers perceive Pride branding, a phenomenon where brands take stances that symbolize the values of the Pride social movement. Using semi-structured interviews of LGBTQ+ people, accompanied with a netnography of consumer responses to Pride branding, we unpack the dual role of authenticity across individual life narratives.

POD B: THE (EXTRA)ORDINARY

B.01 Negotiating Beliefs: The Commodification of Expertise During the Pandemic
Ateeq Rauf, Information Technology University, Pakistan

In this paper, I explicate how collective behavior is disoriented by the pandemic creating new modes of relating and producing novel discourses. I unravel how religious belief and sensemaking in the digital space occurs and creates anxieties because of cacophony of verified and unverified information sources.

B.02 Understanding VanLife: A Social Practices Perspective
Philipp K. Wegerer, MCI Management Center Innsbruck, Austria

This study explores how consumers experience Van Life. Drawing on practice theory and findings and qualitative interviews with camper van owners, the study finds that Van Life is characterized by three interrelated bundles of practices, that resemble a recurring, authentic, and singularizing consumption experience.

B.03 With the soil and into the soil: the diversification of materiality
Xuxiangru Fan, University of Birmingham, UK

Adapting an object-oriented perspective, this research focuses on soil, one of the most ubiquitous objects in the world. In the context of cultural consumption, this research aims to unearth the attractiveness of soil through a qualitative investigation and further reflect on how commodification and consumption diversify materiality.

B.04 Is self-love a vanity or a coping strategy? An auto-ethnographic reflection on self-care during the Covid-19 pandemic
Edita Petrylaite, Northumbria University, UK

A global pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus created changes in how we socialise, work and consume. This auto-ethnographic research explores self-care practices and identifies self-love as a coping strategy to survive the pandemic. Prioritising one’s personal needs through hedonic and compensatory consumption counteracts the adversities of social lockdowns.

B.05 First and Last Smiles: Fun and the Adoption of Micromobility
Karly Nygaard-Petersen, Royal Roads University, Canada

This ethnographic investigation considers experiences of fun and the adoption of micromobility as novel, shared transportation. Particularly as fear related to COVID-19 is increasingly prevalent, this paper aims to provide a nuanced understanding of consumer behavior in the context of climate and other urban-based challenges faced by cities globally.

B.06 Leaving Earth, Living on Mars: Discourses About Space Tourism
Vitor Lima, Audencia Business School, France
Russ Belk, York University, SSB, Canada

This working paper investigates the associated discourses of space tourism, which is now being marketed as an exclusive luxurious experience. Our preliminary analysis shows that luxury may not be solely about conspicuous consumption but “to be the right kind, the right body,” to thereby have a seat on a spaceship.

B.07 Distributed agency of humans and non-humans in housing practices
Sara-Ellen Laitinen, University of Helsinki, Finland
Henna Syrjälä, University of Vaasa, Finland
Charlotta Harju, University of Vaasa, Finland
Eliisa Kylkilahti, University of Helsinki, Finland

Our study asks what kind of entities carry housing practices and what kind of interaction there is between them. We examine this using narrative diaries of consumers’ daily practices. According to our findings, agencies appear distributed between humans and heterogeneous non-humans. Practices take place in interaction between these distributed agencies.

B.08 ‘Football Without Fans is Nothing’: How Consumer Movements Gain Concessions from Organizations through Disruptive Protest
Tim Hill, University of Bath, UK
Robin Canniford, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Tina Dacin, Queen’s University, Canada

Consumer activists target specific organizations and the principles and practices upon which they operate. Based on a longitudinal study of activism in the English Premier League, this research develops a theoretical understanding that explains why consumer movements’ targets respond the way they do to protest and the demands they make.

B.09 Extending the Understanding of ‘Food-Enjoyment’: Exploring Meanings and Practices amongst Lower-Income-Group Consumers
Sukriti Sekhri, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India
Ankur Kapoor, Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur, India

The joy of food, typically construed as sinful or epicurean, is understood from the perspective of privileged-affluent consumers. We extend this understanding by exploring the meanings/practices of food-enjoyment among the lower-income-group consumers. Variations in embodiment, capital, fluidity, and evaluation between the HIG-LIG consumers suggest a revised conceptualization of food-enjoyment.

B.10 Consumer vulnerability: How can second-hand consumption as a coping strategy enable the resilience of refugees?
Tugba Ozbek, Yıldız Technical University, Turkey
Ebru Enginkaya Erkent, Yıldız Technical University, Turkey

The main motivation for this research is that, as a result of the pandemic, inequalities in access to and control of resources in the marketplace have become more apparent, and this process has a significant negative impact on people’s quality of life, welfare, and well-being, particularly for vulnerable consumers. Thus, this study will explore second-hand consumption motivations and how second-hand consumption as a coping strategy can enable the resilience of refugees as vulnerable consumers.

B.11 “Made to Escape”: The effects of the neoliberal rationality on the formation of the market around extraordinary experiences
Fernanda Scussel, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil

We explore the formation of the market system around extraordinary experiences with a threeyear ethnography in a subculture of marathoners. Results show this marketplace is result of recursive interactions between consumers, market resources, performance ideology and productivity logic, connecting extraordinary experiences to a neoliberal rationality.

B.12 Consumer Resilience in the Spiritual Marketplace
Jannsen Santana, EMLYON Business School, France
Katharina Husemann, Kings’ College London, UK

Consumers increasingly access the spiritual marketplace to deal with their life struggles. Via an ethnography of a pilgrimage, we unpack the process of how consumers build up resilience via spiritual consumption: (i) acknowledging the struggling self; (ii) activating spiritual capital; (iii) experiencing meaningful connections; and (iv) acknowledging the resilient self.

B.13 From Sensationalists to Critical Minds: Exploring Consumers’ Fascination with True Crime
Ramona Riehle, University of Innsbruck, Austria
Stephanie Kogler, University of Innsbruck, Austria

This study explores the recent hype around true crime podcasts and unravels its relevance in contemporary society. Empirically, the authors draw upon in-depth interviews with German speaking true crime consumers to shed light on their fascination with non-fictional stories about horrific crimes.

B.14 Can’t Touch That: Grieving Touch in Consumer Shopping
Joy Shields, Pepperdine University, USA
Cristel Russell, Pepperdine University, USA
Clark Johnson, Pepperdine University, USA
Joann Peck, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Touch is a vital component of consumers’ in-store shopping experience. This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affected consumers’ shopping experience and how they coped with the limits the pandemic placed on their ability to engage with products haptically.

B.15 Therapeutic Entrepreneurship: When Work Becomes Pleasure
Sila Ayöz, UW-Madison, USA

By conceptualizing entrepreneurship as a socio-moral phenomenon, I examine consumer-led market formation process of specialty coffee where former white collar professionals suffering from neoliberal alienation and the disciplinary power of the workplace become coffee entrepreneurs to derive moral and social pleasures from their work, which is termed as therapeutic entrepreneurship.

B.16 How Consumers Interact with Robots that Carry Contradictory Logic?
Yumiko Oda, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, Japan

This study elucidates the process by which consumers interact with and then accommodate robots that carry contradictory logics. Based on the in-depth interviews for households supplemented by media articles, we will identify the conflict consumers feel and the process they accommodate the robot to their family.

POD C: PLACE & TIME

C.01 Rotating Songs and Sneakers: How Consumers Manage the Challenges of Using Collected Objects
Paolo Franco, Radboud University, Netherlands
Ai Ming Chow, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Rohan Venkatraman, University of Birmingham, UK

Collected objects are conceptualized as removed from functional use and enshrined together on display by consumers. However, collections featuring objects that are used have been understudied in prior research. In this working paper, we explore the theoretical implications of collected object use in two consumption contexts: digital music and sneakers.

C.02 How Families Critique and Justify Diverging Intergenerational Tastes but Maintain Cohesion
Ankita Kumar, Bucknell University, USA
Annetta Grant, Bucknell University, USA

The authors examine taste practices intergenerationally in families to understand how divergences and convergences in socialized tastes arise, what discursive and practical strategies family members employ to criticize others’ tastes and justify their own, and ultimately how they resolve ensuing tensions to stabilize and maintain cohesiveness in the extended family.

C.03 Modernity, shortages and fashion: Adoption of new technologies in the socialist and early capitalist Poland
Filip Schmidt, Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań, Poland
Marta Skowrońska, Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań, Poland
Joanna Zalewska, Maria Grzegorzewska University, Poland

Between 1955 and 1990, Polish households became entwined with a net of water, electric and gas installations, gained new appliances: washing machines, refrigerators and TV sets. How the adoption of new home technologies proceeded in socialist societies? The paper demonstrates strategies for adoption of novelties and the relationship between types of resources and paths of innovations.

C.04 Where Did They Go? A study on the symbolic marketplace absence of elderly consumers.
Oscar Ahlberg, Aalto University, Finland
Mattias Hjelm, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden

Drawing from Baudrillard’s conceptualisations of symbolic exchange and death, this article explores the symbolic marketplace exclusion of elderly consumers. The article posits that the marketplace exclusion of elderly consumers serves a crucial function within a system that promulgates representations of life and abject signifiers of death, and thus old age.

C.05 Bounded Liquidity: Gendered Metaphors of Mundane Liminality
Tanvi Gupta, Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur, India
Vidushi Trivedi, Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur, India

While liminality is associated with extraordinary experiences, we conceptualise the embodied pausing of time and space during a lockdown as mundane liminality. We show that the spatiotemporal experience of domestic, mundane liminality is non-masculine and explore how men’s domestic consumption practices help them to realign with embodied metaphors of masculinity.

C.06 It’s the Little Things: How Service and Spatial Design Fuel Perceptions of Stigma
Anna Buchholz, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany
Nancy Wünderlich, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany

Perceived stigma endangers the well-being of consumers as it leads to low self-esteem and hinders consumers from participating in the marketplace. Following research that has shown that service design impacts vulnerability perceptions, we use qualitative interviews to study how the spatial design of servicescapes fuels perceptions of stigma.

C.07 Kunming (China) Middle-Class’ Food Consumption Practices during the Pandemic: An Intersectional Approach
Yu Han, University of Surrey, UK

This project investigates Kunming (China) middle-class residents’ food consumption practices during the pandemic. It explores how the pandemic affected people’s food consumption. It discusses how does the intersectionality of multiple social identities shape people’s reactions to the pandemic impacts and facilitate sustainable food consumption practices.

C.08 Traversing Shrines: Making Sacred Places from Nowhere Spaces
Toni Eagar, Australian National University, Australia
Shona Bettany, University of Huddersfield, UK

To address how space becomes locatable and mythical we conducted an ethnographic study of Pooh Bear’s Corner, Australia. Conceptualised as a traversing shrine, a pause along a journey, we identify the emplacement mechanisms of: (1) mobility, (2) pausing, and (3) orientation. This contributes to our understanding of space and travel.

C.09 Concentrated Difference in Place: Structure and Agency in a Thrift Store Environment
Mariella Zavala, Gonzaga University, USA

This paper explores how consumers shape and are shaped by the material world of marketplaces and the structures that shape social norms. Findings reveal that high concentrated difference within a site encourages the transposition of schemas. This research contributes to our understanding of the effects of place and consumer creativity.

C.10 From criticism to political activism: craft beer and bread consumption in Bulgaria
Nina Denisova, Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Bulgaria
Petya Slavova, Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Bulgaria

To understand political activism practices in craft consumption in Bulgaria, a qualitative study based on Boltanski and Thévenot conventional theory is proposed. Specific research focus is put on how consumer criticism expressed through craft consumption is transformed into various forms of political activism (e.g. cultural, environmental and social ones).

C.11 Exploring the spatial perspective of myths in the marketplace: the place-dependent stories of a Wigan b(r)and
Rui Wang, University of Birmingham, UK
Christina Goulding, University of Birmingham, UK

Myths have come of age in consumer studies. Instead of using a conventional author-centric approach, this study aims to analyse myths in the marketplace through a spatial lens. By drawing on a Wigan b(r)and as an empirical exemplar, it unpacks the place-dependent myths witnessed, imagined and lived by their consumers.

C.12 Traditional but not necessarily local: An analysis of Tripadvisor reviews to understand the role of Territorial Brand in consumers’ choices
Paola Gioia, Kedge Business School, France
Diego Rinallo, EMLYON Business School, France

Territorial Brand is a tool that policymakers, particularly in rural and mountain areas, are increasingly adopting to promote local products. This study aims to understand, through a Tripadvisor reviews analysis, its role for consumers who, visiting a specific place, choose to eat traditional dishes, often believing that they are also made with local ingredients.

C.13 Recouping Ownership of Cultural Products: Understanding the role of Local Brands in Purist Marketplace
Jayeti Anand, Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, India

The multidirectional flow due to globalization has given rise to ownership tensions of cultural products and services. This study shows that local brands contribute to recouping ownership of cultural products in purist marketplaces by representing the national ideologue and solving for consumer well-being and morality in the purist marketplace.

POD D: DISRUPTION & CRITIQUE

D.01 Diminish the inequality for the LGBT+ community? The exploration of culture and social value from co-creation between consumers and LGBT+ influencers.
Shuyu Yang, University of Manchester, UK
Jack Coffin, The University of Manchester, UK

The exploration of culture and social value from co-creation between consumers and LGBT+ influencers., This research utilises co-creation to explore the consumer community culture of Chinese male beauty influencers and social values regarding gender fluidity and LGBT+ equality in China.

D.02 The Making of Healthy, Wealthy, and Happy Consumers: Practices and Politics of Nudging in For-Profit Firms
Leonardo Conte, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
Léna Pellandini-Simányi, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland

This paper extends previous research in Consumer Culture Theory on the making consumer subjects by examining (1) the performative role of nudging practices in for-profit firms, (2) their underlying normative visions, and (3) the concrete processes through which they shape consumers within the Foucauldian framework of (post-)neoliberal governmentality.

D.03 Feminist collaborative autoethnography for consumer research
Carly Drake, North Central College, USA
Anuja Pradhan, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark

Consumer researchers have adopted collaborative autoethnography, but our discipline thus far lacks guidance for using this method to study consumption-related phenomena. In response, we leverage non-Western feminist theory to provide the theoretical grounding and methodological principles for this method. We also offer a sample data interpretation to illustrate its utility.

D.04 Toxicity as an expression of neoliberalism within competitive gaming
Clarice Huston, Monash University, Australia
Angela Gracia B Cruz, Monash University, Australia
Eloise Zoppos, Monash University, Australia

Toxicity is a common anti-social practice in online consumption communities, with extant literature providing insight into individual motivations and consequences of toxicity. Through a neoliberal analytical lens, we posit that macro-level influences such as competitive hegemony and individual responsibilisation transform serious leisure into work, helping institutionalise toxicity within competitive gaming.

D.05 Market formation in a Racist Society: Initial Findings
Jade Fuchs Scisinio Ferreira, UFF – Federal Fluminense University, Brazil
Ana Raquel Coelho Rocha, UFF – Federal Fluminense University, Brazil
Débora Tayt-Son, UFF – Federal Fluminense University, Brazil

This study seeks to understand how consumers historically underserved have been served by markets in formation. We analyzed cultural discourses. Our findings indicate that structural racism has been challenged by attempts of reframing the makeup market institutional logic. But this ideology still imposes limitations to consumer identity construction.

D.06 Going ‘off-grid’ as a way of disruption
Senija Causevic, SOAS University of London, UK

The 2007-2008 economic crisis, followed by austerity, unprecedented covid-19 circumstances, challenging environmental context, and social exclusion, brought various discourses of off- grid living as an alternative to the dependency on current ideologies and economic systems. More citizens try to detach themselves from the current system by creating off-grid projects to achieve micro-sustainability and decrease consumerism.

D.07 Preaching to the choir but getting burned at the stakes.
Gry Høngsmark Knudsen, UCL Business Academy and University College, Denmark
Lars Pynt Andersen, Aalborg University, Denmark

In this paper we analyze brand activism through SAS’ campaign What is truly Scandinavian? We argue that the benefits of activism to brands and society is wholly dependent on the strategy chosen when communicating brand activism. The aim is to understand both stakeholder interest and ethical implications of brand activism.

D.08 Breaking the PACT: Disrupting Consumer Responsibilization Through Political Comedy
Hunter Jones, Aalto University, Finland

Synthesising affective and governmental theories of responsibilization, this ethno(netno)graphy of a political comedy podcast community explicates how a grotesquely realist ‘structure of feeling’ fosters resistance to consumer financial responsibilization. In doing so, it makes original contributions to literature concerned with the affective dynamics of consumer responsibilization and financialization.

D.09 Ambivalence in Identity Politics: Interpreting the Fat Body
Vidushi Trivedi, Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur, India

Through a qualitative study, this research explores the identity politics experienced by fat-activists in ‘coming-out’ as fat and proud. By applying concepts of mind-body dualism and embodiment, it finds that fat-activists adhere to different ideologies and re-interpret the ‘body-subject’ to experience their newfound fat-identity

D.10 How the Market Perpetuates and Challenges Historical Socio-Cultural Marginalization: The Case of Middle Class Dalits in India
Andrew Lindridge, Newcastle University Business School, UK
Anoop Bhogal-Nair, DeMontort University, UK
Swati Kamble, Newcastle University Business School, Belgium

The Hindu caste system historically prescribes a group’s societal position, regulating occupations, resource access, and marital rights. Within this system, people identified as Dalits are intentionally excluded, often experiencing discrimination and marginalization. We explore how India’s constitution and neo-liberal market reforms perpetuate and challenge Dalit experiences of discrimination.

D.11 Disinformation Markets and Culture
Carlos Diaz Ruiz, Hanken School of Economics, Finland

This project conceptualizes the rapid spread of disinformation in social media as a phenomenon anchored in cultural consumption. As a market-mediated phenomenon that intertwines social media’s business models with consumer-driven identity projects, disinformation shapes social media into an environment in which outlandish claims are a feature, not a bug.

D.12 Understanding Roles for Financial Risk Perception and its Impacts on African American Wealth Accumulation
Jacob Williams, UC Irvine, USA
Tonya Bradford, UC Irvine, USA

Wealth generation may entail risk. Racial identity is found to influence risk perceptions. We explore African American investor behavior to explain the influence of perceived risk on wealth generation and accumulation. We develop a framework to articulate the relationship between risk perception and wealth generation strategies among African Americans.

D.13 The Art of Dissimulation: Category Boundary Work and Legitimation
Roma Cusumano, Bayes Business School (Formerly Cass), UK

Boundary work is an important activity for nascent market legitimation. Current research lacks consideration for how producers use category boundary work to legitimize product attributes. This study proposes a historical discourse analysis of marketing materials around biosynthetic meat, a category challenger, to better understand the strategic shaping of market categories.

D.14 Covid-19 Pandemic: for a Refugee mother, a year like no other
Roua Al Hanouti, University of Lille, France

Through studying consumption practices of refugees’ families in France who have been facing complicated transition associated to forced migration. We attempt to understand how consumption may help families to survive during COVID 19 pandemic. Research was conducted based on ethnographic approach. Focusing on the strategies developed by mothers to maintain and enhance their identity.

D.15 Brand Legitimacy under the Matrix of Domination: Developing an understanding of Brand-Baiting
Jayeti Anand, Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, India
Ankur Kapoor, India Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, India

Drawing on the premise of marketplace legitimacy and matrix of domination, this study conceptualizes brand-baiting as a process of brand legitimacy functional due to the wide gap on the matrix of domination between the truly oppressed consumers and the actors delegitimizing the foundational ideology of the brand.

D.16 Brands as Essentially Contested Concepts
Daniel Dietrich, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Cristel Russell, Pepperdine University, USA
Sophie Boyle, Constellium, Switzerland

The consumer literature on branding coalesces around the notion of brands as essentially contested concepts. Using Gallie’s (1956) seminal theory of contestation as a guide, we develop a novel framework to explain why and how brand contestation surfaces and evolves through mutual disruption practices of both consumers and brands’ legal owners.

CCT POETS & THEIR WORKS

Hilary Downey
Caregiver
Institutional Abuse
Edgeworker
Melancholia

Laurel Steinfield
(a)batted breaths

Terry Gabel
Old and Worthless

Joe Musicco
Ode to Sid
what remains

Pilar Rojas Gaviria
An Accident of Birth
The Affective Tones of Academic Life
Trionfante
Eroico
Andante

Jens Martin Svendsen
Consummation triptych
Heron the consumer
Human the purchaser
Halcyon the pacifier

Jennifer Takhar
The Ward
Strip mall courtship

Steve Lemay
Unprotected Witness
Oh, Donny Boy (To the Tune of Danny Boy)

Victoria Rodner
URUBU
Preto Velho
Salsa triptych (excerpts from a dance enactive ethnography)
embodying movement
embodying musicality
embodying togetherness

John F. Sherry
lagniappe
aspiration on a semiotic square
sirsee

John W. Schouten
Cranberry picking at Motion Bay
Erratics

ARTS & PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY

AP.1 Academic Research and Pottery Making
Leonardo Conte, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland

Any doctoral journey, and arguably academic research in general, seems like the art of pottery making: it requires to get dirty with delicate, malleable, and tricky-to-handle matter whose molding (as subtle as it may be) is formally irreversible, usually different than expected, and eventually hollow. Would you agree?

AP.2 Self-Portraits in August: Re-Crafting Identity through Intimate Production in a Social Enterprise
Luciana Walther, Federal University of Sao Joao Del Rei, Brazil
Carlos Eduardo Felix da Costa, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
John Schouten, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Francisco Alessandri, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Conducted in semi-rural Brazil, this ethnographic art-based research resulted in artwork that conveys findings about social enterprise and community transformation, while helping deepen data collection and interpretation. Three-dimensional self-portraits were sculpted by employees of a folk-art studio and shop and were used during interviews as projective cues for identity discussion.

AP.3 Self-Portraits in August: Identities in Clay
Luciana Walther, Federal University of Sao Joao Del Rei, Brazil
Carlos Eduardo Felix da Costa, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
John Schouten, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Francisco Alessandri, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

This is a photo assemblage about community transformation triggered by a social enterprise that creates, teaches and sells folk-art in semi-rural Brazil. The juxtaposition of photographs that do not complete each other literally welcomes viewers’ co-creation of meaning. This collage follows the materiality of red clay, abundant in the field.

AP.4 Self-Portraits in August: Identities in Wood,
Luciana Walther, Federal University of Sao Joao Del Rei, Brazil
Carlos Eduardo Felix da Costa, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
John Schouten, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Francisco Alessandri, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

This is a photo assemblage about community transformation triggered by a social enterprise that creates, teaches and sells folk-art in semi-rural Brazil. The juxtaposition of photographs that do not complete each other literally welcomes viewers’ co-creation of meaning. This collage follows the materiality of reclaimed wood, abundant in the field.

AP.5 Cultural Relevance Rational_ Pandemic exception to local Fishing communities
Ana Oliveira Madsen, Católica Porto Business School, Portugal

In the middle of the disruption originated by the pandemic, Portuguese local authorities have decided – unofficially of course — to permit that some ancient local fishing coastal communities to keep working normally during the pandemic. this exception was (perhaps) based on some local authorities’ knowledge of cultural relevance rational and on social, cultural, epistemological, and symbolic relationships.

AP.6 Plating Experience: Covid-19 Pandemic and Disruptions of Food Consumption
Duygu Akdevelioglu, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Gulay Taltekin Guzel, Bucknell University, USA

As a response to the disruptions that COVID-19 has caused, restaurants found the solution to focus on their food delivery services. This study explores food aesthetics in dine-in versus delivery settings. Our photo collage provides insights on aesthetic experiences of food consumption including its plating, and presentation styles.

AP.7 Colorism
Ana Raquel Coelho Rocha, UFF – Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
Leticia Moreira Casotti, UFRJ – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Jade Fuchs Scisinio Ferreira, UFF – Federal Fluminense University, Brazil

Colorism is a term that designates social distinctions experienced by black people as a result of their skin tone. This in-progress research seeks to understand how consumers make use of representations of colorism. Departing from 103 posts of a Brazilian Instagram account (#colorism), we present four initial categories.

AP.8 A church without walls? How Megachurch Consumers-Congregants renegotiate the ritual space during COVID-19
Mai Khanh Tran, London South Bank University, UK
Andrew Davies, University of Birmingham, UK

The increasing spiritual desire of consumers turned national lockdown into a period of transition, which promoted the renegotiation of ritual practices and religious space. This research explains how consumer-congregants of one London megachurch developed new ‘living room’ and ‘cyber’ ritual experiences to rebuild and relocate their sacred spaces.

AP.9 The Role of a CCT Researcher
Roma Cusumano, Bayes Business School (Formerly Cass), UK

This is an abstract work capturing the start of my journey untangling what it means to conduct CCT research. Representing context, the perceptible and imperceptible experience of the participant, and the researcher’s lens, this work explores the investigative role of a CCT researcher in finding and explaining inconspicuous phenomenological puzzles.

AP.10 Turning a Blind (Queer) Eye: How Queerness is Negotiated in Mainstream Cultural Products
Orcun Turan, Schulich School of Business – York University, Canada

This research examines how queerness is negotiated in mainstream cultural products, particularly Queer Eye, a makeover show which functions as a tutorial for the idealized neoliberal lifestyle and consumership. Drawing on critical governmentality studies and queer theories, it unpacks the ways queerness and inherently heteronormative neoliberal capitalism are at odds.