This research aims at understanding the role of market offers constructing a stigmatised identity for consumers with disabilities; it further underlines the conditions under which these consumers may manage this stigma effectively. After a literature review focused on stigmatised identity construction through a symbolic interactionist perspective, the authors describe a qualitative study carried out with motor-disabled consumers. The results illustrate how both standard offers and those specially designed for the motor disabled lead to a dead end that contributes to stigmata construction. They also point out how these consumers manage to develop other identities.

Dans une société confrontée à un important mouvement d’accélération sociale, le temps constitue un enjeu central pour les consommateurs, à plus forte raison lorsqu’ils sont en situation de handicap. Cette recherche qualitative se propose donc d'étudier la façon dont le temps contribue à la vulnérabilité de ces consommateurs. Pour ce faire, elle envisage les consommateurs comme pris dans différentes temporalités encastrées, stratifiées et devant être synchronisées. L'analyse de 51 entretiens menés auprès de personnes présentant des déficiences motrices ou auditives rend compte d'une vulnérabilité alimentée par des expériences temporelles individuelles problématiques ainsi que par le manque de synchronisation avec le temps d'autrui et/ou avec le temps de la société. Ces résultats contribuent à la littérature en éclairant l’articulation complexe entre les facteurs individuels, interpersonnels et structurels à l’origine de la vulnérabilité. Des préconisations managériales sont ensuite formulées afin d’aider les consommateurs à se réapproprier leur temps.

La consommation de musique sous une forme numérique, en partie favorisée par le téléchargement illégal, entraîne une remise en cause de la position des acteurs traditionnels de cette filière. La mise en perspective des résistances de ces derniers et des usages émergents des consommateurs permet de relire les enjeux de ce secteur en pleine recomposition autour de la matérialité du numérique, de la place des intermédiaires sur ce marché, et de la moralisation de ces modes de consommation comme sources de valeur dans l’usage .

PurposeThis paper aims to study consumer resistance and anti‐consumption in the context of illegal downloading of cultural goods in France. This practice is socially constructed as deviant by marketplace actors' moral labeling. To that extent, deviant careers are adopted as an analytic framework to articulate these two concepts.Design/methodology/approachA comprehensive approach was used. The authors conducted 49 in‐depth interviews in 2009. The data collected were then analyzed to build the different steps of downloaders' careers and related identities and practices.FindingsThe deviant careers identified shed light on the social construction of resistant identities and specific consumption practices in which social learning and devices play a major role. Accomplished careers enable deviant lifestyles that could be assimilated to anti‐consumption in a mundane context.Practical implicationsThis study could help economic actors to improve their understanding of illegal downloaders' statements, motivations, and behaviors. It gives them clues to anticipate the massive changes in consumer culture occurring through dematerialization of cultural goods.Originality/valueThis study sheds light on the distinctive features of consumer resistance and anti‐consumption in a case of everyday and secret deviance strengthened by marketplace actors' moral labeling. It then helps to articulate these concepts through profiles related to downloaders' careers.

In a society faced with rapid social acceleration, time is a central issue for consumers, especially when they are disabled. This qualitative research therefore proposes to study the way in which time contributes to the vulnerability of these particular consumers. To do this, we consider consumers as being caught up in different embedded, stratified temporalities that need to be synchronised. The analysis of 51 interviews conducted with people with motor or hearing impairments reveals a vulnerability fuelled by problematic individual temporal experiences and by a lack of synchronisation with the time of others and/or with the time of society. These findings contribute to the literature by shedding light on the complex articulation between individual, interpersonal and structural factors at the origin of vulnerability. Managerial recommendations are then formulated in order to help consumers reappropriate their time.