A community psychology of object meanings: Identity negotiation during disaster recovery

Abstract

What do material goods intended for personal consumption mean to community? We use the extreme example of natural disaster recovery in a community to explore this question. Our work describes how members make sense of material objects that transition from private to public possessions (damaged goods) and public to private possessions (donated goods). By blending consumer and community psychology perspectives with our narratives, we employ a three-dimensional framework for analyzing object meanings: (1) material objects as agents of communitas (a shared sense of "we"),(2) material objects as agents of individualism (a focus on "me"), and (3) material objects as agents of opposition (the "we" that speaks for "me" and "us" versus "them"). This theoretical frame allows us to show how different conceptions of identity lead to conflicting meanings of objects within community, and to explain how and why object meanings shift as objects move across time and space from private to public and from scarcity to abundance. We also provide implications for coping with disasters that consider collective and individual identities as well as oppositional stances in between.

Toward a legitimacy-based view of political risk: The case of Google and Yahoo in China

“…To gain moral legitimacy, firms may participate in high‐profile disaster relief efforts (as firms have recently done after hurricanes, droughts, tsunamis, and other humanitarian crises around the world, ranging from developed countries such as the United States and Japan to developing regions such as Africa and Southeast Asia) (Baker, ; Baker and Hill, ). Of course, managers need to make sure that their firms are perceived as doing “the right things for the right reasons,” rather than as a symbolic gesture or a means to increasing profitability (Suchman, ).…”

Co-creating stakeholder and brand identities: A cross-cultural consumer perspective

“…Extensive research follows Belk's (1988) work to explore the relationship among products, possessions, brands, and the self (e.g., Berger & Heath, 2007;Fournier, 1998). For example, research suggests that objects help confirm aspects of self-identity or reconstruct individual and collective identities, particularly when identity is challenged or uncertain (e.g., Baker & Hill, 2013;Belk, 1992). Brands also serve as cues about the owner's identity (Berger & Heath, 2007;Shavitt & Nelson, 2000), something that, in a stakeholder era, should be extended to the identities of all individual-or collective-level actors involved with a brand.…”

Consumer Wisdom: A Theoretical Framework of Five Integrated Facets

“…Accordingly, we explore and seek a rich, grounded understanding of the phenomenology of consumer wisdom through personal stories and viewpoints. Other projects in consumer psychology using a similar paradigm include Baker and Hill (), McGrath, Sherry, and Levy (), and Posavac (). Our main intended contributions are twofold.…”