Consumption networks in times of social distancing: Towards entrained solidarity

Abstract

How does solidarity gel together disjointed entities in a web of social relations? This study examines how solidarity catalyzes unconnected entities (people, things, and institutions) in a consumption network by analyzing Spesasospesa.org, an Italian consumption network that was developed during lockdowns resulting from Covid-19. We find that solidarity enables the emergence of this network because of three main practices: (1) synchronization, (2) appropriation, and (3) narration. Solidarity has typically been depicted in the consumer culture literature as a given trait of consumer collectives, but our study shows that solidarity in fact plays a key role in gelling social links at the nexus of antistructure and structure. Therefore, our research extends past literature on consumer sociality by unveiling the role that entrained solidarity plays in the emergence of consumption networks in times of social distancing.

Introduction to the special section: Tribal marketing after Covid

“…Fuschillo and D’Antone (2022) also reconceptualise a traditionally close-contact concept, solidarity. While social theory has long recognised solidarity across borders, online, and in imagined communities, it retains a sense of the face-to-face social connectivity that Covid-19 (in many cases, cruelly) disrupted.…”

Filling in the gaps: a service ecosystem perspective on purchase groups as interstitial markets

“…Finally, given how most work has tended to focus on consumers and service providers separately, there has not been much research on how consumers and service providers came together to structure a response. While some work has documented collective efforts made by sport marketers and NGO members in response to the pandemic (Fuschillo and D'Antone, 2023;Ratten et al, 2021), it is hard to locate research looking at consumers and service providers working together to craft a service adaptation. Given the oft-articulated need to look at value co-creation that takes place when consumers work with each other and with service providers (Kelleher et al, 2019;Ostrom et al, 2015), studying a context where this was present can provide additional insights on how coordination between consumers and service providers can be beneficial when developing a service marketing adaptation.…”

“…Finally, given how most work has tended to focus on consumers and service providers separately, there has not been much research on how consumers and service providers came together to structure a response. While some work has documented collective efforts made by sport marketers and NGO members in response to the pandemic (Fuschillo and D’Antone, 2023; Ratten et al. , 2021), it is hard to locate research looking at consumers and service providers working together to craft a service adaptation.…”

“…Third, extant work has focused either only on service providers or only on consumers when studying their response to the pandemic. While this has resulted in useful insights on how value was co-created by marketers working together (Fuschillo and D’Antone, 2023; Ratten et al. , 2021), not much has been written about service contexts wherein value was co-created by consumers working with each other and with service providers.…”