Psychotic, acritical and precarious? A Lacanian exploration of the neoliberal consumer subject

Abstract

Abstract:Extending the critical project of interrogating the consumer subject form, in this study, the consumer subject is read as potentially acritical, precarious and psychotic through Dufour's Lacanian-inspired analysis of neoliberal subjectivity. Reflecting on two case studies from an ethnographic-type study of young women, identity and consumer culture, I show how participants attempt to fulfil neoliberal ideals related to agency, productivity and creativity.Relying on commodities for symbolic anchoring in doing so, a 'psychotic' and precarious subject position is evidenced. Whilst the findings could certainly be interpreted as productive, tendencies toward materialism, uncertainty and anxiety, along with pervasive mental health issues, provided the impetus to further problematise dominant understandings of the consumer.Neoliberal consumer culture is evidenced as a harmful, dehumanising ideology that fosters competitiveness, individuality and meritocratic tendencies, encouraging a reliance on everchanging, transient commodities to (in)form the self. This occurs at the expense of compromise, communality and social welfare, through which subjects may find more stable and emancipatory symbolic anchors. Only by recognising critical theorisations of the consumer as dominant subject positions of neoliberalism can cultural consumer researchers begin to imagine opportunities for resistance and emancipatory change.

The interrupted world: Surrealist disruption and altered escapes from reality

“…Many of our participants expressed awareness that reality ‘feels’ different to them; that they are hostage to dislocatory events and issues outside of their immediate agency and control, and that this has impacted their experiences of escaping from it. This has parallels with Lambert’s (2019: 342) observations that consumers living through the current epoch of (post-)postmodern neoliberal capitalism ‘feel as though they should have agency’ but ultimately, when reflecting on life in general, ‘do not feel that occurrences [are] necessarily under their control or their choice’. Accordingly, beyond consumers’ capacity to ‘use consumption to experience realities’ (Arnould and Thompson, 2005: 875), we would add, reflexively, that realities are drawn upon to experience consumption.…”

“Something is missing”: Melancholia and belonging in collective consumption

“…This has allowed us to problematize "joyful" accounts of societal re-enchantment through consumption and how "belonging" to collectives of consumption has commonly been approached in consumer research. We have thereby developed existing psychoanalytic understandings of consumer desire (Belk et al, 2003;Böhm and Batta, 2010;Lambert, 2019;Shankar et al, 2006) within the context of collective consumption by further problematizing how the subject-as-consumer as lacking is often implicitly reproduced, though theoretically neglected. Instead, marketized belonging is often theorized as the "natural" mode by which modernist rationalization and individualization is negotiated, and the enactment or expression (object of desire) of consumption has thus been given precedence over the process (ontology of desire) toward such (see Bouchet, 2011).…”

“…This can occur through, for example, adhering to the "ritualistic consumption" sanctioned by a community of Harley-Davidson riders (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995) or reproducing narratives of worship toward an abandoned brand (Muñiz and Schau, 2005). In contrast to much of the consumer research literature, such enactments do not, however, originate from an agentic subject (see Askegaard and Linnet, 2011;Fitchett et al, 2014;Thompson et al, 2013) but through the sociocultural context-that is, the Other (also Gabriel, 2015;Lambert, 2019). Since the subject only exists through its relationship with the Other, its expression of desire "emerges just as it becomes embodied in speech, it emerges with symbolism" (Lacan, 1988: 234).…”

(Wo)men on top? Postfeminist contradictions in young women’s sexual narratives

“…This influence is also reflected by participants' discussions of "taboo" sexual practices prolific in popular (sexual) culture, such as threesomes or anal sex, and the pressures they face to engage in such acts. In the wider context of marketing theory, these findings work toward dismantling conceptions of an agentic consumer (Fitchett et al, 2014;Lambert, 2019), scrutinizing implicit power relations that work to maintain a status quo. On this basis, we argue that failing to critically attend to wider power structures in this context may promote a sexually agentic female consumer subjectivity that risks propagating erroneous, disrespectful, and potentially dangerous notions of consumer sovereignty and responsibilization.…”

“…Critical, feminist perspectives interrogating the market's constitution of these gender relations, stereotypes, and inequalities are often lacking (Maclaran, 2015), perhaps because these perspectives question an agentic consumer subject central to cultural consumer research theorizing (Catterall et al, 2005;Fitchett et al, 2014;Lambert, 2019). This is troubling because, as the trend toward the pornification of culture evidences, "for young people (but especially girls), there is huge pressure to create and maintain erotic capital" (Maclaran, 2015(Maclaran, : 1735.…”