The new work ethics of consumption and the paradox of mundane brand resistance

Abstract

In terms of consumer resistance and marketplace ideologies, consumer researchers have called for a more nuanced conceptualization of consumption moralism in order to avoid the simplistic trope of inside/outside the marketplace (e.g. Arnould, 2007;Luedicke et al., 2010; Peñaloza and Price, 1993;Thompson, 2004). With the aim of contributing to this quest, this article brings together two originally separate ethnographic studies on food consumption and brands in Scandinavia in order to provide new insights regarding the increasingly complex arena of consumer morality. Instead of focusing on highly pronounced consumer resistance -such as activist communities or specific brand antagonists or protagonists -we focus on ordinary Scandinavian consumers whose identities are not centered around resisting the marketplace. Through a pluri-methodological combination of field observations, interviews, symbol elicitation, photo diaries and artefact collections, we propose an empirically informed model illustrating the paradox of ordinary consumers' brand resistance: embracing myths of craftsmanship. We show how ordinary middle-class consumers bridge 'bad' with 'good' brand consumption in various ways to legitimize the former, and how they make the evaluations according to traditional work ethics rather than (post)modern consumption ethics.

A psycho-social approach to consumer ethics

“…Papaoikonomou, CasconPereira, and Ryan, 2016;Ulver-Sneistrup, Askegaard, Kristensen, 2011). This increasingly influential literature points instead to how ethical attitudes and "attitude-behaviour gaps" are methodological constructions of a positivistic research tradition that insists on viewing consumers as largely autonomous and rational, stripping away the broader socio-economic and cultural context of consumption.…”

Theorizing Reactive Reflexivity: Lifestyle Displacement and Discordant Performances of Taste

“…To assert a more sovereign (i.e., less ideologically dominated) agency, consumers must therefore cultivate a critical consciousness and proactively resist the constraining forces of social conditioning, institutionalized norms, and ideological hailings (Firat and Venkatesh 1995;Izberk-Bilgin 2010;Holt 2002;Murray andOzanne 1991, 1995;Ulver-Sneistrup, Askegaard, and Kristensen 2011;Üstüner and Thompson 2012;Thompson and Üstüner 2015;Varman and Belk 2009). …”

The cynicism of consumer morality

“…The findings of this study contribute to prior consumer morality literature (see Caruana 2007aCaruana , 2007bLuedicke, Thompson, and Giesler 2010;Press and Arnould 2011;Ulver-Sneistrup, Askegaard, and Brogård-Kristensen 2011), by developing a novel and alternative perspective, which illustrates how cynicism constitutes an important element of consumer morality. More specifically it contributes to our current understanding of consumer morality by showing that morally enlightened consumers do not necessarily act "as if" they were unenlightened because they fail to make sense of and handle moral ambiguities and countervailing moral discourses (cf.…”