Against Modern Football: Mobilising Protest Movements in Social Media

Recent debates in sociology consider how Internet communications might catalyse leaderless, open-ended, affective social movements that broaden support and bypass traditional institutional channels to create change. We extend this work into the field of leisure and lifestyle politics with an empirical study of Internet-mediated protest movement, Stand Against Modern Football. We explain how social media facilitate communications that transcend longstanding rivalries, and engender shared affective frames that unite diverse groups against corporate logics. In examining grassroots organisation, communication and protest actions that span online and urban locations, we discover sustained interconnectedness with traditional social movements, political parties, the media and the corporate targets of protests. Finally, we suggest that Internet-based social movements establish stable forms of organisation and leadership at these networked intersections in order to advance instrumental programmes of change

Mapping the absence : A theological critique of posthumanist influences in marketing and consumer research

In this study, we critically examine the ongoing adoption of various posthumanist influences into the fields of marketing and consumer research from a theological perspective. By conducting a theological-historical assessment, we propose that it is not posthuman notions of human/technology relations, nor their broader context in the emerging non-representational paradigms, that mark radically new disruptions in the continuing restructuring of the disciplines of marketing and consumer research. Instead, we argue that what is taking place is an implicit adherence to a contemporary form of age-old Christian dogma. As a radical conjecture, we thus propose that an identification of certain similarities between Christian dogma and the grounds for various posthumanist frameworks suggest that posthuman thought may well herald the global dissemination of a far more elusive, authoritarian, and hegemonic system than that which posthumanists typically claim to have abandoned. Consequently, we elaborate on implications to developments in marketing thought.Peer reviewe

Materializing digital collecting: an extended view of digital materiality

If digital objects are abundant and ubiquitous, why should consumers pay for, much less collect them? The qualities of digital code present numerous challenges for collecting, yet digital collecting can and does occur. We explore the role of companies in constructing digital consumption objects that encourage and support collecting behaviours, identifying material configuration techniques that materialise these objects as elusive and authentic. Such techniques, we argue, may facilitate those pleasures of collecting otherwise absent in the digital realm. We extend theories of collecting by highlighting the role of objects and the companies that construct them in materialising digital collecting. More broadly, we extend theories of digital materiality by highlighting processes of digital material configuration that occur in the pre-objectification phase of materialisation, acknowledging the role of marketing and design in shaping the qualities exhibited by digital consumption objects and consequently related consumption behaviours and experiences

Excremental theory development

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Unmanageable multiplicity: consumer transformation towards moral self coherence

Purpose – This study aims to explore: consumer experiences of intense moral dilemma arising from identity multiplicity conflict, expressed in the marketplace, which demand stark moral choices and consumer response to intensely felt moral tension where their sense of coherent moral self is at stake. Design/methodology/approach – The authors gathered ethnographic data from amongst ethical consumers, and theorised the data through theory of life projects and life themes to explain how multiplicity can become an unmanageable problem in the midst of moral dilemma. Findings – The authors reveal that in contrast to notions of liberating or manageable multiplicity conflict, some consumers experience intense moral anxiety that is unmanageable. The authors find that this unmanageable moral tension can provoke consumers to transform self and consumption choices to construct a coherent moral self. The authors identify this transformation as the meta life project. Research limitations/implications – This work contributes to knowledge of multiplicity, consumer life themes and life projects, moral dilemma and ethical consumption by showing that some experiences of moral anxiety arising from multiplicity conflict are unmanageable, and these consumers seek moral self re-unification through the meta life project. Practical implications – This study provides practical guidance to companies, marketers, public organisations and activist groups seeking to understand and harness consumers’ moral codes to promote ethical consumption practices. Originality/value – The authors extend current theory of multiplicity into the moral domain to illustrate limitations of framing consumer experiences of multiplicity conflict as being either liberating or manageable when consumers’ sense of moral self is at stake. This article is of interest to academic, marketing practitioner and public policy audiences

Assemblages of creativity: Material practices in the creative economy

This article questions the anthropocentrism of existing treatments of creative work, creative industries and creative identities, and then considers various strategies for overcoming this bias in novel empirical analyses of creativity. Our aim is to begin to account for the nonhuman, ‘more-than-human’, bodies, actors and forces that participate in creative work. In pursuing this aim, we do not intend to eliminate the human subject from analysis of creative practice; rather we will provide a more ‘symmetrical’ account of creativity, alert to both the human and nonhuman constituents of creative practice. We draw from Deleuze and Guattari’s discussion of the assemblage to develop this account. Based on this discussion, we will define the creative assemblage as a more or less temporary mixture of heterogeneous material, affective and semiotic forces, within which particular capacities for creativity emerge, alongside the creative practices these capacities express. Within this assemblage, creativity and creative practice are less the innate attributes of individual bodies, and more a function of particular encounters and alliances between human and nonhuman bodies. We ground this discussion in qualitative research conducted in Melbourne, Australia, among creative professionals working in diverse fields. Based on this research, we propose a ‘diagram’ of one local assemblage of creativity and the human and nonhuman alliances it relies on. We close by briefly reflecting on the implications of our analysis for debates regarding the diversity of creative work and the character of creative labour

Consumers in the Circular Economy - Essays on Extending Product Lifecycles

This dissertation sheds light on how a better understanding of consumer practices during product use can help us make consumption more sustainable. The role of consumers in circular economy models has been underexplored and marginalized. The discussion on product circularity is often framed around production and design, where consumers are treated as passive users of circular offerings. Instead, this dissertation elaborates on how consumers can have active roles in the circular economy by extending product lifecycles through maintenance. In this dissertation, I build on the cyclical view of consumption that looks at consumption through acquisition, usage, and disposal. The dissertation focuses on the usage phase of the cycle. To escape the traps of the previous attitude-behavior studies focusing on the individual consumer's attitudes and behavior, this dissertation draws from a more holistic view taking macro, meso, and micro perspectives into account. The research draws on practice theory and analyzes the different practice elements and their configurations. By taking a macro perspective, the findings of the dissertation elaborate on institutional regulations, market resources and social structures shaping practices during product use. Through a more micro and meso perspective, the findings bring new understanding to how consumers participate in lengthening product life spans and how they keep products part of their practices through product maintenance. The dissertation is comprised of three interlinked essays that draw from a longitudinal ethnographic study exploring consumption practices through a sustainable perspective. The study context focuses on leisure boating in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. The context of leisure boating around the Baltic Sea provided an excellent context to study sustainable consumption practices due to the extensive use of unsustainable, environmentally destructive boat hull paints during maintenance practices