Troubling Gender(S) and Consumer Well-Being:Going Across, Between and Beyond the Binaries to Gender/Sex/ual and Intersectional Diversity

Troubling gender(s) invites an expansion of the way we study gender so that our scholarship might reflect lived realities. It calls for critical scholarship that seeks to disrupt, as well as explorative scholarship that seeks to leverage and expand categorizations, going “across, between and beyond” the binary. Troubling gender(s) encourages scholars to recognize the vast terrain of gender diversity, and how gender diversity crosses over with sex and sexual diversity and intersecting social locations of difference to shape consumers’ experiences of marketplace inequities, interactions with other people, and perceptions of self. Troubling gender asks scholars to rethink how they measure, use, or capture gender/sex/ual diversity. In short, troubling gender takes us that next step in thinking through how gender matters

Moving Gender Across, Between and Beyond the Binaries:In Conversation with Shona Bettany, Olimpia Burchiellaro and Rohan Venkatraman

This panel discussion explores why marketing and consumer behaviour has struggled to move beyond the binary, the importance of disrupting the conventional binaries to recognize gender/sex/ual diversity, and the challenges in so doing. It raises to the fore concerns about institutional pressures, sanitization of work, academic positionalities, everyday encounters of discrimination against gender/sex/ual diversity, and the emancipatory but oppressive dynamics of categories. Yet the panellists also reflect on ways to challenge binaristic thinking. Just being in the academy and doing (small but) meaningful acts of institutional activism can produce ripple effects and open pathways for a better articulation of lived experiences and realities

Dilemmas of Care (Re)Allocation: Care and Consumption in Pandemic Times

Studies into the ethical aspects of consumption tend to focus on a limited class of actions that are explicitly understood as "ethical consumption". The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic provided a context in which other ethical issues and questions of whom we should care for first, and, how, suddenly and dramatically gained salience. This article draws on the care literature to explore the reconfiguration of consumption decisions and dilemmas during this period. Building on twenty-eight in-depth interviews, it considers the temporal and spatial dimensions of care and consumption and examines various ethical and ideological considerations that arose, particularly regarding the allocation of care in the face of competing demands. Subsequently, the article problematises mainstream accounts of ethical consumption, arguing for considering a plurality of ethics present within decisions about consumption. It concludes with a call to incorporate a more capacious understanding of care in broader discussions of ethics in consumption.

The Protection of Rights and Advancement of GenderS: In Conversation with Abigail Nappier Cherup, Kevin D. Thomas, Wendy Hein, and Jack Waverley

In this panel discussion, we explore various ways that academics can advance work related to genderS, intersectionality and inequities so that it has impact within academia and in society. Panelists offer practical insights, relate challenges in doing this work, and suggest avenues for alternative yet impactful dissemination of work. The purpose is to demonstrate how those interested in supporting or working in this space might move from being allies to advocates and accomplices

Applying a transformative consumer research lens to understanding and alleviating poverty

Increasing attention to global poverty and the development of market-based solutions for poverty alleviation continues to motivate a broad array of academicians and practitioners to better understand the lives of the poor. Yet, the robust perspectives residing within consumer research remain to a large degree under-utilized in these pursuits. This paper articulates how applying a transformative consumer research (TCR) lens to poverty and its alleviation can generate productive insights with potential to positively transform the well-being of poor consumers