Anti-Madridista: Negative Symbolic Consumption By Football Fans

The consumption of football entails a considerable amount of symbolism, which is often related to the colours and merchandise paraded by the fans. This paper focuses on anti-items, i.e. team-related tangibles (e.g. shirts, jerseys, scarves, hats, flags) that identify the fan in opposition to other teams. As an example of negative symbolic consumption, anti-items are presented in the framework of distinction and interpreted according to catharsis and self-expression theories. These findings are based on extensive naturalistic research in the football fan subculture

Managing anti-consumption in an excessive drinking culture

A major contemporary challenge facing governments and health professionals is that of promoting sustainable and healthy approaches to alcohol consumption in a context where excessive alcohol consumption is the dominant trend [Plant M., Plant M., Binge Britain: the need for courage. Alcoholis 2006; 25, 3: 1.]. This article reports the results of a qualitative study examining the experiences of Higher Education students in the United Kingdom who are identifiable as anti-consumers because of their opposition to the alcohol norms that predominate. The article focuses on how these students deal with the challenges and consequences that can arise from resisting the prevailing norms and practices. This article demonstrates that existing frameworks and categorizations in the contexts of anti-consumption, product and brand avoidance and coping are capable of providing useful theoretical tools for the examination of anti-consumption within the social marketing context. The article identifies some of the implicit tensions of being an anti-consumer in an environment of excessive consumption and provides examples of how consumers seek to manage these tensions. The use of the above theoretical perspectives can usefully inform policy that aims to promote sensible drinking among young people and students in particular.Anti-consumption Alcohol consumption Social marketing Coping

Mapping symbolic (anti-) consumption

Rejection is at the heart of anti-consumption and is therefore key to some of the central relationships in symbolic consumption. However, researchers find rejection difficult to study because of the lack of material traces. This article draws on earlier frameworks to develop a new integrated and expanded conceptualization in order to achieve a more nuanced view of how rejection operates within symbolic consumption; and also to initiate research directions for investigating and theorizing rejection in anti-consumption. The focus on anti-consumption incorporates the interaction between avoidance, aversion and abandonment, and the relationship between distastes and the undesired self (mediated by the marketing, social and individual environments). A series of interrelationships and illustrations suggest how the expanded conceptualization is useful for theorizing and investigating anti-consumption.Anti-consumption Negation Rejection Distastes Undesired self Aversion Avoidance Abandonment