This work offers a multifaceted exploration of new rituals, such as Celebrating Kwanzaa and of the ways entrenched rituals, such as Mardi Gras, gift giving, and weddings have changed. Moreover, it examines the influence of both cultures and subcultures.
Bringing together scholars in consumer behavior, history, anthropology, religious studies, sociology, and communication, this is the first interdisciplinary anthology spanning the topic of ritual studies. It offers a multifaceted exploration of new rituals, such as Celebrating Kwanzaa, and of the ways entrenched rituals, such as Mardi Gras, gift giving, and weddings have changed. Moreover, it examines the influence of both cultures and subcultures, and will enhance our understanding of why and how consumers imbue goods and services with meaning during rituals. In this volume, the first in the Marketing and Consumer Psychology series: a religious studies scholar talks about the media representation of ritual; communication scholars discuss the transformational aspects of rituals surrounding alcohol consumption; a marketing scholar demonstrates the relevance of organizational behavior theory to understanding gift-giving rituals in the workplace; and a historian describes how the marketing of Kwanzaa was so integral to its successful adoption.
Consumerism has established itself as a dominant lifestyle, but the reasons behind this are often unclear. This study revisits a large amount of diverse research, and argues that consumerism is a powerful ritual “machine” that can make up for the modern lack of values with new symbols and rituals. Consumerism made its claim between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, when the traditional symbolic world had ended and a new one had not yet emerged. Slowly but progressively, consumerism begun to develop new symbolic forms and new social rituals, becoming the basis for new mimetic behaviours. As nationalism has progressively declined, consumerism has permeated the entire social fabric. Supermarkets and shopping malls must be interpreted in the light of their ritual significance, as temples and holy cities of a new symbolic order. In the consumeristic era, many people are led to think and imagine in consumer terms, to identify themselves through consumption rituals. The impact of consumerism on culture, from literature to art, should not be underestimated. Many artists have tried to develop their aesthetics by triggering a dialectical, or openly critical, confrontation with consumerism. This book also takes into account the development of violence and the effects of consumerism on childhood and new generations. The book contains a preface by the German anthropologist Christoph Wulf, and the images illustrating the text are by Belgian artist Michel Couturier.
"This book compiles and integrates highly innovative work aimed at bridging the fields of anthropology and consumer behavior." —Journal of Consumer Affairs " . . . fascinating . . . ambitious and interesting . . . " —Canadian Advertising Foundation Newsletter " . . . an anthropological dig into consumerism brimming with original thought . . . " —The Globe and Mail "Grant McCracken has written a provocative book that puts consumerism in its place in Western society—at the centre." —Report on Business Magazine " . . . a stimulating addition to knowledge and theory about the interrelationship of culture and consumption." —Choice "[McCracken's] synthesis of anthropological and consumer studies material will give historians new ideas and methods to integrate into their thinking." —Maryland Historian "The book offers a fresh and much needed cultural interpretation of consumption." —Journal of Consumer Policy "The volume will help balance the prevailing cognitive and social psychological cast of consumer research and should stimulate more comprehensive investigation into consumer behavior." —Journal of Marketing Research " . . . broad scope, enthusiasm and imagination . . . a significant contribution to the literature on consumption history, consumer behavior, and American material culture." —Winterhur Portfolio "For this is a superb book, a definitive exploration of its subject that makes use of the full range of available literature." —American Journal of Sociology "McCracken's book is a fine synthesis of a new current of thought that strives to create an interdisciplinary social science of consumption behaviors, a current to which folklorists have much to contribute." —Journal of American Folklore This provocative book takes a refreshing new view of the culture of consumption. McCracken examines the interplay of culture and consumer behavior from the anthropologist's point of view and provides new insights into the way we view ourselves and our society.
"We live in times of increasing world uncertainty. Consumer culture in Asia has embodied such precariousness, with their unprecedented states of both prosperity and vulnerability. Works in this volume examine the consumer cultures that exist in today's precarious Asia. They do this through culturally oriented, critical consumer research. How deeply has the consumer precariousness in Asia been intertwined with the sociohistoric patterning of consumption including class, gender, and other social categories? How do these problematics affect consumers' identity projects, consumer rituals, and marketplace cultures? How is consumer precariousness aggravated by the governmentality of the superpower? How does the changing landscape of inter-Asian and global popular culture impact consumer culture in these nations? Together, the authors in this volume attempt to answer these questions through consumer research within the paradigm known as consumer culture theory (CCT). Since most CCT inquiry has been in Western contexts, this volume augments the existing knowledge. It presents the most current, critical, historical, and material consumer studies focused on Asia. This volume will be of interest to seasoned CCT researchers and academics, for anyone new to consumer culture theory, and for postgraduate students interested in CCT or writing a consumer culture related thesis"--
Contemporary Consumer Culture Theory contains original research essays written by the premier thought leaders of the discipline from around the world that reflect the maturation of the field Customer Culture Theory over the last decade. The volume seeks to help break down the silos that have arisen in disciplines seeking to understand consumer culture, and speed both the diffusion of ideas and possibility of collaboration across frontiers. Contemporary Consumer Culture Theory begins with a re-evaluation of some of the fundamental notions of consumer behaviour, such as self and other, branding and pricing, and individual vs. communal agency then continuing with a reconsideration of role configurations as they affect consumption, examining in particular the ramifications of familial, gender, ethnic and national aspects of consumers’ lived experiences. The book move on to a reappraisal of the state of the field, examining the rhetoric of inquiry, the reflexive history and critique of the discipline, the prospect of redirecting the effort of inquiry to practical and humanitarian ends, the neglected wellsprings of our intellectual heritage, and the ideological underpinnings of the evolving construction of the concept of the brand. Contemporary Consumer Culture Theory is a reflective assessment, in theoretical, empirical and evocative keys, of the state of the field of consumer culture theory and an indication of the scholarly directions in which the discipline is evolving providing reflection upon a rapidly expanding discipline and altered consumption-scapes by some of its prime movers.
This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the issues, concepts and theories through which people have tried to understand consumer culture throughout the modern period, and puts the current state of thinking into a broader context. Thematically organized, the book shows how the central aspects of consumer culture - such as needs, choice, identity, status, alienation, objects, culture - have been debated within modern theories, from those of earlier thinkers such as Marx and Simmel to contemporary forms of post-structuralism and postmodernism. This approach introduces consumer culture as a subject which - far from being of narrow or recent interest - is intimately tied to the central issues of modern times and modern social thought. With its reviews of major theorists set within a full account of the development of the subject, this book should be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students in the many disciplines which now study consumer culture, including communications and cultural studies, anthropology and history.
Digital media present opportunities for new types of consumption including desiring, buying, collecting, making, and even selling digital virtual goods. To these activities we can add those taking place in virtual communities of consumption, online shops, brand websites, and online auction houses that together amount to a vast new landscape of consumption. Digital virtual consumption motivates concatenated practices which produce meaningful experience for their users as well as market opportunities to profit from them. Consumers create and maintain elaborate wish lists, engaging with simulations of brands on websites and in videogames, coveting items for use in online games and even spending ‘real’ money on these, undertaking entrepreneurial activity in virtual worlds, conjuring nostalgia via online auctions, engaging in playful consumption in other new retail formats, writing reviews of products as part of the consumption experience, engaging in online activist activities, and many other emerging behaviors. Analyses of consumption in the digital virtual realm are however limited. This collection brings together experienced researchers from the fields of consumer research, digital games, and virtual worlds to provide conceptual and empirical work that helps us understand these new and significant consumer activities. Online communities negotiate the ‘correct’ use of goods and offer technical advice, consumers develop new products, individuals create and distribute their own promotional material for their favorite brands, and entrepreneurial consumers marketing and selling their own products online. Here we may see a blurring of consumption and production, or work and leisure activity that requires further thought about what makes it meaningful for individuals. The chapters in this volume take stock of the emergence and likely importance of digital virtual consumption for consumer culture, including a review of both new and existing conceptual and methodological tools as well as a resource of key examples and analyses of practices.
Death has never been more visible to consumers. From life insurance to burial plots to estate planning, we are constantly reminded of consumer choices to be made with our mortality in mind. Religious beliefs in the afterlife (or their absence) impact everyday consumption activities. Death in a Consumer Culture presents the broadest array of research on the topic of death and consumer behaviour across disciplinary boundaries. Organised into five sections covering: The Death Industry; Death Rituals; Death and Consumption; Death and the Body; and Alternate Endings, the book explores topics from celebrity death tourism, pet and online memorialization; family history research, to alternatives to traditional corpse disposal methods and patient-assisted suicide. Work from scholars in history, religious studies, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and cultural studies sits alongside research in marketing and consumer culture. From eastern and western perspectives, spanning social groups and demographic categories, all explore the ubiquity of death as a physical, emotional, cultural, social, and cosmological inevitability. Offering a richly unique anthology on this challenging topic, this book will be of interest to researchers working at the intersections of consumer culture, marketing and mortality.