Investigación

Capítulos de libros

calendar_month Publicación: 07/08/2015

Triggers, tensions and trajectories: toward an understanding of the dynamics of consumer enrolment in uneasily intersecting assemblages

Consumption and marketing researchers have used assemblage theoretic perspectives to explore how heterogeneity is managed by consumers, and how consumers may work to stabilize fields, networks, communities, markets, and industries when “betrayals” occur. Work to date has also helped to clarify that the assemblages consumers participate in may intersect one with another. However, there are cases where assemblages intersect “uneasily” – that is, where there are potential conflicts or contestations between the goals or purposes served by two assemblages. When consumers are enrolled in such contexts, they might find themselves having to navigate the boundary between assemblages that do not intersect easily. Tensions arising in uneasily intersecting assemblages may imply that consumers who enroll in these assemblages will face issues pertaining to agency, group membership, and identity. Drawing specifically from Manuel De Landa’s work on assemblages, we theorize the dynamics of change and stability through the concepts of territorialisation and deterritorialisation. We identify the conditions that precipitate tensions for consumers enrolled in uneasily intersecting assemblages and show how consumer responses to tension stabilize and/or destabilize the assemblages consumers are enrolled in. Our findings are derived from a study of Fatshionista bloggers, who are situated at the intersection between two very different assemblages: the fashion industry, and the Fat Acceptance Movement.

Fuente: Routledge

Capítulo del libro "Assembling Consumption: researching actors, networks and markets" de Robin Canniford.