Funeral rituals perform important social functions for families and communities, but little is kn... more Funeral rituals perform important social functions for families and communities, but little is known about the motives of people planning funerals. Using mixed methods, we examine funeral planning as end-of-life relational spending. We identify how relational motives drive and manifest in funeral planning, even when the primary recipient of goods and services is dead. Qualitative interviews with consumers who had planned pre-COVID funerals (N=15) reveal a caring orientation drives funeral decision-making for loved ones and for self-planned funerals. Caring practices manifest in three forms: (a) balancing preferences between the planner, deceased, and surviving family, (b) making personal sacrifices, and (c) spending amount (Study 1). Archival funeral contract data (N=385) reveals supporting quantitative evidence of caring-driven funeral spending. Planners spend more on funerals for others and underspend on their own funerals (Study 2). Pre-registered experiments (N=1,906) addressing selection bias replicate these results and find generalization across different funding sources (planner-funded, other-funded, and insurance; Studies 3A-3C). The findings elucidate a ubiquitous, emotional, and financially consequential decision process at the end of life.
Understanding how globalisation affects consumers is a key concern of international marketing res... more Understanding how globalisation affects consumers is a key concern of international marketing research. Consumer culture theory (CCT) studies contribute to this stream of research by critically examining how globalisation affects consumers under different cultural conditions. We offer a systematic narrative synthesis of thirty years of CCT globalisation research to gain perspective on this important stream of research. We identify three theoretical perspectives – i.e., homogenisation, glocalisation and deterritorialisation – that have shaped the ways in which CCT scholars have approached globalisation phenomena. We discuss each perspective with regards to its underlying notion of culture, its assumptions of power relations between countries and the role that it ascribes to individuals in globalisation processes. We problematise these perspectives and show how CCT research has challenged and extended each perspective, focusing specifically on consumer empowerment, consumer identity a...
This study examines the tourist paradox of striving to experience the cultural different Other wh... more This study examines the tourist paradox of striving to experience the cultural different Other while never leaving home through the lens of food consumption. The study attempts to provide an understanding of the ways that tourists relate to local and home food and the role that these relationships play in tourist experiences. The study is conducted through interviews with 29 American tourists after their first tourist trip to China. A semiotic data interpretation revealed the ways tourist informants made sense of their cultural experience in China through a continuous process of categorization of foods. Even short-term mobility can become a frightening and alienating experience emotionally and existentially. The encounter with the Other challenged tourists as competent consumers, decision makers, and alienated them from the Other. We find that tourist grapple with these negative experiences by creating a symbolic distance towards the Other through food categorizations. We further el...
Ownership and possession practices have historically been a central interest to Consumer Culture ... more Ownership and possession practices have historically been a central interest to Consumer Culture Theory (Arnould and Thompson 2005). While there is an increased interest in boundary conditions of ownership, such as the disposal of possessions (Lastovicka and Fernandez 2005; Price, Arnould, and Curasi 2000), access in contrast to possession (Chen 2009) and sharing of possessions (Belk forthcoming), these boundary conditions still remain an under-explored territory. This session threads three empirical studies that examine boundary conditions of ownership, more specifically ownership transfer and shared ownership. We seek to address the following issues:
In the set of commentaries on liquidity entitled “The continuing significance of social structure... more In the set of commentaries on liquidity entitled “The continuing significance of social structure in liquid modernity,” three sets of authors set out to examine the relationship between liquidity and structure, value, and distinction. In doing so, they attempt to marry theories which argue against sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s central thesis that societal structures are shifting with his seminal construct of liquidity, an exercise that has mixed results. All three sets of authors have engaged with Bauman’s conceptualization of liquid modernity as well as our conceptualization of liquid consumption and its consequences. In this response to the commentaries, we clarify how we understand Bauman and how we have used his ideas in our theorizing, engage with the three sets of author’s advocacy for emphasizing the continuing relevance of structure within liquidity, and, finally, sum up how de-emphasizing structure has and can continue to lead to important new insights in marketing theory.
Understanding how globalization affects consumers is a key concern of international marketing res... more Understanding how globalization affects consumers is a key concern of international marketing research. Consumer culture theory (CCT) studies contribute to this stream of research by critically examining how globalization affects consumers under different cultural conditions. We offer a systematic narrative synthesis of 30 years of CCT globalization research to gain perspective on this important stream of research. We identify three theoretical perspectives – that is, homogenization, glocalization and deterritorialization – that have shaped the ways in which CCT scholars have approached globalization phenomena. We discuss each perspective with regard to its underlying notion of culture, its assumptions of power relations between countries and the role that it ascribes to individuals in globalization processes. We problematize these perspectives and show how CCT research has challenged and extended each perspective, focusing specifically on consumer empowerment, consumer identity and...
We explore emerging dynamics of social status and distinction in liquid consumption. The new logi... more We explore emerging dynamics of social status and distinction in liquid consumption. The new logic of distinction is having the flexibility to embrace and adopt new identity positions, projects, and possibilities and the ability to attract attention. The importance of flexibility and attention as resources emerged from the social sciences literature in the domains of digital, access based, and urban consumption as being the most important for achieving distinction in the contemporary marketplace. We then conceptually reexamine conspicuous consumption and taste and show that status signaling now relies upon inconspicuousness, non-ownership including experiences, and authenticity based on knowledge and craftsmanship, all of which are difficult to emulate. Our contribution lies in integrating disparate literature on social status and consumption within one conceptual space. We also build upon the concept of liquid consumption by outlining exactly how liquidity affects status and distin...
This paper introduces a new dimension of consumption as liquid or solid. Liquid consumption is de... more This paper introduces a new dimension of consumption as liquid or solid. Liquid consumption is defined as ephemeral, access based and dematerialized, while solid consumption is defined as enduring, ownership based and material. Liquid and solid consumption are conceptualized as existing on a spectrum, with four conditions leading to consumption being liquid, solid, or a combination of the two: relevance to the self, the nature of social relationships, accessibility to mobility networks, and type of precarity experienced. Liquid consumption is needed to explain behavior within digital contexts, in access based consumption, and in conditions of global mobility. It highlights a consumption orientation around values of flexibility, adaptability, fluidity, lightness, detachment, and speed. Implications of liquid consumption for the domains of attachment and appropriation, the importance of use value, materialism, brand relationships and communities, identity, prosumption and the prosumer, and big data, quantification of the self and surveillance are discussed. Finally, managing the challenges of liquid consumption and its effect on consumer welfare are explored.
Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2016
The access economy is rising in importance in the marketplace. In this conceptual article, we chr... more The access economy is rising in importance in the marketplace. In this conceptual article, we chronicle access practices in market and nonmarket economies. In nonmarket economic systems, access is gained via social exchange and primarily takes the form of sharing. That is, sharing is non-market-mediated access. In the contemporary market economy, economic exchange practices, such as renting, dominate access practices, explaining why the so-called sharing economy is not about sharing. Further, we propose that culture and social class moderate this relationship by creating contexts where social exchange (e.g., sharing) can provide access to resources in market economies. We demonstrate that access and sharing should not be essentialized, as their nature is dependent on the social system in which they are embedded. Thus, future research can focus on parsing out the nuances of how, when, and why access practices are utilized in particular societies and communities.
This dissertation advances the theoretical framework of identity anchoring, by defining and disti... more This dissertation advances the theoretical framework of identity anchoring, by defining and distinguishing the concepts of anchoring points and anchoring mechanisms, and their interrelationship. This framework enables the study of two fundamental issues:(1 ...
Access-based consumption, defined as transactions that can be market mediated but where no transf... more Access-based consumption, defined as transactions that can be market mediated but where no transfer of ownership takes place, is becoming increasingly popular, yet it is not well theorized. This study examines the nature of access as it contrasts to ownership and sharing, specifically the consumer-object, consumer-consumer, and consumer-marketer relationships. Six dimensions are identified to distinguish among the range of access-based consumptionscapes: temporality, anonymity, market mediation, consumer involvement, the type of accessed object, and political consumerism. Access-based consumption is examined in the context of car sharing via an interpretive study of Zipcar consumers. Four outcomes of these dimensions in the context of car sharing are identified: lack of identification, varying significance of use and sign value, negative reciprocity resulting in a big-brother model of governance, and a deterrence of brand community. The implications of our findings for understanding the nature of exchange, consumption, and brand community are discussed.
This study investigates consumers' relationship to possessions in the condition of contemporary g... more This study investigates consumers' relationship to possessions in the condition of contemporary global nomadism. Prior research argues that consumers form enduring and strong attachments to possessions because of their centrality to identity projects. This role is heightened in life transitions including cross-border movements as possessions anchor consumer's identities either to their homeland or to the host country. This study reexamines this claim via in-depth interviews with elite global nomads, deterritorialized consumers who engage in serial relocation and frequent short-term international mobility. An alternative relationship to possessions characterized by detachment and flexibility emerges, which is termed "liquid." Three characteristics of a liquid relationship to possessions are identified: temporary situational value, use-value, and immateriality. The study outlines a logic of nomadic consumption, that of instrumentality, where possessions and practices are strategic resources in managing mobility. A liquid perspective on possessions expands current understandings of materiality, acculturation, and globalization. How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack.. .. I want you to feel the straps on your shoulders.. .. You feel them? Now, I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life. Start with the little things. The stuff in drawers and on shelves. The collectibles and knick-knacks. Feel the weight as it adds up. Now, start adding the larger stuff. Your clothes, table top appliances, lamps, linens, your TV. That backpack should be getting really heavy at this point-go bigger. Your couch, your bed, your kitchen table.
Funeral rituals perform important social functions for families and communities, but little is kn... more Funeral rituals perform important social functions for families and communities, but little is known about the motives of people planning funerals. Using mixed methods, we examine funeral planning as end-of-life relational spending. We identify how relational motives drive and manifest in funeral planning, even when the primary recipient of goods and services is dead. Qualitative interviews with consumers who had planned pre-COVID funerals (N=15) reveal a caring orientation drives funeral decision-making for loved ones and for self-planned funerals. Caring practices manifest in three forms: (a) balancing preferences between the planner, deceased, and surviving family, (b) making personal sacrifices, and (c) spending amount (Study 1). Archival funeral contract data (N=385) reveals supporting quantitative evidence of caring-driven funeral spending. Planners spend more on funerals for others and underspend on their own funerals (Study 2). Pre-registered experiments (N=1,906) addressing selection bias replicate these results and find generalization across different funding sources (planner-funded, other-funded, and insurance; Studies 3A-3C). The findings elucidate a ubiquitous, emotional, and financially consequential decision process at the end of life.
Understanding how globalisation affects consumers is a key concern of international marketing res... more Understanding how globalisation affects consumers is a key concern of international marketing research. Consumer culture theory (CCT) studies contribute to this stream of research by critically examining how globalisation affects consumers under different cultural conditions. We offer a systematic narrative synthesis of thirty years of CCT globalisation research to gain perspective on this important stream of research. We identify three theoretical perspectives – i.e., homogenisation, glocalisation and deterritorialisation – that have shaped the ways in which CCT scholars have approached globalisation phenomena. We discuss each perspective with regards to its underlying notion of culture, its assumptions of power relations between countries and the role that it ascribes to individuals in globalisation processes. We problematise these perspectives and show how CCT research has challenged and extended each perspective, focusing specifically on consumer empowerment, consumer identity a...
This study examines the tourist paradox of striving to experience the cultural different Other wh... more This study examines the tourist paradox of striving to experience the cultural different Other while never leaving home through the lens of food consumption. The study attempts to provide an understanding of the ways that tourists relate to local and home food and the role that these relationships play in tourist experiences. The study is conducted through interviews with 29 American tourists after their first tourist trip to China. A semiotic data interpretation revealed the ways tourist informants made sense of their cultural experience in China through a continuous process of categorization of foods. Even short-term mobility can become a frightening and alienating experience emotionally and existentially. The encounter with the Other challenged tourists as competent consumers, decision makers, and alienated them from the Other. We find that tourist grapple with these negative experiences by creating a symbolic distance towards the Other through food categorizations. We further el...
Ownership and possession practices have historically been a central interest to Consumer Culture ... more Ownership and possession practices have historically been a central interest to Consumer Culture Theory (Arnould and Thompson 2005). While there is an increased interest in boundary conditions of ownership, such as the disposal of possessions (Lastovicka and Fernandez 2005; Price, Arnould, and Curasi 2000), access in contrast to possession (Chen 2009) and sharing of possessions (Belk forthcoming), these boundary conditions still remain an under-explored territory. This session threads three empirical studies that examine boundary conditions of ownership, more specifically ownership transfer and shared ownership. We seek to address the following issues:
In the set of commentaries on liquidity entitled “The continuing significance of social structure... more In the set of commentaries on liquidity entitled “The continuing significance of social structure in liquid modernity,” three sets of authors set out to examine the relationship between liquidity and structure, value, and distinction. In doing so, they attempt to marry theories which argue against sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s central thesis that societal structures are shifting with his seminal construct of liquidity, an exercise that has mixed results. All three sets of authors have engaged with Bauman’s conceptualization of liquid modernity as well as our conceptualization of liquid consumption and its consequences. In this response to the commentaries, we clarify how we understand Bauman and how we have used his ideas in our theorizing, engage with the three sets of author’s advocacy for emphasizing the continuing relevance of structure within liquidity, and, finally, sum up how de-emphasizing structure has and can continue to lead to important new insights in marketing theory.
Understanding how globalization affects consumers is a key concern of international marketing res... more Understanding how globalization affects consumers is a key concern of international marketing research. Consumer culture theory (CCT) studies contribute to this stream of research by critically examining how globalization affects consumers under different cultural conditions. We offer a systematic narrative synthesis of 30 years of CCT globalization research to gain perspective on this important stream of research. We identify three theoretical perspectives – that is, homogenization, glocalization and deterritorialization – that have shaped the ways in which CCT scholars have approached globalization phenomena. We discuss each perspective with regard to its underlying notion of culture, its assumptions of power relations between countries and the role that it ascribes to individuals in globalization processes. We problematize these perspectives and show how CCT research has challenged and extended each perspective, focusing specifically on consumer empowerment, consumer identity and...
We explore emerging dynamics of social status and distinction in liquid consumption. The new logi... more We explore emerging dynamics of social status and distinction in liquid consumption. The new logic of distinction is having the flexibility to embrace and adopt new identity positions, projects, and possibilities and the ability to attract attention. The importance of flexibility and attention as resources emerged from the social sciences literature in the domains of digital, access based, and urban consumption as being the most important for achieving distinction in the contemporary marketplace. We then conceptually reexamine conspicuous consumption and taste and show that status signaling now relies upon inconspicuousness, non-ownership including experiences, and authenticity based on knowledge and craftsmanship, all of which are difficult to emulate. Our contribution lies in integrating disparate literature on social status and consumption within one conceptual space. We also build upon the concept of liquid consumption by outlining exactly how liquidity affects status and distin...
This paper introduces a new dimension of consumption as liquid or solid. Liquid consumption is de... more This paper introduces a new dimension of consumption as liquid or solid. Liquid consumption is defined as ephemeral, access based and dematerialized, while solid consumption is defined as enduring, ownership based and material. Liquid and solid consumption are conceptualized as existing on a spectrum, with four conditions leading to consumption being liquid, solid, or a combination of the two: relevance to the self, the nature of social relationships, accessibility to mobility networks, and type of precarity experienced. Liquid consumption is needed to explain behavior within digital contexts, in access based consumption, and in conditions of global mobility. It highlights a consumption orientation around values of flexibility, adaptability, fluidity, lightness, detachment, and speed. Implications of liquid consumption for the domains of attachment and appropriation, the importance of use value, materialism, brand relationships and communities, identity, prosumption and the prosumer, and big data, quantification of the self and surveillance are discussed. Finally, managing the challenges of liquid consumption and its effect on consumer welfare are explored.
Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2016
The access economy is rising in importance in the marketplace. In this conceptual article, we chr... more The access economy is rising in importance in the marketplace. In this conceptual article, we chronicle access practices in market and nonmarket economies. In nonmarket economic systems, access is gained via social exchange and primarily takes the form of sharing. That is, sharing is non-market-mediated access. In the contemporary market economy, economic exchange practices, such as renting, dominate access practices, explaining why the so-called sharing economy is not about sharing. Further, we propose that culture and social class moderate this relationship by creating contexts where social exchange (e.g., sharing) can provide access to resources in market economies. We demonstrate that access and sharing should not be essentialized, as their nature is dependent on the social system in which they are embedded. Thus, future research can focus on parsing out the nuances of how, when, and why access practices are utilized in particular societies and communities.
This dissertation advances the theoretical framework of identity anchoring, by defining and disti... more This dissertation advances the theoretical framework of identity anchoring, by defining and distinguishing the concepts of anchoring points and anchoring mechanisms, and their interrelationship. This framework enables the study of two fundamental issues:(1 ...
Access-based consumption, defined as transactions that can be market mediated but where no transf... more Access-based consumption, defined as transactions that can be market mediated but where no transfer of ownership takes place, is becoming increasingly popular, yet it is not well theorized. This study examines the nature of access as it contrasts to ownership and sharing, specifically the consumer-object, consumer-consumer, and consumer-marketer relationships. Six dimensions are identified to distinguish among the range of access-based consumptionscapes: temporality, anonymity, market mediation, consumer involvement, the type of accessed object, and political consumerism. Access-based consumption is examined in the context of car sharing via an interpretive study of Zipcar consumers. Four outcomes of these dimensions in the context of car sharing are identified: lack of identification, varying significance of use and sign value, negative reciprocity resulting in a big-brother model of governance, and a deterrence of brand community. The implications of our findings for understanding the nature of exchange, consumption, and brand community are discussed.
This study investigates consumers' relationship to possessions in the condition of contemporary g... more This study investigates consumers' relationship to possessions in the condition of contemporary global nomadism. Prior research argues that consumers form enduring and strong attachments to possessions because of their centrality to identity projects. This role is heightened in life transitions including cross-border movements as possessions anchor consumer's identities either to their homeland or to the host country. This study reexamines this claim via in-depth interviews with elite global nomads, deterritorialized consumers who engage in serial relocation and frequent short-term international mobility. An alternative relationship to possessions characterized by detachment and flexibility emerges, which is termed "liquid." Three characteristics of a liquid relationship to possessions are identified: temporary situational value, use-value, and immateriality. The study outlines a logic of nomadic consumption, that of instrumentality, where possessions and practices are strategic resources in managing mobility. A liquid perspective on possessions expands current understandings of materiality, acculturation, and globalization. How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack.. .. I want you to feel the straps on your shoulders.. .. You feel them? Now, I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life. Start with the little things. The stuff in drawers and on shelves. The collectibles and knick-knacks. Feel the weight as it adds up. Now, start adding the larger stuff. Your clothes, table top appliances, lamps, linens, your TV. That backpack should be getting really heavy at this point-go bigger. Your couch, your bed, your kitchen table.
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Papers by Fleura Bardhi