Journal Articles by Sofia Ulver
This study examines how men configure their gendered identity in relation to a traditionally femi... more This study examines how men configure their gendered identity in relation to a traditionally feminised domain. Hegemonic masculinity is said to structure men’s dominance over women. We use the lens of hegemonic masculinity along with social fields of cultural production to understand new allocations of status capital in relation to gendered identity work. Sweden, a country permeated by an ideology of egalitarianism and having a history of high economic and symbolic incentives for the domestic field, has seemingly legitimised the domestic consumption field in the search for higher status. By exploring the transforming meanings of masculinity when men enter a traditionally feminine consumption domain in this particular cultural context, we identify how feminised masculinities are shaped into hegemonic masculinity. This in turn suggests that the currently most honoured way of being a man includes forms of masculinities that incorporate egalitarian relationships between men and women.
Ulver, S., Bertilsson, J., Klasson, M., Egan-Wyer, C., & Johansson, U. (2013). Emerging Market (Sub)Systems and Consumption Field Refinement. in NA – Advances in Consumer Research Vol. 41, eds. Simona Botti & Aparna Labroo, Duluth, MN: Association for Consumer Research. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: firstly we introduce a (tentative) theoretical framework t... more The purpose of this paper is two-fold: firstly we introduce a (tentative) theoretical framework to conceptualise the development of market systems on a mid-range (or meso-) level; secondly, we spell out methodological suggestions for how to study such development. The paper is a conceptual paper, with no primary data used or presented. We introduce a conceptual framework, which we refer to as Consumption Field Refinement (CFR), to represent the development of a market system. Central to our framework is the idea that the market system consists of several interlinked subsystems or consumption fields, each focused on a particular consumption interest.
Papers by Sofia Ulver
Tourism Recreation Research
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, 2022
In her 2018 novel The Perfect Life Silvia Avallone writes "He had read a few pages by Marx and kn... more In her 2018 novel The Perfect Life Silvia Avallone writes "He had read a few pages by Marx and knew that human labour is contained in things, and that the time, the wrongs, and the suffering penetrate the veins of materia, even their atoms." The quote elucidates the young man Zeno's anxiety over how things and brands he surrounds himself with will be decoded by his new girlfriend Dora. But, more importantly for this chapter, the quote also works as an apt illustration of how scholars in critical marketing studies have imagined brands over the last decades; that is, as fetishes or assemblages of (exploitative) social and cultural relations, and as entities in themselves assembling culture together with other institutional actors (e.g. Lury 2004, 2009). Following this logic, the brand can be said to be both co-created and co-creating. Whereas brand managerial scholars would see this notion of co-creation in an adulatory sense as an opportunity to increase economic value (e.g. Ind et al. 2017), critical scholars would rather see this in a pejorative sense (e.g. Zwick et al. 2008) as the capitalist exploitation of consumers' free labour (Arvidsson 2005), or as a trojan horse of neoliberal ideology and its accompanying power relations (e.g. Klein 2000), just as did Zeno. By brand co-creation I here refer to various kinds of meaning-making consumer activities that contribute to economic as well as social and cultural valorization of a specific brand. This chapter explores the established anti-capitalist idea of brand co-creation as a vessel for systemically violent relations (e.g. Ulver 2017), in the light of a radically changing political landscape in the Western world, namely the burgeoning populist far right. What happens with anti-capitalist brand co-creation critique typically targeting the neoliberal fantasy of free markets and responsible consumers (Carrington et al. 2016; Cronin & Fitchett 2020; Veresiu & Giesler 2018) through the systemic relations assembled into brands, when more brands come to embody far-right fantasies about authoritarian, systemic relations (Miller-Idriss 2017)? How are we to understand critique of neoliberal brand co-creation as a depoliticizing distraction (Dean 2014), if the very premise of critique evaporates? This chapter will continue with a brief literature review of the critical literature on brand (co-creation) (
CBS-Lusem Conference: Talking about consumers and brands- A critical perspective, Nov 18, 2020
ACR North American Advances, Oct 4, 2020
Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-mtq-10.1177_14705931211019081 for Tickling tensions: Gazing into ... more Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-mtq-10.1177_14705931211019081 for Tickling tensions: Gazing into the parallax gap of the multicultural imaginary by Sofia Ulver in Marketing Theory
As consumers in Western consumer culture have increasingly turned from high cultural to low cultu... more As consumers in Western consumer culture have increasingly turned from high cultural to low cultural consumption categories to cultivate themselves, the meanings of the traditional and socio-cultural concepts used to represent different forms of consumer expertise have been blurred or altered. Drawing upon sociocultural literature on taste and distinction we attempt to provide theoretical clarity to the concepts of connoisseurship, snobbery, and nerdery; concepts that are often used interchangeably and without rigor in both (contemporary) popular and academic discourse. The outcome of our conceptual analysis is concretised using a semiotic square to illustrate how the concepts differ from each other. Our analysis suggests that the democratisation of consumption through the imprinting of status meanings upon traditionally illegitimate cultural objects may lead to the “bastardisation” of taste regarding those same illegitimate cultural categories – a performance formerly restricted to...
This article examined and compared the US-born and Swedish-born college students’ preferences tow... more This article examined and compared the US-born and Swedish-born college students’ preferences towards monoracial or multiracial advertisement. We showed four fashion advertisements, tracked their eye movements with a stationary eye-tracker, and asked questions through survey and debriefing to understand how students see and perceive advertisements with and without racial diversity. We found that both Swedish and American students exhibited higher preference in monoracial advertisements. We also found that Swedish and American students’ preferences towards advertisements were quite similar, but there were some variations in the reported level of attractiveness of the advertisements, reaction times, and dwell time between the Swedish and American students. Even though we did not find any statistically significant results from the eye-tracking data due to the limited sample size, the results point to interesting trends and tendencies that need to be addressed in further studies.
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 2020
Political ideologies of the far-right are gaining ground in world politics and culture, not least... more Political ideologies of the far-right are gaining ground in world politics and culture, not least by way of market forces. It has therefore become urgent to understand how these ideologies manifest themselves in the fields of marketing and consumption at a sociocultural level. The authors explore the discursive efforts in far-right consumer resistance to advance a political agenda through protests directed at brands’ multicultural advertising and analyze how these consumers conceptualize their adversaries in the marketplace. In contrast to previous framings of adversaries identified in consumer research, where resistance is typically anticapitalist and directed toward firms’ unethical conduct or the exploitation by the global market economy per se, the authors find that the following discursive themes stand out in the far-right consumer resistance: the emphasis on the state as main antagonist, the indifference to capitalism as a potential adversary, and overt contestation of liberal...
This article is based on the results of a pilot study which examines and compares how multiracial... more This article is based on the results of a pilot study which examines and compares how multiracial and multiethnic advertisement is looked at and perceived in Sweden and the US. Research involving eye-tracking is growing in several disciplines but still underexplored in the Social Sciences. Eye trackers enable recording of eye movements both in a natural and isolated/experimental context. Combining eye-tracking data and other types of traditional data such as interviews or surveys has a great potential to analyze and challenge the data bias, such as social desirability needs and race of interviewer effect. Even though we did not find any statistically significant results due to the limited sample size, the results points to interesting trends and tendencies which need to be addressed in further studies. We did not find any statistically significant differences in the preference in monocultural advertisements among Swedish and American students. However higher prior interracial exposure had some significance in a higher preference in multicultural advertisement.
Journal of Macromarketing, 2019
How does dull turn into cool? Every now and then new markets emerge and consumption that used to ... more How does dull turn into cool? Every now and then new markets emerge and consumption that used to be mundane and insignificant transforms into something socially significant. Using the theoretical lens of cultural system transformation, this research set out to analyze how consumers, through their identity work, unintentionally transform a market by negotiating its symbolic boundaries and expanding its borders in relation to their social surroundings. The results showed that consumer identity work contributes to forming the market by providing it with new symbolic meanings (epistemic, entertainment and erotic), by extending it with new discursive and material content (through epistemic refinement), and by expanding it through the provision (active and unintentional promotion of the consumption field to confirm their own identity) of new consumers. This research added to at least three ongoing conversations in marketing research; (i) to the macromarketing research stream on marketing ...
Journal of Marketing Management, 2015
Abstract This study examines how men configure their gendered identity in relation to a tradition... more Abstract This study examines how men configure their gendered identity in relation to a traditionally feminised domain. Hegemonic masculinity is said to structure men’s dominance over women. We use the lens of hegemonic masculinity along with social fields of cultural production to understand new allocations of status capital in relation to gendered identity work. Sweden, a country permeated by an ideology of egalitarianism and having a history of high economic and symbolic incentives for the domestic field, has seemingly legitimised the domestic consumption field in the search for higher status. By exploring the transforming meanings of masculinity when men enter a traditionally feminine consumption domain in this particular cultural context, we identify how feminised masculinities are shaped into hegemonic masculinity. This in turn suggests that the currently most honoured way of being a man includes forms of masculinities that incorporate egalitarian relationships between men and women.
Research in Consumer Behavior, 2011
... becoming familiar. Bilge, 82, Turkey Bilge grew up in a privileged family in a medium large t... more ... becoming familiar. Bilge, 82, Turkey Bilge grew up in a privileged family in a medium large town in eastern Turkey, where she met her husband Mustafa Yilmaz, who was an aspiring entrepreneur owning small businesses. They ...
Journal of Macromarketing, 2022
In this article we focus on the cultural mechanisms of market evolution accompanying the marketpl... more In this article we focus on the cultural mechanisms of market evolution accompanying the marketplace discord between a market actor and a dominant industry. We situate our analysis in the intersection between marketing and institutional theory and engage specifically with the constructs of legitimacy and framing strategies, but also with Chantal Mouffe’s political philosophy concept of agonistics. To better understand the blurry impact of market-driven activism and conflict on the shaping of markets, we use the ongoing “milk-war” between plant- versus animal-based drink producers as backdrop, and empirically explore how a market actor and their supporting institutional actors frame a previously legitimate industry in an attempt to delegitimize it, without sacrificing its consumer market. We find a rhetorical juggling-act of attempted legitimization of the market alternative and delegitimization of the status quo, where the intricacy of framing strategies constitutes what we call con...
Consumption Markets & Culture, 2016
The amount of literature about royalties and monarchies that has been produced from an historical... more The amount of literature about royalties and monarchies that has been produced from an historical perspective during modern times is indisputably enormous. Therefore, it is curious that the royal f...
Att undersöka eventuella samband mellan EVM-förekomst och de marknadsstrukturella faktorernas pri... more Att undersöka eventuella samband mellan EVM-förekomst och de marknadsstrukturella faktorernas prisnivå, prispromotion samt differentiering och diskutera vilka konkurrens-och konsumentsrelaterade konsekvenser dessa eventuella samband kan tänkas få.
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Journal Articles by Sofia Ulver
Papers by Sofia Ulver