Alan Bradshaw

Heterotopian space and the utopics of ethical and green consumption

Abstract In this article, we illustrate how Exarcheia, an Athenian neighbourhood that is renowned for its capacity for revolt and anti-capitalist ethos, provides a rich site for utopian praxis, particularly in relation to a range of green and ethical marketplace behaviours. Arguing that space and place are essential to questions of ethics, ecology, and politics, we explore Exarcheia as a heterotopian space that fosters critique and experimentation, generating new ways of thinking and doing green/ethical behaviours. Drawing on data from a two-year ethnography, our findings not only challenge individualised and de-contextualised notions of the consumer, but also expose moralistic and post-political assumptions that often go unnoticed in ethical and green consumer research. We point to the need for a counter-strand in the literature that reviews instances that we recognise as ethical or green consumerism not in terms of identity projects or given ideas of ethics but rather with reference to the particularity of the spatial contexts in which they occur and their political implications.

Rethinking consumer culture theory from the postmodern to the communist horizon

We explore the slow disappearance of the postmodern critique that challenged mainstream marketing and emphasised the importance of locating phenomena in their wider social, political and historic contexts to expose embedded power relationships and ideologies. After an initial overview of how postmodernism impacted on theorising in consumer research, we highlight how it reached saturation point, with many of its ideas accepted into mainstream marketing. Following this claimed demise of the postmodern critique, we review the proliferation of post-postmodern proposals and speculate from where the next theoretical direction will originate. As part of this analysis, we focus on a group of theorists who are giving communism a renaissance and consider how these ideas can help us critique and reimagine consumer culture theory.

The Institutional Foundations of Materialism in Western Societies: A Conceptualization and Empirical Test

Studies of materialism have increased in recent years, and most of these studies examine various aspects of materialism including its individual or social consequences. However, understanding, and possibly shaping, a society’s materialistic tendencies requires a more complete study of the relationship between a society’s institutional patterns and the acceptance of materialism by its members. Consequently, the current study examines five of the institutional antecedents of materialism to understand better how and why it develops as a mode of consumption within a society. More specifically, a model relating materialism and a set of institutionalized patterns of social behavior referred to as the dominant social paradigm was developed and tested in a study of seven industrial, market-based countries. The results suggest that the economic, technological, political, anthropocentric, and competition institutions making up the dominant social paradigm are all positively related to materialism. The implications of the relationship are then discussed.

Remembering Chet: theorizing the mythology of the self-destructive bohemian artist as self-producer and self-consumer in the market for romanticism

From the viewpoint of marketing theory and the potential blurring of the distinction between production and consumption in the sphere of arts, entertainment, and culture, we explore the lived tragedy and mythology of Chet Baker as an epiphenomenon of the markets thirst for self-destructing artists that has plagued jazz for much of the past century. Historically grounding the iconic self-destructing artist as an inheritance from Romanticism, we consider the competing career orientations arising from the contradictory demands for musicians to produce aesthetic experiences for an audience of experts, cognoscenti, or devoted fans while also facing the need to earn cash in the mass market constituted by non-experts. This conceptualization gives rise to a framing of the ideal bohemian musician as self-producer and self-consumer. In marketing terms, pure bohemia entails both the production and consumption of ones own artistic genius and aesthetic experience. But unfortunately — pushing the artist past the need to scuffle to make a living — the market, geared to Romantic expectations, may demand an additional component of self-destruction. Further, with reference to the consumer-research literature, we question the origins of this fascination with the artist as self-destructive icon and conclude by calling for ethical considerations in the consumption and production of jazz.

Must we have Muzak wherever we go? A critical consideration of the consumer culture

This essay probes the critical dimensions of consumer‐culture theory (CCT) by investigating managerial tendencies toward integrating consumers from above or even imposing culture from on high, rather than viewing consumer culture as something that arises from the consumers themselves. Illustrations based on the use of background music or Muzak support concerns that culture is degraded by marketers as a means of social control. Attempts of an organization such as Pipedown to resist background music present an impression of futility in the face of hegemony. Hence we draw attention to the apparently predominant commercial thrust toward and mass susceptibility to manipulation, as born out by the ubiquity of background music and by the apparent lack of meaningful counter‐play by consumers. Noting the lacunae in our critical understanding of consumption, markets, and culture from the CCT perspective, we consider the ideological consequences.

The production and consumption of music

A principle agenda of Consumption, Markets and Culture relates to interrogating and collapsing distinctions between production and consumption. As previous Editor-in-Chief Fuat Firat passionately argued, the consumption–production nexus is a defining aspect of a modernity that alienates us from creative living and reduces art “into objects that acquire permanence to allow economic exchange and speculation toward monetary amassment” (1999, 289). In such a context, the condition of music emerges as a sort of magical domain that can captivate audiences, provide cathartic and embodied experiences, and ground identities and communities, but also introduce us to rich exchanges between peoples while somehow both reifying and subverting power structures. Before the advent of recorded sound, music was the ultimate intangible experience rooted to time and place, simultaneously created and destroyed, produced and consumed. Even after the advent of recording technologies, Jacques Attali notes how music simultaneously exhibits three dimensions of human works: “joy for the creator, use-value for the consumer and exchange-value for the seller” (1985, 9); and as the musician may be creator, consumer and seller at once, music can be thought of as a social model in which consumption and production co-exist and are mutually constitutive. Beyond this nexus, Attali theorizes the interferences and dependencies between society and its music; music as ordering of noises is understood as a demonstration of the very possibility of society and as harbinger of future orders and a negotiation of power. In agreement with Attali, the goal of this special issue is to locate music both within and beyond such consumption–production nexuses. The Attalian challenge is no less than mapping dependencies between societal power and its music and to understand the act of making and listening to music as a production and consumption of social meaning. We are delighted how the contributing authors have risen to the challenge and how the articles found in this special issue all locate music as a point through which ideology, state, crime and community values all intersect with personal identities, subversion and relationships. An important aspect of this journal relates to its inter-disciplinarity; hence herein we find

The Alienated artist and the political economy of organised art

In an age where business literature is turning to artists for inspiration, we pause to remember the Romantic ideal of alienated artists resisting commerciality. Through interviewing professional musicians, we explore how artistic alienation remains relevant as part of a complex balancing act between art and commerce and reflect on the implications for the notional field of art and management.

Scholars Who Stare at Goats: The Collaborative Circle Cycle in Creative Consumer Research

Purpose – Collaboration is the norm in marketing and consumer research, yet the dynamics of academic cooperation are poorly understood. The aim of this paper is to probe the sociology of collaboration within marketing scholarship by means of a detailed case study of the seminal consumer odyssey. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a history of the consumer odyssey based on a range of secondary sources. Findings – The consumer odyssey, one of many collaborate circles in marketing thought, was a seminal moment in the development of marketing research. Practical implications – This paper encourages reflection on the dynamics of collaboration and the collegial character of marketing scholarship. Also, the paper has implications for institutional policy, for example the RAE, which measures research as an individual endeavour.Originality/value – This paper presents a rare reflection on the social dynamics of marketing scholarship. Although it focuses on the interpretive research tradition within consumer research, its findings are relevant to every marketing academic, regardless of their philosophical bent, empirical concern or methodological preference.

No Space – New Blood and the Production of Brand Culture Colonies

We consider the potential impact of critical texts published outside the marketing academy upon the new generation of marketing lecturers by focussing on Naomi Kleins influential No Logo and her claims regarding the colonisation of musical spaces. Noting that the text has an insider/outsider relationship with marketing scholarship, we subject the ideas presented by Klein for review through empirical investigation. Specifically, we explore her concept of No Space whereby branding processes insidiously saturate and ultimately dominate cultural production and in so doing, contextualise her claims through a study of professional musicians. We conclude the piece by reflecting upon the growing gap between marketing practice and marketing scholarship and also the implications for the so-called New Blood of the academy.

Before method: axiomatic review of arts marketing

Purpose – For the purpose of reconsidering arts marketing methodologies, this paper seeks to contemplate the axiomatic foundations of alternative arts marketing scholarship, to ask what conversation between arts and marketing they herald and to explore the consequent conceptual issues.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews and evaluates the arts marketing literature.Findings – The paper develops and presents four categories of arts marketing: the consumption of art; marketing as art; art as marketing; and marketing interpreting art.Originality/value – The paper contributes to arts marketing paradigmatic and methodological debates by exploring the axiomatic foundations of this nascent field.