Andrea Tonner

Social labour : exploring work in consumption

This article develops understanding of consumer work at the primary level of sociality in the context of social networking sites. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and netnography, we reveal these sites as distinctive spaces of consumer-to-consumer work. To explain this work in consumption, we introduce the concept of social labour which we define as the means by which consumers add value to their identities and social relationships through producing and sharing cultural and affective content. This is driven by observational vigilance and conspicuous presence, and is rewarded by social value. This draws attention to the variety of work consumers enact within their social lives, indicating that consumer work is broader than previously acknowledged.

Liminal mothers' negotiation of conflicting service consumption

ABSTRACT Pregnancy is a significant period of transition, transforming ‘women’ into ‘mothers’. The mid or liminal phase of transition is particularly ripe for consumer researchers. Transformative services research (TSR) considers that services may deliver objective well-being outcomes (e.g. consumer health). This article extends TSR into liminality and considers that services may also encompass hedonic (mood, satisfaction and happiness) and eudaimonic (mastery, autonomy, positive relations and self-acceptance) dimensions. The article unpacks women’s service experiences to enrich and expand understanding of positive and negative consumption meanings. It identifies that unanticipated outcomes emerge as a feature of transformative services. It demonstrates that services situates new mothers at the centre of a multiplicity of consumption. This may both overwhelm and act as transitional resource developing mothers as postmodern bricoleurs.

How can social enterprises impact health and wellbeing

Purpose -The objective of this paper is to examine the impacts of social enterprise on individual and community health and well-being. It focuses on community food initiatives, their impact on the social determinants of health and the influence of structure on their outcomes. Design – Using an interpretive qualitative approach through case studies focused on two community food social enterprises, the research team conducted observations, interviews and ad-hoc conversations. Findings - Researchers found that social enterprises impacted all layers of the social determinants of health model but that there was greater impact on individual lifestyle factors and social and community networks. Impact at the higher socio-economic, cultural and environmental layer was more constrained. There was also evidence of the structural factors both enabling and constraining impact at all levels. Implications – This study helps to facilitate understanding on the role of social enterprises as a key way for individuals and communities to work together to build their capabilities and resilience when facing health inequalities. Building upon previous work, it provides insight into the practices, limitations and challenges of those engaged in encouraging and supporting behavioural changes. Value - The paper contributes to a deeper insight of the use, motivation and understanding of social enterprise as an operating model by community food initiatives. It provides evidence of the impact of such social enterprises on the social determinants of health and uses structuration theory (Giddens, 1984) to explore how structure both influences and constrains the impact of these enterprises.

Consumer culture poetry: insightful data and methodological approaches

ABSTRACT This article makes a case for greater inclusion of poetry as distinctive data within interpretive consumer research. It considers that alternative means of representation provide insight into difficult to access consumption fields. The poetic voice allows the emergence of an emic language of experience as the subject engages in self-reflexivity expressed in ways unconstrained by typical research norms. The article also considers some of the methodological choices inherent in engaging with poetic data and illustrates the research value by considering poems that unpack hidden and mundane consumption and consumer resistance. It shows how intimate experiences can be accessed and interrogated using poetic analysis, how poetry can capture the minutia of mundane consumption while laying bare the poet’s reflexivity about its meaning, and how the reclamation of a dead art-form can become an active form of rejection and consumer resistance.

Death of buildings in consumer culture : natural death, architectural murder and cultural rape

ABSTRACT We propose that focusing on the death of buildings has much to offer in terms of our understanding of consumer culture. The aim of this paper is to explore the death of buildings from the perspective of consumers who have an interest in exploring obsolete buildings. Drawing on an ethnographic study of urban exploration, we uncover consumer understandings of death and mortality. We make a number of contributions. First, we demonstrate how death terminology is appropriate to material culture. Second, we reveal how consumer fascination with derelict buildings opens up opportunities for otherwise suppressed thoughts and conversations about death. Third, we recognise the multidimensional nature of death and introduce the concept of cultural death in consumer culture.

Stepping into strangers’ homes: exploring the consumption phenomenon of home exchange

Abstract Purpose Our paper is centred on exploring the experiences of opening up closed doors to strangers in the context of home exchange. Methodology/approach This paper is based on a year-long research project which has drawn on multiple qualitative methods of data collection. A bricolage approach was adopted to enable the authors to gather data which is sensitive to multivocality and conscious of difference within the consumer experience. Findings Our findings demonstrate that home exchangers treat their home as an asset to be capitalised, to allow them to travel to places and communities otherwise unreachable. Home exchangers simultaneously engage in the symbolic creation of home in a temporary environment and utilise the kinship and community networks of their home exchange partner. Practical implications Our paper adds depth and an insight to the increasing media coverage of the home exchange phenomenon. Social implications As a consumption practice that is witnessing widespread appeal, home exchange uncovers evidence of trust amongst strangers. While it is common practice to open the home in order to build friendship, it is less common for this invitation to be extended to strangers. Originality/value We extend the extensive theorisation of the home as a symbolic environment and reveal that the home can also be used in an enterprising fashion.

Book review: Food and Society: Principles and Paradoxes

contributions to the sub-field, including the differences between European and North American intellectual currents, is helpful for those desiring to use the textbook in either region. The third chapter, focusing on research methods, and their links with theory, provides an additional teaching aid. This section of the book could be used to propel students in useful directions for data gathering, or essay writing. In addition, these three early chapters point to the contributions made by anthropologists, and the links between these two branches of the social sciences, with the newer addition of cultural studies, which is helpful for students to understand as they venture into research. While the first portion of Cultural Sociology clearly differentiates the sub-field from a more general sociology, the second section of the text, which includes four chapters, provides a less straightforward demarcation. Chapters 4 (covering class), 5 (dealing with gender and sexuality), and 6 (focusing on race) highlight some differences between cultural sociologists and the field as a whole, but in fact the disciplinary realities are much murkier and more mixed, at least in the US. The majority of American sociologists teaching race, class, and gender courses would include many of the ideas promoted in this text as cultural sociology, although possibly not billing themselves as cultural sociologists. This is not really a critique of the book, but instead, demonstrates the way in which cultural ideas have infiltrated sociology as a whole. This argument could also be made for the chapters covering politics, globalization, and religion. Chapter 7 deals with the body, and while short, is a concise statement on current research, and covers a topic more clearly designated as cultural sociological in nature. This chapter, in combination with the analyses of music, fashion, food, and media, really highlights the role that cultural sociologists have played in encouraging deeper understanding, and new interpretations of the phenomena of daily life, and these were my favorite chapters for considering my current approaches to teaching. In the case of American academia, this book is probably best suited to senior undergraduates, or even graduate students focusing on this area for the first time. It could be incorporated in a first-year sociology course (and the glossary of terms is helpful), but students would need a lot of support in grappling with the chapters, and I suspect that much whining might ensue.