Annamma Joy

Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands

Abstract The phrase “fast fashion” refers to low-cost clothing collections that mimic current luxury fashion trends. Fast fashion helps sate deeply held desires among young consumers in the industrialized world for luxury fashion, even as it embodies unsustainability. Trends run their course with lightning speed, with todays latest styles swiftly trumping yesterdays, which have already been consigned to the trash bin. This article addresses the inherent dissonance among fast fashion consumers, who often share a concern for environmental issues even as they indulge in consumer patterns antithetical to ecological best practices. Seemingly adept at compartmentalism, and free of conflicted guilt, such consumers see no contradiction in their Janus-faced desires. Can luxury fashion, with ostensibly an emphasis on authenticity, and its concomitant respect for artisans and the environment, foster values of both quality and sustainability? Since individual identity continually evolves, and requires a materially referential re-imagining of self to do so, we hypothesize that actual rather than faux luxury brands can, ironically, unite the ideals of fashion with those of environmental sustainability.

Postmodernism, feminism, and the body: The visible and the invisible in consumer research

Abstract The academic discourse on consumer behavior has paid no attention to the body as a site of cultural representation and social power, despite its generous exploitation in the world of marketing practice. This paper explores the relationship between postmodernism and feminism in the context of consumer behavior and restores body to its rightful position in our discourse. Postmodernism and feminism challenge the fundamental tenets of Enlightenment philosophy based on rationality and dualist assumptions - subject/object, culture/ nature, rational/irrational, and mind/body. Feminism goes further than postmodernism: It argues that not only are the first terms in each of these dichotomies more privileged but that they are gendered as well. This paper examines the process of production and consumption of gender through body rituals. The mutuality of the two spheres is central to our understanding of both production and consumption processes. Postmodern feminism allows us to deconstruct the various levels at which cultural mediation of the body occurs and allows women to re-make their bodies and call various marketing practices into question.

Disentangling the paradoxical alliances between art market and art world

The relationship between art and market can be rendered visible only by closely examining the actions of contemporary artists, art critics, and writers, and the efforts of gallery and auction house merchandisers. A market orientation is just one way of evaluating the activities of the art world. Art and market are not reducible to each other, no matter the prevailing ideology. While the market operates on a narrative that valorizes the latest trend in imagemaking, aided by the creation of new technologies, it is neither the only nor the most important arbitrator of value for the viewer. Disentangling the art‐market complex is a necessary first step in reclaiming a holistic view of the consumption of art. We take that step in this paper.

Money matters: An exploratory study of the socio-cultural context of consumption, saving, and investment patterns

Abstract This study focuses on 36 professional South Asian (Indian) families in a metropolitan city in Canada in order to understand motives for financial behavior. In accordance with the Hindu world view, Indians view wealth acquisition as necessary for the natural progression of an individuals life and take a long view of time when it comes to investment decisions. Their primary purpose is to invest money in order to provide for their childrens education. Their cultural roots allow them to take a long-term view and makes them more risk tolerant. Although these families take economic criteria into account, such criteria alone do not fully explain their consumption, saving, and investment patterns. It would appear that their need for saving determines their consumption, not the other way around. To understand their financial behavior, one has to identify the cultural worlds in which Indians live. The study highlights the importance of understanding the socio-cultural context of decisions that may appear to be purely economic decisions at first sight.

Framing considerations in the PRC: creating value in the contemporary Chinese art market.

This study of art galleries in the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) uses a political economy approach to examine the contours of the art world and the art market. A Chinese art market based on the Western and Japanese models was created in the early twentieth century, but was abolished in 1949 when the PRC, under Chairman Mao, adopted a socialist framing model on a national scale. Breaking out of this totalizing frame was difficult despite the adoption of market socialism in 1979. The decade between 1979 and 1989 witnessed rapid surges of creativity, which were brought to a full stop by the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. In 1992, however, the national policy of rapid growth gave the cultural industry a sharp nudge. Since the mid‐1990s, two trends in the art world have emerged: a collaborative framework for developing contemporary PRC art (including commercial art) for both the internal and external markets; domestic art as a commentary on changing social and cultural values.

Ethnicity as a Factor Influencing Use of Financial Services

Using an index of English‐French Canadian ethnicity developed on the basis of language use in various social communication situations, this study investigates the relationship between ethnicity and use (ownership) of several financial services. A significant result is found in all cases even after removing the effects of income, family life cycle and size.

Consumers' attitudes toward marketing : a cross-cultural study of China and Canada

ABSTRACT Previous research has attributed the differences in consumer attitudes toward marketing between countries to either the lifecycle of consumerism development or cultural values such as individualism. We conduct a cross-cultural study of China and Canada to test the two competing hypotheses. The survey results suggest that Chinese consumers are more positive about marketing and have a higher level of satisfaction than their Canadian counterparts. But the Chinese report more problems with marketing and less positive attitudes toward consumerism than the Canadians. While Chinese consumers are less likely to complain or engage in negative word-of-mouth, they are more supportive of government actions and public resolution. Consumerism and individualism have significant negative correlations with consumer attitudes toward marketing for the Canadians, but not for the Chinese. The cross-cultural variations may reflect the cultural values (i.e., individualism) and the role of government institutions, which are different between the two countries. These findings have significant implications for managing customer relationships in different countries and for interpreting the differences in consumer attitudes in cross-cultural studies.

Re-thinking the relationship between self and other: Levinas and narratives of beautifying the body

In the consumer research literature, the automatic consideration of one’s knowledge of self in the evaluation of others is taken for granted. The ‘idea of the other’ — which the authors here term ‘representational subjectivity’ — is at the heart of consumer decisions. Philosopher Emanuel Levinas suggests another path: the concrete relation to the other person is the basis of subjectivity. He makes the distinction between ‘other’ (as in environment and things) and ‘Others’ as in persons. Affective subjectivity arises in the enjoyment of things around an individual and precedes representation. Ethical subjectivity makes an individual realize that not everything can be assimilated to the self. It is in this moment that ethical subjectivity is realized. The authors explain these themes in the realm of beauty, a domain where ongoing moral judgments are made. The authors offer a correction to the taken-for-granted relationship between the self and the other with a focus on the pre-reflective affective self and the ethical self, each of which is shaken out of its complacency with the appearance of another person.

Judith Butler on performativity and precarity: exploratory thoughts on gender and violence in India

Abstract We turn to the philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler for insight into how gender performativity (acting and actions restricted by gender norms) affects identity and thus individual agency. Gender performativity underlies the prevailing conceptualisation of women in India as being lesser. We anticipated that the extreme divide between wealth and poverty and higher and lower castes would affect women’s vulnerability. Yet, while lower class/caste women are undeniably at greater risk of sexual assault, even women of higher social status similarly embody ‘precarity’: a life lived without predictability, and thus without security. While structural changes have encouraged increased agentic performativity among women in India, a culture of condoned sexual violence is nonetheless an ongoing and horrifying reality.

Decomposition of cross-country differences in consumer attitudes toward marketing

Purpose – Previous studies have found significant differences in consumer attitudes toward marketing between countries and attributed such variations to differences in the stage of consumerism development and cultural values. This study aims to test these competing hypotheses using econometric decomposition to identify the source of such cross‐country variations.Design/methodology/approach – Using survey data of consumer attitudes toward marketing from China and Canada, this study adopts econometric decomposition to examine the cross‐country difference in consumer attitudes toward marketing.Findings – The results show that Chinese consumers have more positive attitudes toward marketing than Canadians and the two countries differ significantly across all predictor variables. However, the results of decomposition suggest that consumerism, individualism and relativism do not have any significant effect on the country gap in consumer attitudes toward marketing, while idealism has a significant coefficient eff...