Christian Jantzen

Becoming a 'Woman to the Backbone' : Lingerie consumption and the experience of feminine identity

The connection between consumption and identity construction is a well-known topic in consumer research.Identity has two sides: a social side directed towards an external world of shared values and symbols, and an intra-psychological side directed towards an internal world of longings and bodily sensations.In this study we investigate how womens consumption of lingerie may enhance their experience of inter- and intra-psychological identity.This process of identity formation is analysed with reference to Foucaults concept of ‘technologies of the self’which emphasizes the role of practices and instruments in generating a sense of ‘self’.Lingerie is treated as such an instrument, and the categorizations that consumers use are treated as a form of practical knowledge of how to determine the‘right’underwear for the‘right’occasion. Consuming lingerie with the purpose of experiencing feminine identity is a matter of controlling your bodily performance in social life.This working on identity by purchasing and wearing lingerie may furthermore fulfil or generate longings, thus potentially leading to intensified experiences, feelings and sensations of ‘who I really am’.The article highlights some of the paradoxes in this attempt to manage identity.The analysis is based on interviews with 22 women about their underwear and lingerie consumption.

Just for fun? The emotional regime of experiential consumption

Experiential consumption emphasizes emotional and hedonic qualities in the marketplace stressing the importance of experiences for ‘the good life’ and positioning consumption as a legitimate way to generate interesting and relevant experiences. The concept of emotional regimes (Reddy, 2001) is used to emphasize the dialectics between structural changes in the modern marketplace and the modern way of perceiving and practising hedonic behaviour. The article considers the main ideas that have furthered modern hedonism and the practices that have transformed the abstract longing for sensitivity into concrete experiential appetites. The development of a regime of experiences is outlined, consisting of a set of techniques to bring about sensual pleasure, a discourse to verbalize the methods of pleasure seeking, and an ideology that turns pleasure into a legitimate existential goal in life for the sake of self-actualization.

Experiencing and experiences: a psychological framework

This illuminating Handbook presents the state-of-the-art in the scientific field of experience economy studies. It offers a rich and varied collection of contributions that discuss different issues of crucial importance for our understanding of the experience economy. Each chapter reflects diverse scientific viewpoints from disciplines including management, mainstream economics and sociology to provide a comprehensive overview.

Doing and Meaning: Towards an integrated approach to the study of women's relationship to underwear

In our last issue, the Journal of Consumer Culture published two very different contributions to the debate around womens underwear. In order to develop the issues raised in the original articles, we invited the authors to engage in a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary exchange.This dialogue is the result.

Motivating programming students by problem based learning and LEGO robots

Retention of first year students in Computer Science is a concern for universities internationally. Especially programming courses are regarded as difficult, and often have the highest failure and dropout rates. The Informatics School at Universidad Nacional in Costa Rica is not an exception. For this reason the school is focusing on different teaching methods to help their students master these skills. This paper introduces an experimental, controlled comparison study of three learning designs, involving a problem based learning (PBL) approach in connection with the use of LEGO Mindstorms to improve students programming skills and motivation for learning in an introductory programming course. The paper reports the results related with one of the components of the study - the experiential qualities of the three learning designs. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey with 229 students from three groups exposed to different learning designs and through six qualitative walk-alongs collecting data from these groups by informal interviews and observations. Findings from the three studies were discussed in three focus group interviews with 10 students from the three experimental groups.

The consumer as sovereign: The general economy of Georges Bataille

A majority of international contemporary consumer research studies assumes that consumption has achieved a state of universal relevance. Mike Featherstone (1983: 4), for example, observed a “gradual extension of consumerism to more and more sectors of the population”, whereas Don Slater (1997: 25) observed that “values from the realm of consumption spill over into other domains of social action, such that modern society is in toto a consumer culture, and not just in its specifi cally consuming activities.” Steven Miles (1998: 1) even asserted that consumerism is ubiquitous and ephemeral. It is arguably the religion of the late twentieth century. It apparently pervades our everyday lives and structures our everyday experiences and yet it is perpetually altering its form and reasserting its infl uence in new guises.

User Experience Dimensions: A Systematic Approach to Experiential Qualities for Evaluating Information Interaction in Museums

The present study develops a set of 10 dimensions based on a systematic understanding of the concept of experience as a holistic psychological. Seven of these are derived from a psychological conception of what experiencing and experiences are. Three supplementary dimensions spring from the observation that experiences apparently have become especially valuable phenomena in Western societies. The 10 dimensions are tried out in a field study at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Germany with the purpose to study their applicability in the evaluation of interactive sound archives. 29 walk-alongs were carried out with 58 museums visitors. Our analysis showed that it was possible to identify the 10 experience dimensions in the study material. Some dimensions were expressed more frequently than others. The distribution of expressed dimensions and the content of the user comments provided a clear picture of how the two sound archives differed in respect to the experiential qualities.