Dorthe Brogaard Kristensen

The new work ethics of consumption and the paradox of mundane brand resistance

In terms of consumer resistance and marketplace ideologies, consumer researchers have called for a more nuanced conceptualization of consumption moralism in order to avoid the simplistic trope of inside/outside the marketplace (e.g. Arnould, 2007; Luedicke et al., 2010; Peñaloza and Price, 1993; Thompson, 2004). With the aim of contributing to this quest, this article brings together two originally separate ethnographic studies on food consumption and brands in Scandinavia in order to provide new insights regarding the increasingly complex arena of consumer morality. Instead of focusing on highly pronounced consumer resistance — such as activist communities or specific brand antagonists or protagonists — we focus on ordinary Scandinavian consumers whose identities are not centered around resisting the marketplace. Through a pluri-methodological combination of field observations, interviews, symbol elicitation, photo diaries and artefact collections, we propose an empirically informed model illustrating the paradox of ordinary consumers’ brand resistance: embracing myths of craftsmanship. We show how ordinary middle-class consumers bridge ‘bad’ with ‘good’ brand consumption in various ways to legitimize the former, and how they make the evaluations according to traditional work ethics rather than (post)modern consumption ethics.

Leaving the milky way! The formation of a consumer counter mythology

In this article we present the emergence of a consumer community resisting a national mythology that milk is a central constituent of a healthy life style. This unfolds in a contemporary consumptionscape in which the consumer body and health is the subject of a number of moralisms and counter moralisms. The case is an example of how commercial and official (moral) definitions of health and collective identity are reinterpreted in the establishment of a counter-mythology. This counter-mythology contests an alleged conspiracy between industry and public health authorities. Dairy producers have expropriated the structural mythological ties between milk and the nurturing aspects of family, a process which is underpinned by medical discourses that point to the connection between health and milk consumption. It explores the formation of a counter consumer mythology as it unfolds in the interaction between self-proclaimed experts and consumer-to-consumer communication. We detect four stages in what we suggest is a recursive, for example, non-linear, process of consumer community formation. Finally, the emergent mythologies and moralism from these processes are discussed.

Moralities in food and health research

Abstract Society has imposed strict rules about what constitutes a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ food and ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ eating behaviour at least since antiquity. Today, the moral discourse of what we should and should not eat is perhaps stronger than ever, and it informs consumers, researchers and policy-makers about what we all should consume, research and regulate. We propose four types of moralities, underlying sets of moral assumptions, that orient the contemporary discourses of food and health: the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ nature of food items, the virtue of self-control and moderation, the management of body size and the actions of market agents. We demonstrate how these moralities influence consumer behaviour as well as transformative research of food and health and develop a critical discussion of the impact of the underlying morality in each domain. We conclude by providing a few guidelines for changes in research questions, designs and methodologies for future research and call for a general reflection on the consequences of the uncovered moralities in research on food and health towards an inclusive view of food well-being.

Healthism in Denmark: State, market, and the search for a “Moral Compass”

This article focuses on contemporary responses to public health messages in Denmark, a country whose system of social welfare is, like that of the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe, undergoing increasing levels of marketization and privatization. Drawing primarily upon Robert Crawford’s analysis of healthism as a neoliberal project, the aim of this article is to develop critical understandings of how individuals respond both bodily and emotionally to ideologies of health and the body in the context of a changing marketplace for the consumption of health and its messages. This article will analyze perceptions and practices of health in Denmark. The findings will then be discussed in relation to dimensions inspired by the work of Crawford, who regards “health” as a “super-value,” an outcome of individual security strategies, and mode of citizenship in the marketplace. The article argues that Crawford’s discussion does not fully capture the ways in which people use their bodies to valorize themselves. First, the perception of the state is perceived as being aligned with commercial interests. As a consequence, neither state- nor market-based (i.e. commercial health product and service providers) health advice is fully trusted. Instead, the opinions of non-market actors such as peers and friends as well as of alternative practitioners that are considered outside the market since they do not represent corporate interests become more attractive among citizen-consumers who are concerned about their health. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of our findings for theorization of public health and health policy.

Co-evolving with self-tracking technologies:

Seen in a longitudinal perspective, Quantified Self-inspired self-tracking sets up “a laboratory of the self,” where people co-evolve with technologies. By exploring ways in which self-tracking technologies energize everyday aims or are experienced as limiting, we demonstrate how some aspects of the self are amplified while others become reduced and restricted. We suggest that further developing the concept of the laboratory of the self renews the conversation about the role of metrics and technologies by facilitating comparison between different realms of the digital, and demonstrating how services and devices enlarge aspects of the self at the expense of others. The use of self-tracking technologies is inscribed in, but also runs counter to, the larger political-economy landscape. Personal laboratories can aid the exploration of how the techno-mediated selves fit into larger structures of the digital technology market and the role that metrics play in defining them.

Human/Technology Associations in Self-Tracking Practices

This chapter seeks to explore how the “data self” is experienced by users and how self-tracking practices serve to restructure bodily experience. The aim of this chapter is to establish a typology of self/technology associations in practices of self-tracking that take into consideration the perceptions and experience of the users, their intentions as well as the dynamic changes in the human/technology/world relationship. With our point of departure in an empirical exploration with departure in postphenomenology (Verbeek 2005), we identified four different associations that we have coined enactment, experience, entanglement and integration. By so doing, this chapter provides a conceptual understanding of a full circle of use of self-tracking technologies for future empirical exploration.