James Martin Cronin

Eat like a man. A social constructionist analysis of the role of food in men's lives.

This paper adopts a social constructionist approach to investigate the role of food in the production of identities and social experiences for men. With recognition that relational and experiential processes are central to mens lives, the purpose of the paper is to inductively explore the personal and interpersonal complexities of this groups food related behaviours. Empirical data were collected through a series of semi-structured interviews with 33 men, comprising of 4 age groups, (18-35, 36-54, 55-64, and 65+ years). Regardless of age, an analysis and interpretation yielded three emergent themes, food as a component of: (1) role-play; (2) contextual interactions, (3) and the management of a functional vs. hedonic dialectic. Across these themes various tensions and contradictions emerged suggesting a complex reflexivity to male food life experiences. Relational issues emerged such as the observation that some men concede control to their partners throughout their food experiences. Overall, our mens consumption practices construct a specific socio-cultural articulation of masculine roles whereby their internal paradoxes are leveraged as a means to produce desirable experiences and self-identifications.

Fast food and fast games: An ethnographic exploration of food consumption complexity among the videogames subculture

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand how food is used to create identity and community for gamers during core rituals. These meanings are to be explored within the broader context of subcultural experience in an investigation of the motives and the self‐concept dynamics underlying this symbolic consumer behaviour.Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses an interpretive research strategy and adopts a multi‐method ethnographic approach that includes: netnography: multiple, in‐depth, ethnographic interviews; and prolonged participant observation. Interview informants are young Irish subcultural members aged between 18 and 23. Data analysis proceeds according to a constant comparative method.Findings – The findings suggest that the social gaming ritual, when intersected with food, is closely linked to issues of identity, community, fantasy and escape, gustatory rebellion and prolonged hedonism. Commensality during the core social gaming ritual contributes to a sense of communitas, while t...

Paradox, performance and food: managing difference in the construction of femininity

This paper explores the personal and interpersonal complexities of womens food-related behaviours. Drawing from the postmodern concept of paradoxical juxtapositions, the authors examine womens discourses around food, cooking and eating to discuss the embedded negotiations of tensions arising from maintaining hetero-normative femininities while accounting for their own personal and social subjectivities. Data were collected through a series of semi-structured interviews with 45 women. Moving across the analyses, identity complexity plays out for women through the simultaneous presence of strain and gratification in their performance as “caregivers” and an ongoing dialectic of ascetism/discipline and hedonism/transgression in their food-lives. We argue women work to construct desirable experiences and self-identifications from balancing an assemblage of constituent food behaviours across different settings. Our analysis highlights the continuing presence of postmodern paradox as an important theoretical consideration and contributes to our understanding of how femininity is skilfully performed through the management of difference.

Money, mavens, time, and price search: Modelling the joint creation of utilitarian and hedonic value in grocery shopping

Abstract This research deductively develops a model of both in-store price search and store deal proneness drawing on hedonic and utilitarian value creation. Based on a sample of 535 US grocery shoppers, the model reveals that in-store price search and store deal proneness share many of the same drivers, amongst these, the value of time being the most important. The opportunity cost of time engaged in price search is explained in terms of shoppers’ financial pressures and role construction as price mavens. Price mavenism influences store deal proneness directly due to its capacity to yield the price information required to build and maintain a role identity, and indirectly through its effect on the opportunity cost of time engaged in price search. The primary implication of the research is that the relationship between time, search, and price mavenism may be best explored by viewing price knowledge, the basis for identity maintenance, as a flow rather than a stock.

When people take action ...:mainstreaming malcontent and the role of the celebrity institutional entrepreneur

Abstract As the challenges of sustainability intensify at a global level, it is becoming increasingly more important to encourage, support and promote the mainstream adoption of mindful and ecologically viable consumption. Drawing on institutional theory and an interpretive investigation of a UK Channel 4 television documentary, namely Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight, we explore a relatively widespread phenomenon, the celebrity campaign. We consider how such campaigns galvanise mainstream malcontent by creating mythic plots, personalising adversaries and framing issues to encourage articulation of malcontent. Although malcontent may be fleeting, we argue that this can set in motion institutional change towards sustainable production and consumption. Celebrity campaigns demonstrate the dynamic and interrelated character of consumer and industry groups in a way that might inform other change efforts.

Deconstructing consumer discipline: : How self-management is experienced in the marketplace

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to build an understanding of what we term “consumer discipline” by unpacking the practices and strategies by which people manage and exert control over what they consume. This is facilitated by looking at the context of food, an everyday necessity imbued with sizeable importance in terms of its impact on personal well-being, and how it is experienced by individuals who must manage the constraints of a chronic illness. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on the Foucauldian concept of governmentality and theories surrounding the social facilitation of self-management, this paper analyses interviews with 17 consumers diagnosed with diabetes or coronary heart disease. Findings – By exploring how the chronically ill generate different strategies in managing what they eat and how they think about it, this paper outlines four analytical areas to continue the discussion of how consumption is disciplined and its conceptualisation in marketing and health-related research: “t...

The bigger society: considering lived consumption experiences in managing social change around obesity

Purpose – This paper aims to argue that the limited success in addressing rising rates of obesity is underscored by health promotion practices and policies’ failure to consider the instrumental and symbolic functioning of food as part of identity formation, relationship construction and socio-cultural conditioning over consumers’ life course events. The aim of this paper is to ignite the power of critical approaches that seek social change through contextualising the subjectivities of obese individuals’ personal lived experiences with food. Design/methodology/approach – Taking a transformative consumer research approach which recognises the range of theories and paradigms required to comprehend and positively influence well-being, this paper draws on the work of Foucault and Bourdieu to study the discourses of 21 obese adult consumers. Findings – The research shows that food behaviours conducive to weight gain are enmeshed in participants’ biographies and everyday experiences across the arenas of identity...

Charismatic authority and the YouTuber: Unpacking the new cults of personality

In this article, we draw upon Weber’s concept of charismatic authority to unpack the appeal that YouTube video bloggers have galvanized among their fan communities. We explore how followers interact to articulate the appeal of British YouTube personalities and consequently, how they contribute to the nature of these ‘new cults of personality’. By observing the content of seven of Britain’s most popular ‘YouTubers’ and engaging in a sustained non-participant netnography of responses to these videos, we argue new cults of personality differ from their traditional counterparts through collaborative, co-constructive and communal interdependence between culted figure and follower. While Weber maintained charismatic authority has its source in the innate and exceptional qualities of an individual’s personality, we submit that in consumer culture’s current era of consent, the ‘culting’ of social actors becomes a participatory venture. We shed light on the fading and routinization of charisma and the dissipation of the relationship between the culted figure and followers.

From store brands to store brandscapes: the emergence of a time and money saving heuristic

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the role of store brands as a time- and money-saving heuristic in the context of an omnipresent store brand hierarchy. Drawing on the work of Tversky and Kahneman (1982), it proposes that the store brand hierarchy is characterised by many of the traits of frequently used heuristics employed by grocery shoppers. Design/methodology/approach – Based on Chaiken’s (1980) model of information processing and Stigler’s (1961) perspective on the economics of information search, the study deductively establishes a model of store brand proneness to reveal the role of store brands as time- and money-saving heuristic. The model is tested on a sample of 535 US households using structural equation modelling and subsequent multigroup analysis based on two subsamples of households experiencing high financial pressure but who differ in terms of time pressure. Findings – The findings provide strong support for store brands as a time- and money-saving heuristic and as a substitute for...

Bodysnatching in the marketplace: Market-focused health activism and compelling narratives of dys-appearance

This article theorizes how market-focused health activism catalyses market change through revealing the ill-effects that consumers’ conformity with market-shaped expectations and ideals has on their bodies and embodied lives. An understanding of this activism is developed by analysing a vicarious form of ‘bodily dys-appearance’ which is used in Jamie Oliver’s televised documentary, Sugar Rush (2015), to narratively provoke corporeal anxieties among audiences. In our analysis, we borrow tropes from the science fiction film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, to interpret themes centred on a threat, a victim and a hero. We argue that market-focused health activism problematizes the neo-liberal logic of personal responsibility and promotes market intervention as the only means to insulate and safeguard the body from harm. Where extant theorization of consumers’ antagonism towards the market hinges mostly on politically or intellectually motivated resistance, this article demonstrates how somatically oriented concerns operate alternatively to invoke activism.