Tomás Ariztía

Unpacking insight: How consumers are qualified by advertising agencies

By describing how consumers are qualified and mobilised in advertising agencies, this paper aims to contribute to this increasing body of literature that explores ordinary marketing and advertising practices, knowledge and devices. This is done by unpacking and analysing a particular aspect of routine advertising work, which is the production and circulation of insights about consumers in advertising agencies. We argue that producing insight involves performing a particular type of qualification of the consumer that relates to two specific processes. Firstly, we describe these practices in terms of an a extensive process of mediation that involves the deployment of progressive definitions of products and consumers that pass by different actors in the agency and through which production and consumption are connected in the very local and specific space of the advertising agency. Secondly, we argue that this process of mediation goes together with a process of ‘purification’ that involves performing a specific version of the consumer aligned with creative advertising work. Furthermore, we describe how this process involves considering some specific consumer qualities and descriptions (mostly interpretations about possible connections between goods and consumers) and leaving others asides. We identify this last operation as a particular type of cultural calculation. This argument is empirically supported by evidence collected from 40 interviews with advertising professionals and ethnographic fieldwork carried out at eight advertising agencies based in Santiago, Chile.

Housing markets performing class: middle‐class cultures and market professionals in Chile

This article takes a cultural economy approach to the analysis of housing markets as spaces in which class cultures are performed. The design and marketing of real estate projects are understood as the outcome of the interplay of different narratives, practices and materials involving cultural and economic calculations. I explore one particular type of cultural knowledge used during the production and sale of houses: the meanings of class and social mobility. I argue that housing markets and housing production involve the interrelation of several cultural calculations on class and social mobility. In other words, meanings of class and social mobility are instrumentally produced and used in the design, production and marketing of real estate. I describe how cultural calculations about class are inscribed into house location, house design and real estate advertising and marketing devices. Indeed, it is argued that in designing ‘real estate’ projects, agents and executives work as ‘sociologists at large’: they create and perform new meanings of class and social mobility.

Beyond the “deficit discourse”: Mapping ethical consumption discourses in Chile and Brazil

This article challenges the longstanding trend of much empirical material on ethical consumption originating from the global North, offering instead rich data on ethical consumption and practices in Chile and Brazil. Drawing on data generated from 32 in-depth focus groups (179 participants in total) in both countries, the article identifies similarities and differences between these two countries and with the global North. We identify how ethical consumption in Chile and Brazil is conceptualized mainly at two different scales, namely first, the everyday ethics of consumption at household scale and, second, a more global scale of discourse on environmental problems and the negative effects of globalisation. At the household scale, narrative themes include those of prudence, of avoiding overconsumption, family health, and focus on quality. At a more national and international scale, respondents from all classes in both countries discussed labour conditions associated with Chinese imports. Further, particularly university-educated and well-travelled respondents had adopted international environmentalist discourses. Employing a relational geography to discourses, the article calls for research to both include and transcend cross-country comparisons, and binaries of global North and South.

La teoría de las prácticas sociales: particularidades, posibilidades y límites

This article presents a critical review of Social Practices Theory, a label that group works that consider the practice as the fundamental component of the social world. The article discusses and presents in a synthetic way a set of recent theoretical works associated to this theory. Social Practices Theory is described as an attempt to avoid the traditional dualism of social theory based on the concept of practice which, following the work of Elizabeth Shove, is defined as the intersection of materialities, meaning and practical knowledge. The article discusses how Social Practices Theory accounts for the dynamics of social change by focusing on examining the trajectories of practices and their components. It illustrates the possibilities and limitations of this theory by describing how Social Practices Theory has been used in environmental sociology and sustainable consumption. Key words: social practice, theory, dualism, posthumanist, pragmatism.

Consumer databases as practical accomplishments: the making of digital objects in three movements

ABSTRACT This paper aims to reflect on some key issues linked to the production of digital objects in business settings. In doing so, it problematizes current social science scholarship, which emphasizes the analysis of digital data and analytics, and reinforces the magnitude of its consequences and ‘data power’. The paper proposes making three corrective ‘movements’ that might enrich our approaches to how databases and analytics are assembled in business settings. The first movement involves the problem of ethnographic access to data-making practices. We propose taking seriously the issue of fabricating an ethnographic encounter where the process of making digital objects is exposed. The second movement concerns the visibility and the type of politics taking place in data practices. We argue for the need to displace attention from data impacts and results to the myriad of mundane practices and devices through which these objects are assembled. The third movement we suggest requires a focus on examining error and failure as key aspects of the manufacturing of consumer databases. Each of these movements is illustrated by ethnographic vignettes from a 9-month ethnographic experiment that involved participating in the first stages of the manufacturing of an online financial retail companys consumer database.

Classes médias e consumo: Trêschaves de leitura desde a sociologia

En este ensayo bibliografico se examinan distintos clivajes a partir de las cuales se han pensado sociologicamente la relacion entre consumo y clases medias. Concretamente, el articulo discute tres clivajes, a saber: a) la version en la cual el consumo y las clases medias se entienden y movilizan como simbolos y resultados de un proceso de modernizacion capitalista; b) la version en la cual el consumo se entiende principalmente en terminos de la produccion de distinciones simbolicas a partir de la cual distintas fracciones de la clase media producen sus identidades sociales, y c) la version en el cual el consumo puede ser pensado como un recurso, o mediacion a partir del cual se produce y moviliza la clase media, tanto a nivel de las practicas cotidianas de los actores como de las operaciones de clasificacion y construccion de colectivos realizadas por los expertos. Vinculamos cada una de estas versiones a distintas tradiciones sociologicas, discutiendo sus supuestos, posibilidades y limitaciones. El articulo termina discutiendo de como estos tres clivajes descansan en distintas formas de concebir la naturaleza de lo social y que, por tanto, cada uno hace visible solo ciertos aspectos y conexiones entre consumo y clases medias.

Consumption and the middle classes: three sociological

En este ensayo bibliografico se examinan distintos clivajes a partir de las cuales se han pensado sociologicamente la relacion entre consumo y clases medias. Concretamente, el articulo discute tres clivajes, a saber: a) la version en la cual el consumo y las clases medias se entienden y movilizan como simbolos y resultados de un proceso de modernizacion capitalista; b) la version en la cual el consumo se entiende principalmente en terminos de la produccion de distinciones simbolicas a partir de la cual distintas fracciones de la clase media producen sus identidades sociales, y c) la version en el cual el consumo puede ser pensado como un recurso, o mediacion a partir del cual se produce y moviliza la clase media, tanto a nivel de las practicas cotidianas de los actores como de las operaciones de clasificacion y construccion de colectivos realizadas por los expertos. Vinculamos cada una de estas versiones a distintas tradiciones sociologicas, discutiendo sus supuestos, posibilidades y limitaciones. El articulo termina discutiendo de como estos tres clivajes descansan en distintas formas de concebir la naturaleza de lo social y que, por tanto, cada uno hace visible solo ciertos aspectos y conexiones entre consumo y clases medias.

Clases medias y consumo: tres claves de lectura desde la sociología

En este ensayo bibliografico se examinan distintos clivajes a partir de las cuales se han pensado sociologicamente la relacion entre consumo y clases medias. Concretamente, el articulo discute tres clivajes, a saber: a) la version en la cual el consumo y las clases medias se entienden y movilizan como simbolos y resultados de un proceso de modernizacion capitalista; b) la version en la cual el consumo se entiende principalmente en terminos de la produccion de distinciones simbolicas a partir de la cual distintas fracciones de la clase media producen sus identidades sociales, y c) la version en el cual el consumo puede ser pensado como un recurso, o mediacion a partir del cual se produce y moviliza la clase media, tanto a nivel de las practicas cotidianas de los actores como de las operaciones de clasificacion y construccion de colectivos realizadas por los expertos. Vinculamos cada una de estas versiones a distintas tradiciones sociologicas, discutiendo sus supuestos, posibilidades y limitaciones. El articulo termina discutiendo de como estos tres clivajes descansan en distintas formas de concebir la naturaleza de lo social y que, por tanto, cada uno hace visible solo ciertos aspectos y conexiones entre consumo y clases medias.

Consumption norms and everyday ethics

propensity for treating art as an asset class and the psychology of art bubbles. The section on Institutions and Networks analyzes the dense ecosystem comprising the core of artworld. The roles of and interactions among artists, dealers, curators, galleries, museums, audiences and collectors are examined in some detail. The section on Critique addresses the anti-commercial backlash that has rippled through an artworld occasionally resistant to the market’s relentless appropriation of its objects. Artists’ flirtation with the art-as-investment movement is briefly considered as well. Of particular interest to the readers of this journal (and to their students) is the section on Business Art, which really delves into the paradox of money as a diluter and enhancer of cultural production. The impact of profit on esthetic value, the role of spectacle in artistic success, and the practical and ethical consequences of the artist as brand are each explored in ways that challenge the marketing imagination. My chief reservations with this book will not surprise readers of this journal. The editor is likely unfamiliar with the rich vein of research into art and markets conducted by consumer culture theorists in general, and CMC authors in particular. This lapse is regrettable given the synergy the insights from our literature could have provided. I would have also appreciated the inclusion of more material from sociology, and especially anthropology, where relevant material is plentiful. Finally, I was puzzled by the omission of commentary on street art and other populist art projects, which would seem to be wonderful field experiments on art/market dynamics. This volume could be used effectively as a reader in specialized undergraduate and graduate courses in arts marketing, consumption and esthetics, and globalization. It would also work well in more general courses on experiential marketing and consumption. In either instance, there is plenty of opportunity to supplement, extend and surpass the book’s content with the consumer research literature. Courses in contiguous disciplines (whether social sciences or humanities) that address cultural production and consumption would find the book useful as well.