This article presents the analysis of two dominant anti-consumption discourses (the voluntary simplicity discourse and the culture jammer discourse) to show the importance of anti-consumption practices in the construction of consumer identities. Specifically, two consumer-resistant identities are presented: a hero identity and a project identity. Each resistant identity is produced by, and produces, overreaching cultural discourses against consumer culture, namely resistance to exploitative consumption and resistance to positional consumption. In addition, each identity expresses resistance either in terms of political consumption for an outer change or in terms of creative consumption directed toward an inner change. By stressing the importance of hero resistant identities and project resistant identities, this article offers the concept of identity formation as central rather than peripheral to the development of consumer resistance.

This research examines anti-consumption practices, motivations and values within attempts to live a more sustainable lifestyle. Sixteen women were interviewed and from their narratives, anti-consumption for sustainability was found to be practiced via acts of rejection, reduction and reuse. In addition, practices of anti-consumption for sustainability are constructed through the collaboration between the needs of the individual and the needs for environmental preservation. This perspective moves sustainable consumption away from a rational information processing and environmentally motivated choice to incorporate various subjective and individualistic needs and values. Hence, the challenge for sustainable marketers is to position sustainable practices along side self interested notions such as independence, beauty, quality or value for money.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to question the taken for granted assumptions that underpin a liberal or lay view of consumer empowerment implicit to this special edition.In particular, the idea that it benefits consumers to have more choice is questioned.Design/methodology/approach -The key constructs of Michel Foucaultdisciplinary power, governmentality and technologies of selfare used to argue that people can never escape from the operation of power. Rather it is shown how power operates to produce consumers.Findings -The liberal view of the empowerment of consumers through choice is questioned. Rather we suggest the opposite; that choice is a disciplinary power and that more and more choice can lead to choice paralysis. The contemporary phenomenon known as blogging is described as a Foucauldian technology of self. Managerial implications are discussed.Originality/value -The value of a Foucauldian inspired theory of empowerment is that it represents a more sophisticated understanding of the fluidity of power relationships between producers and consumers than can be captured by a liberal view of power and empowerment.

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Based on phenomenological interviews with consumers who voluntarily engaged in the process of dispossession, the study develops an emerging processual theory of identity, which emphasizes four main stages: sensitization, separation, socialization, and striving. Each phase corresponds to evolving consumers' perceptions of the world and positioning of the self, and characterizes distinct meanings and experiences of consumption. Furthermore, our analysis shows that, although there is no possible self-making outside of consumer culture, its normative background is not fixed, but rather fluid, and can be deconstructed when it no longer operates within the realm of consumers' world-view.