Consumer research on gifting has primariiy focused on the interpersonai meanings and behavior patterns associated with dyadic giffs that are specifically given from one individuai to another and in which the centrai goai is interpersonal relationship maintenance. Yet we find another type of gifting when community members in one social position give to community members in another position in which the central goal is intracommunity, rather than interpersonai, relationship wori<. This ethnographic research detaiis the ritual practices, structural components, and meanings associated with intracommunity gifts employing the empirical context of the postKatrina New Orleans' community celebration of iVlardi Gras. Through this context, we detail how intracommunity gifting gives prominence to the iogics of the moral economy while still drawing from those of the market economy. Beyond this context, we use our conclusions about the intersection of the market and moral economies to understand contemporary ambivalence to corporate sponsorships of iocai community events.C onsumer research on gifting rituals has primarily focused on the personal meanings and bebaviors associated witb dyadic gifts, gifts tbat are specifically targeted from one person to another to maintain or deepen their exisdng relationship. Papers on dyadic gifdng have contributed substantially to consumer researcb by detailing the meanings and practices through which dyadic gifting rituals communicate and solidify intimate relationships (Belk 1976;
This study examines middle-class consumption and lifestyle during the transition to adulthood in the United States. Based on analysis of qualitative data from interviews with emerging adults between adolescence and settled adulthood, we argue that middle-class emerging adulthood is marked by a focus on exploratory experience consumption: the consumption of novel experiences with cultural capital potential. This tacit, embodied orientation is rooted in a habitus developed during entitled childhoods but is also shaped by an anticipated shortage of opportunities for exploration after they marry and have children. Accordingly, middle-class emerging adults voraciously consume exploratory experiences in the present with their imagined future selves in mind. The class basis for this orientation is examined through our analysis of interviews with working-class emerging adults whose lifestyles are characterized not by exploratory experience consumption but by a desire for the familiar, a fear of the unknown, and a longing for stability. The discussion focuses on how the middle-class consumer orientation toward exploratory experiences reinforces class (dis)advantage, life trajectories, and inequality.
holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration and Management from Università Bocconi, Milan. His research involves the consumption of market minorities (migrants, gays, elderly consumers, bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers) as well as the consumption of collective goods (public space and public health). His research has appeared in the
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.