Anti-consumption discourses and consumer-resistant identities

Abstract

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.

The construction and controlling effect of a moral brand

“…This is perhaps best exemplified by the emergence of brand communities (Arnould & Thompson, 2005;Fournier & Lee, 2009;Luedicke, 2006;Muñiz & O'Guinn, 2001). However brand management has had to contend with an increasingly well informed, questioning, oftentimes cynical consumer community (Mohr, Eroglu, & Ellen, 1998) that could be described as 'anti-branding' (Cromie & Ewing, 2009;Hollenbeck & Zinkhan, 2006;Klein, 1999;Lasn, 2000) in seeking to resist branding efforts by eschewing brands or taking more reflexive approaches to consumption and branded identity work (Cherrier, 2009;Firat & Venkatesh, 1995;Holt, 2002). Consumers and critics are not just passive receivers of the brand but are active in shaping, resisting and subverting brands (Holt, 2002;Kates, 2004;Ligas & Cotte, 1999;Salzer-Mörling & Strannegård, 2004).…”

Voluntary simplicity: an exploration of market interactions

“…Placing the practice of voluntary simplicity as one of living within markets (Etzioni, 1998;Shaw and Newholm, 2002) again serves to highlight the tensions between the anti-consumption ethos often attached to voluntary simplicity (e.g., Zavestoski, 2002a;Cherrier, 2008) and the consumerist market system within which it finds itself.…”

Selected Antecedents of Consumer Attitude toward a Product in an Eco-Label Context

“…Simplifiers eschew a culture of consumption and do not derive happiness through ownership of possessions (Cherrier, 2009). They believe in sustainable, simplified, and reduced consumption-based lifestyles (e.g., green living).…”