Can Consumers Escape the Market? Emancipatory Illuminations from Burning Man

Abstract

This ethnography explores the emancipatory dynamics of the Burning Man project, a one-week-long antimarket event. Practices used at Burning Man to distance consumers from the market include discourses supporting communality and disparaging market logics, alternative exchange practices, and positioning consumption as self-expressive art. Findings reveal several communal practices that distance consumption from broader rhetorics of efficiency and rationality. Although Burning Man's participants materially support the market, they successfully construct a temporary hypercommunity from which to practice divergent social logics. Escape from the market, if possible at all, must be conceived of as similarly temporary and local. A fter all the plans, dreaming, and anticipation, on August 31, 1999, I veer and bump my rented blue Malibu across deep desert scars, steering it into a stretch of Nevada desert nestled within a ring of mountains. As the Black Rock Desert's powdery dust swirls a distinctive alkali smell into my nostrils for the first time, I use my Visa card at the gate to purchase a $110 ticket. This charge is more than a threeday adult pass to Walt Disney World, and the fact that I am purchasing it on my Visa card seems inconsistent with Burning Man's acclaimed status as a noncommercial event. Yet Burning Man's organizers justify the high price of the tickets

Voluntary simplicity: an exploration of market interactions

“…Consumption is a human act and essential for the fulfilment of basic needs (Kozinets, 2002), but it is also through the cultural significance of goods that individuals express themselves and their identities (Douglas andIsherwood, 1979/1996). Nevertheless, difficulties may be encountered in the signification process of voluntarily simplified consumption, as ethical issues are encompassing in nature and, therefore, complex in their own right.…”

“…Voluntary simplicity can bring about more personalised and caring exchanges due to the consumer choices involved, and by extension it may reinstate socially and environmentally-oriented norms and mores in local markets. Voluntary simplicity helps us view communities and markets as embedded in symbiotic relationships, and avoids the conceptual dualisms made by some of the consumer behaviour literature (Kozinets, 2002) and old sociological theories. Indeed, the practice of voluntary simplicity is one of living within 24 capitalism, and not in complete opposition to it (Etzioni, 1998;Shaw and Newholm, 2002).…”

O peso do varejo, o peso no varejo e a identidade: uma análise de consumidoras plus size

“…Posteriormente, foi investigado como consumidores utilizam objetos (KATES, 2002), práticas de consumo (KOZINETS, 2002), ícones culturais (KOZI-NETS, 2001) e marcas (FOURNIER, 1998;LUEDICKE, THOMPSON, GIESLER, 2009) …”

Evidências cotidianas de resistência ao consumo como práticas individuais na busca pelo desenvolvimento sustentável

“…Na quarta subcategoria, condições: importância das redes, do preço e do tempo, estão inseridas práticas relacionadas a estruturas que facilitem a adoção de comportamentos de resistência de consumo. Como já trazido por Kozinets (2002), a possibilidade de criar diferentes formas de consumir depende fortemente de laços criados entre diferentes pessoas com propósitos similares ou, pelo menos, relacionados. Assim, encontrar viabilidade nesses caminhos de consumo passa pela criação e/ou entrada em redes de relacionamento relativas àquilo que se busca substituir, compartilhar ou consumir de outro modo.…”

“…Nove anos depois, no mesmo caminho, o representativo artigo de Kozinets (2002) sobre o festival Burning Man suscitou (e ainda suscita) discussões sobre o quanto é possível sairmos da lógica de mercado do sistema capitalista. De acordo com seus achados, especificamente, indica-se que é provável que as pessoas possam adotar hábitos de consumo diferentes daqueles adotados massivamente no mercado vigente apenas por pouco tempo e em território reduzido.…”