Encoding Values and Practices in Ethical Jewellery Purchasing: A Case History of Italian Ethical Luxury Consumption

Abstract

The concept of ethical jewellery today includes certified Fair mined gold as well as conflict-free and ethically mined diamonds; consumption of such products is soaring in tandem with evolving consumer interest in ethical labour practices and sustainability. While previous studies investigate ethical jewellery consumption, the literature is silent on such consumption by Italian consumers. We aim to close this gap, through a case history of Italy's first and currently most popular ethical jewellery store, Gioielleria (Jewellery) Belloni in Milan. Through ethnographic interviews with the owner and a representative sample of his clientele, we illuminate an ethical jeweller's practices and values, contextualized in the socio-cultural traditions unique to Italy. We further examine how Italian ethical consumers interpret Canadian ethical diamonds and certified Fair mined gold during their purchasing experiences, vis-à-vis their perceptions of the Made in Italy brand. We employ Ethnopragmatic Theory (Duranti 2011) and the concept of Territorialisation (De Martino 2008) in our conceptual framework.

Canadian Ethical Diamonds and Identity Obsession: How Consumers of Ethical Jewelry in Italy Understand Traceability

“…Taleb (2007) suggests that many people tend to educate themselves on a given subject by approaching it from subject areas with which they are already familiar. Armano and Joy (2021) demonstrate that the Italian ethical consumers they interviewed tended to compare ethical jewelry (unfamiliar) to Made in Italy products (extremely familiar), attaining comfort with the former by linking it to the latter. Our interviewees sought education through research that employed exclusionary thought processes: "I can't imagine Canadian mines, but I can say how I imagine African mines.…”

“…In our study, by focusing on the storytelling of Canadian diamond traceability as told by jewelers to Italian consumers, we investigate a specific narrative built around CEDs that primarily leverages customer concerns about the violation of the safety and human rights of workers on the diamond supply chain. Previous studies suggest that the narrative of the traceability of CEDs focuses on the protection of workers hired by multinational mining companies in NWTs and by companies offering collateral services to mining companies (Armano and Joy 2021). Unlike CED narratives, those relating to the traceability of other precious metals such as gold (e.g., fairmined gold), emphasize pollution and community harm resulting from gold mining rather than workers' rights (Ibid.…”

“…To introduce CEDs to potential customers, Belloni and Simone Righi deploy a communication strategy that emphasizes the assumption of respectful behaviors in all actions, modeling such behavior (in the case of Belloni, through charities (e.g., donations to associations that assist cancer patients, funded by ethical jewelry purchases in their stores (Armano and Joy 2021). In fact, as jeweler Simone Righi of Bologna explained to us, the business of selling ethical jewelry relates to his personal values: "My path as a man has been to be a conscientious objector.…”

The Acculturation Process of New Products through Known Products. Interpreting Ethical Certification of Diamonds through the Lens of Organic Food Produced in Italy

“…As the African blood diamonds scandal informed public opinion (D'Angelo 2019), due to the positive economic fallout from the diamond industry in the Northwest Territories, Canada offered companies in the industry the opportunity to claim that diamonds were traded in absolute legality (Hamilton and Cavello 2021). In this way, the term "ethical jewellery" also began to be introduced in reference to ornaments made both with conflict-free diamonds (the most well-known of which come from Canada) and with certified Fairmined gold mined mainly in small-scale mines located in South America (Armano and Joy 2021).…”

“…Although there are important studies on ethical luxury purchasing published in marketing and consumer journals (Moraes et al 2017;Carrigan, Moraes, and McEachern 2013;Rettie, Burchell, and Riley 2012), this area is under-analysed as well as the cultural factors that influence purchase choices of such products and in particular jewellery that brings ethical and sustainable certifications (Armano and Joy 2021) are little explored. In order to address this gap in existing literature, this research introduces a case study carried out within two Italian jewellery stores, respectively the Belloni jewellery store in Milan and the Righi jewellery store in Bologna that sell, to some of their customers defined by the jewellers as "ethical customers", diamonds extracted from Canadian mines that are internationally known for their ethical certification issued by the Government of the Northwest Territories (Hamilton and Cavello 2021).…”