The Social Representation of the mexican consumer on their transforming consumption. Guadalajara and Querétaro cases

Abstract

We are all consumers. Life is only possible because of consuming. The act of consuming can be defined as the breaking down of natural or artificial structures to satisfy biological or cultural needs; is among the farthest reaching of human activities (Csikszentmihalyi 2012). Today, the act of consuming could empower consumers to adopt conscious, ethical and responsible criteria in the daily routine to improve the consumption and get a personal and collective life, more based in freedom, fair, loyal and happiness (Martínez 2005). In this way the Transformative Consumer Research (TCR) is an initiative among researches committed to studying the role that consumption plays in the major social problems of daily consumption, among them obesity, addictions, materialism, hunger, homeless, and poverty (Ozanne, et al 2011). Inspired on TCR and the ethnoconsumer (Venkatesh 2013), the focus of this paper is an exploratory qualitative research with the main objective of showing how the Social Representation of Mexican responsible consumer is focused on shopping at small groups of local producers. The attitudes, interests and opinions will be identified in this first step through point-of-sale open interviews with responsible consumers, with local products offered in Guadalajara and Queretaro urban cities. The information gathered will be analyzed using an inductive method for defining preliminary categories, while using the analysis software Atlas Ti for mapping conceptual networks. This study aims to provide assumptions and variables for further study on transforming consumption.