Anti-Consumption: Exploring The Opposition To Consumer Culture [1 ed.] 0367420759, 9780367420758, 1032331909, 9781032331904, 0367821583, 9780367821586, 100064832X, 9781000648324, 1000648311, 9781000648317

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In this edited volume, the leading scholars in the field engage with consumers, marketers, corporations and policymakers as well as space dynamics and network formation to provide an in-depth examination of anti-consumption: a voluntary behavioural inclination to minimise rather than grow, to decelerate and simplify and to reduce the unnecessary exploitation of resources fuelled by consumer culture. This book does not place anti-consumption on the high moral ground but rather demonstrates its complexity to spur innovative and critical thinking on how people, organisations, businesses and governments can treat consumption more as a necessity for survival than as a tool for self-expression, pleasure and economic growth. The first part of this book looks at anti-consumption from a diversity of perspectives. It analyses voluntary simplicity, a self-motivated engagement in consumption reduction, and boycotting, a politically motivated reaction against unacceptable corporate practices, as distinct manifestations of anti-consumption that nonetheless remain rooted in the logic of the market. Paving the way to critical perspectives on the interface between anticonsumption, people and the environment, the second part of this book projects anti-consumption to issues of waste production and provides possible answers to global challenges of resources depletion, social inequalities and global warming. In this section, anti-consumption is critically assessed as an actor of change, both in terms of social change and paradigm change. To move the field forward, the third part of this book presents several theoretical frameworks that help set a roadmap for future research. ­Anti-Consumption ​­ will be of direct interest to scholars and researchers within the fields of marketing, consumer research, business studies, environmental studies and sustainability. It will also be of value to those researching the economics and/or sociology of markets. Hélène Cherrier is an award-winning Professor in Marketing at Skema Business School, Sophia Antipolis, France. Hélène has worked at internationally renowned institutions such as RMIT, Melbourne, Australia; Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia; the American University of Dubai, United

Arab Emirates; LUISS University, Rome, Italy; Sydney University, Sydney, Australia, and Westminster University, London, UK. Hélène has been interested in the forces of market constituents responsible for shaping and nurturing unsustainable consumption, often in the context of waste, since completing her PhD at the University of Arkansas focusing on voluntary simplicity and consumer identity. Hélène has edited a book on downshifting and published her work in prestigious journals such as the Journal of Consumer Research; Journal of Business Research, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Consumption, Markets and Culture, Journal of Marketing Management, and Journal of Consumer Affairs. Hélène has also been an active participant in dumpster diving, home-free living, clothes swapping, and zero waste experiments, and she struggles to maintain a low impact consumption as a mother of five children. Michael S.W. Lee is an a­ ward-​­winning Associate Professor of Marketing at The University of Auckland with research interests in ­anti-​­consumption and consumer resistance, and specific expertise in the area of brand avoidance, innovation resistance, dissatisfaction and complaining behaviours. An offshoot of his doctoral research delved into consumer perceptions of brands associated with genetic modification. Overall he is interested in why people reject certain markets or offerings and how industries can understand consumers better in order to adapt, improve, become more sustainable or, in some cases, overcome resistance. His latest research applies ­anti-​­consumption to areas of public policy and consumer ­well-​­being, where he is particularly interested in consumer perceptions, attitudes and behaviour towards waste and waste utilisation. He has been awarded over $150,000 in funding for various research projects and has published and/­or ­g uest-​­edited special issues in The Journal of Business Research; Consumption, Markets and Culture; European Journal of Marketing; Advances in Consumer Research; Journal of Consumer Marketing; Journal of Consumer Behaviour; Journal of Macromarketing; Journal of Global Marketing; Australasian Marketing Journal; Journal of P ­ ublic-​­Policy and Marketing; Journal of Consumer Affairs; and Psychology & Marketing. Recognising a need for international collaboration, Mike founded The International Centre of ­ A nti-​­ Consumption Research (­ ICAR) in 2005. Under his directorship, ICAR continues to organise international symposiums and special issues in quality journals, providing an avenue of research for hundreds of scholars. Mike’s contribution to the area has resulted in the Association of Consumer Research recognising ­anti-​­consumption as an official field of inquiry.

Routledge Studies in Critical Marketing Edited by Mark Tadajewski and Pauline Maclaran

Marketing has been widely criticised as being probably the least ­self-​­critical of all the business disciplines and has never really been able to escape the charge that it is socially, ethically and morally barren in certain respects. Marketers may talk about satisfying the customer, about building close relationships with their clientele, about their ethical and corporate social responsibility initiatives, but increasingly these claims are subjected to critical scrutiny and have been found wanting. In a social, economic and political environment in which big business and frequently some of the most marketing adept companies’ practices are being questioned, there has emerged a very active community of scholars, practitioners and students interested in Critical Marketing Studies. Using the types of critical social theory characteristic of Critical Marketing Studies, this series will drive the debate on Critical Marketing into the future. It offers scholars the space to articulate their arguments at the level of sophistication required to underscore the contribution of this domain to other scholars, students, practitioners and ­public-​­policy groups interested in the inf luence of marketing in the structuring of the public sphere and society. It is a forum for rigorously theorised, conceptually and empirically rich studies dealing with some element of marketing theory, thought, pedagogy and practice. The Dark Side of Marketing Communications Critical Marketing Perspectives Tim Hill and Pierre McDonagh ­A nti- ​­Consumption Exploring the Opposition to Consumer Culture Edited by Hélène Cherrier and Michael S.W. Lee

For more information about the series, please visit https://­w ww.routledge. com/­­Routledge-­​­­Studies-­​­­in-­​­­Critical-​­Marketing/­­book-​­series/­RSICM

­Anti-​­Consumption Exploring the Opposition to Consumer Culture

Edited by Hélène Cherrier and Michael S.W. Lee

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Hélène Cherrier and Michael S.W. Lee; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Hélène Cherrier and Michael S.W. Lee to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library ­Cataloguing-­​­­in-​­Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress ­Cataloging-­​­­in-​­Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: ­978-­​­­0 -­​­­367-­​­­42075-​­8 (­hbk) ISBN: ­978-­​­­1- ­​­­032-­​­­33190- ​­4 ( ­pbk) ISBN: ­978-­​­­0 -­​­­367-­​­­82158-​­6 (­ebk) DOI: 10.4324/­9780367821586 Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra

Contents

List of Contributors Introduction

ix 1

H É L È N E C H E R R I E R A N D M I C H A E L S .W. L E E

PART 1

What Is ­A nti-​­Consumption? 1 Consumer Boycott Participation: Evidence for the Trigger/­Promoter/­­I nhibitor ​­Model

9 11

S T E FA N H O F F M A N N

­ 2 The Evolution of Voluntary Simplicity: From Soulful Search for Meaning to Extreme Lifestyle Experiments

28

S T E P H E N Z AV E S T O S K I A N D M A R I LY N D E L AU R E

3 How Green Demarketing Brands Can Successfully Support ­A nti- ​­Consumption

45

C AT H E R I N E A R M S T RO N G S O U L E A N D T E J V I R S E K H O N

4 “I am NOT a Consumer” or “I Don’t WANT to be a Consumer” or “I CAN’T be a Consumer”: A Fresh Look at the New Strategies Consumers Use to Avoid the Marketplace SUSA N DOBSCH A

67

viii Contents

5 ­Anti-​­Consumers, ­Pro-​­Consumers, and Two Social Paradigms of Consumption

83

JA M ES A. MU NCY A N D R AJESH I Y ER

PART 2

Why Is ­A nti-​­Consumption Important?

101

6 ­Anti-​­Consumption and Our Current Crisis of Care

103

A N D R E A S C H AT Z I DA K I S

7 Different Sides of the Same Coin? Political Ideology Inf lects How Symbolism Relates to Mask Avoidance or Adoption in the Age of C ­ OVID-​­19

119

CH A R LES S. A R ENI AN D H ÉLÈNE CH ER RIER

8 Anti-​­Consumption in Emerging Markets

139

P R AG E A G E L D O F F Y P U T R A A N D M I C H A E L S .W. L E E

9 The Trio of Religiosity, Materialism, and ­ Anti-​­Consumption in Explaining Life Satisfaction

162

B E T U L B A L I KC I O G L U A N D FAT I H M E H M E T K I YA K

PART 3

The Future of ­A nti-​­Consumption Research

183

10 The “­Fake It Till We Make It” Path to a Shared, Sustainable Society

185

K A R E N V. F E R N A N D E Z

11 Promoting Consumption Reduction: A Behaviour Change Challenge

198

K E N P E AT T I E

12 Socially Oriented ­A nti-​­Consumption

218

N I E V E S ­G A RC Í A - ­​­­D E -​­F RU T O S A N D J O S É M A N U E L ­O RT E G A -​­E G E A

Index

235

Contributors

Charles S Areni (­PhD, Florida, 1991) is the Managing Director and Principal at Uncommon Sense Social Media Research. He was previously the Executive Dean and Professor of Marketing at the University of Wollongong Faculty of Business. His research focuses on (­1) time cost, time perception and time allocation decisions, (­2) retail atmospherics and store design, (­3) marketing communications and persuasion, (­4) gender differences in consumer behaviour, (5) branding strategies and tactics and (6) social media motivations and usage patterns and has been published in various academic journals, including the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Retailing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the International Journal of Research in Marketing and Cognition and Emotion. He has served on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Retailing, the Journal of Business Research and the Journal of Advertising and Psychology & Marketing and has served as an expert witness in federal trademark and intellectual property cases in multiple countries. In addition, he has worked as a consultant for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Woolworths, the Houston Astros of Major League Baseball, the Australasian Performing Rights Association and Satellite Music Australia, among other clients. Catherine Armstrong Soule  is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Western Washington University. Her research focuses on judgement and ­decision-​­making within exchange and consumption contexts. Her dissertation explored behavioural and ­consumer-​­elective (­PWYW pricing). Broadly, her research explores how consumers form perceptions and make judgements and how those inf luence behaviours. Her areas of research expertise include sustainability and ­anti-​­consumption, consumer protections, branding and brand communities and c­ onsumer-­​­­to-​­consumer exchange. She uses a variety of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies including experimental, interview, descriptive survey, field research, observational and data scraped from social media. Catherine has published her research in the Journal of the Association of Consumer Research, the Journal of Advertising, the Journal of Marketing Management, the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Psychology &

x Contributors

Marketing, Journal of Macromarketing, Journal of Consumer Marketing, and the British Food Journal. Her work is routinely presented at conferences such as the Association of Consumer Research, International Centre for ­A nti-​ ­Consumption Research, Society for Consumer Psychology, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Pricing and Retailing and Marketing and Public Policy. Betul Balikcioglu is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Hatay Mustafa Kemal University, Turkey. She received her PhD degree from Ankara University with doctoral research that investigated ethnocentric, nationalistic and religiosity tendencies of consumers against imported products. Betul’s research interests include the dark side of consumption such as materialism and compulsive buying in explaining consumer ­well-​­being based on quantitative research methods. Also, her researches focus on a­ nti-​­consumption practices such as consumer boycotts and brand avoidance. Andreas Chatzidakis is a Professor of Marketing and Consumer Culture at Royal Holloway University of London. His research focuses on the larger intersection(s) of consumption with ethics and politics, including themes such as consumer-focused activism in crisis-hit Athens, the role of care and relationality in everyday consumption, geographical and psychoanalytic approaches to consumption. It has been published in numerous journals such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Culture, Journal of Business Ethics, Environment and Planning D, and British Journal of Management; as well as in books such as Contemporary Issues in Marketing and Consumer Behaviour (co-authored with P Maclaran and E Parsons) and Consumer Ethics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (with D Shaw and M Carrington). He is also a member of the Care Collective, and author of the Care Manifesto (out with Verso, 2020). Marilyn DeLaure is a Professor in the Communication Studies, Environmental Studies and Advertising programs at the University of San Francisco. Her teaching and research areas include social movements, rhetorical criticism and environmental communication. She is ­co-​­editor of Culture Jamming: Activism and the Art of Cultural Resistance (­N YU Press, 2017) and author of numerous essays on embodiment, civil rights and environmental rhetoric. Her essay “­Jamming Culture: Adbusters’ Hip Media Campaign against Consumerism” appeared in the ­award-​­winning book Confronting Consumption (­MIT Press, 2002), and her essay on Colin Beavan’s “­No Impact Man” was published in Environmental Communication (­2011). She is also a producer of the documentary film Motherload (­2019) about the burgeoning global movement to replace cars with cargo bicycles. Susan Dobscha,  Bentley University, USA, is a Professor of Marketing at Bentley University, USA. Her research interests encompass issues of gender, sustainability, death, and consumer resistance to marketing. She has published articles in Harvard Business Review, Journal of Retailing, Journal

Contributors  xi

of Public Policy and Marketing, Journal of Business Ethics, and Gender, Work, and Organizations. Her teaching interests including consumer behavior and marketing research. She has also taught courses in Madrid, Spain and Reims, France. Karen V Fernandez is an Associate Professor in Marketing at the University of Auckland and received her PhD in Marketing from the University of Kansas. Karen’s research draws on Consumer Culture Theory to understand how consumption creates, inf luences and ref lects identity. In particular, her work has examined consumer disposal and reacquisition of used and/­or discarded possessions, reshaping the linear trajectory of consumption into a more sustainable cycle. Her work has been published in leading international journals such as the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, the European Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Business Research. She is an Associate Editor of Consumption, Markets and Culture and sits on the Editorial Boards of the Australasian Marketing Journal, the Journal of Business Research and Recherche et Applications en Marketing. Nieves García-de-Frutos is an Associate Professor at the Universidad de Almeria. Her research on environmentally motivated a­nti-​­consumption has been published in highly recognised business and information systems journals, such as the International Journal of Research in Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Macromarketing, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Environmental Psychology and PLoS One, among others. Stefan Hoffmann  is a Full Professor of Marketing at Kiel University, Germany. He received a diploma in psychology from the University of Mannheim (­Germany) in 2003 and a PhD in 2008 and a second promotion (­habilitation) in 2011 in business administration from the Technical University of Dresden (­Germany). Before joining Kiel University, he worked as an Interim Professor in Marketing at the Technical University of Dresden and later at the University of Rostock (­Germany). His research is founded in psychology and he is working with empirical methods, including l­arge-​­scale surveys and experimental designs. His research focuses on ethical, sustainable and political consumer behaviour as well as health and food marketing and marketing communications. Beginning with this PhD thesis, Stefan Hoffmann has been working for more than a decade in the field of ­anti-​­consumption. In particular, he has been investigating the drivers of boycott participation, and these studies were published, among others, in the Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, European Journal of International Management and European Journal of Marketing. More of his work appeared in academic journals, such as International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Retailing, Journal of International Marketing, Journal of Business Ethics and Journal of Service Research.

xii Contributors

Rajesh Iyer, Brandley University, USA, is Chair and Professor of Marketing and Director of International Business. Dr. Iyer’s research is focused on the area of consumer information search and d­ ecision-​­making, customer relationship marketing, societal issues in the business environment and global marketing. The bulk of Dr. Iyer’s research involves lab or field studies that showcase empirical analyses with primary or secondary data. The majority of his research work is i­nter-​­disciplinary: it integrates the marketing perspective with other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, communications, medicine and economics. Rajesh is best recognised for his work in customer relationship marketing where his research focuses on how different types (­cohorts) respond/­ react and form attitudes towards marketing communications. His research focuses on how to effectively reach these consumers and develop relationships with them. Fatih Mehmet Kiyak is a Lecturer and PhD candidate at the Hatay Mustafa Kemal University, Turkey. His teaching areas include marketing management, international economic organisations and logistics management. Currently, his doctoral research focuses on consumer responses against corporate social responsibility practices in the context of scepticism and cynicism. Also, his research interests include branding, ­anti-​­consumption and religion. James A. Muncy,  Bradley University, USA, is a Professor of Marketing. Major interests are in the areas of consumer behaviour, social issues in marketing and ethics. He has published articles in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Journal of Consumer Affairs, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Current Issues in Advertising, Journal of Marketing Education, Marketing Education Review and other marketing journals. He has also published two books. He has served as Executive Director of the Association for Consumer Research. He is a frequent speaker to business, community and religious groups on time management and success. José Manuel Ortega-Egea  joined the Universidad de Almeria as a PhD candidate in November 2002, where he continues his teaching and research activities as a Full Professor of Marketing. From March 2011 to May 2015, he served as Vice Dean at the Faculty of Economics and Business. Since May 2015 to date, he serves as Director of Teaching Staff at the university level. José Manuel has published his work in highly-­recognised business and information systems journals, such as the International Journal of Research in Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Macromarketing, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Environmental Psychology, PLoS One and Journal of Business Research, among others.

Contributors  xiii

Ken Peattie, University of Cardiff, UK, is Professor and Head of the Marketing and Strategy Section at Cardiff Business School. Key areas of research interest relate to sustainability and marketing, corporate social responsibility, social marketing and social enterprise and published widely on these topics with an aim to explore ways in which the practice and teaching of management and marketing can be made more orientated towards ethics, environmental sustainability and social responsibility. Since 2010, he has acted as one of the Principal Investigators and C ­ o-​­Directors of Cardiff University’s interdisciplinary Sustainable Places Research Institute, which draws together the work of researchers interested in sustainability from across 11 different schools. Pragea Geldoffy Putra is a PhD candidate in the Marketing Department, Business School at The University of Auckland. He has 15 years of working experience, primarily in the consumer goods industry, and has lectured in several colleges. He completed his master’s degree at PPM School of Management, Jakarta. His master’s thesis was on the product portfolio strategy for Indonesia’s snack category market leader brand and became the blueprint for the brand’s innovation and new product development. In his professional career, Pragea conducted several studies that helped him successfully develop the business units in his area of responsibility. His favourite research was about the ­anti-​­consumption of moms and kids towards a specific snack brand, leading him to his PhD journey. He continues to pursue family consumer behaviour, a­ nti-​­consumption and sustainability in food consumption. Tejvir Sekhon  is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA, USA. His research interests include ­ ell-​­being, moral d­ ecision-​ branding, ­anti-​­consumption, consumer w m ­ aking, online consumer conversations and marketing strategy. He holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, India, and a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the University of Delhi, New Delhi, India. He has published his work in Industrial Marketing Management, the British Food Journal, Journal of Macromarketing, Psychology & M ­ arketing, International Journal of Wellbeing, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, and Marketing Science Institute (­MSI) Reports. His research has been presented at conferences organised by the Association of Consumer Research, Academy of Management, Society for Consumer Psychology, International Centre for ­A nti-​­Consumption Research, Brands and Brand Relationships Conference and American Marketing Association. Stephen Zavestoski,  University of San Francisco, USA, is a Professor of Environmental Sociology, and his research areas include environmental sociology, social movements, sociology of health and illness and urban

xiv Contributors

sustainability. He has published more than 40 articles and book chapters and ­co-​­edited Social Movements in Health (­2005, Blackwell) and Contested Illnesses: Citizens, Science, and Health Social Movements (­2012, UC Press). Dr. Zavestoski’s current work explores strategies to address both sustainability and public health through urban and transportation planning. This work has culminated in Incomplete Streets: Processes, Practices and Possibilities (­2014, Routledge), ­co-​­edited with Julian Agyeman. Dr. Zavestoski has also researched the use of Internet technology as a means of increasing public participation in environmental d­ ecision-​­making and the role of s­ elf-​­concept in shaping environmental and ­anti-​­consumption attitudes.

Introduction Hélène Cherrier and Michael S.W. Lee

­ nti-​­consumption is provocative. When we started this project on ­anti-​ A ­consumption, people questioned the legitimacy of exploring the rejection of consumption in societies in which consumption is often seen as ubiquitous, liberating, and empowering. People started telling stories of consumers selecting ­eco-​­friendly brands, purchasing organic fruits, and actively engaging in sustainable fashion to express their identity project and enact positive changes in society. The provocation is rooted in the idea that consumption, once determined by sign domination (­Veblen, 1899), false needs (­Marcuse, 1968), and the colonization of everyday life (­Baudrillard, 1994, ­p.  98), has shifted to a moral and political act exercised through freedom of choices. Scholars have analyzed the various ways in which consumers are capable of critically thinking about m ­ ass-​­mediated marketplace ideologies (­see Firat & Venkatesh, 1995) and intentionally use consumption to support and exert one’s preferences, values, aspirations, and responsibilities (­­Denegri-​­Knott, Zwick, & Schroeder, 2006). This implies that consumption practices, brands, products, and alternative systems of exchange can allow market actors to enact market transformation. As much as we might like to think of consumption as a form of ­self-​ ­expression and a tool for market transformation, exploring ­anti-​­consumption catches us in networks of consumption obligations and constraints that reverberate across personal and professional lives, local and global geographies, and various subject positions. ­A nti-​­consumption research highlights the institutionalization of consumption and emphasizes processes of neoliberal governance replicating the power of dominant market actors who prescribe forms of consumption as responsible actions. However, when material displays, smartphone connections, or car mobility are embedded in the fabric of social life, the freedom of (­responsible) consumption choices is difficult to enact, not because of lack of moralities, but because alternative consumption can be difficult or even impossible to enact. A ­ nti-​­consumption research also reveals issues of gender inequalities, poverties, and questions of privilege and access in the marketplace. Truth be told, ­consumption-​­driven solutions to crises like global warming, resource depletion, or waste overf low primarily benefit the rich while leaving the vulnerable and underprivileged consumers excluded

DOI: 10.4324/9780367821586-1

2  Hélène Cherrier and Michael S.W. Lee

and somewhat expendable in a system designed to privilege individual ownership o ­ ver-​­sharing, collaboration, and solidarity. In this book, we question the possibility for acts and practices of ­anti-​ ­consumption to play a major role in ensuring a sustainable and socially equitable future. How might it be possible to change ecologically destructive, abusive, unproductive, and irrational market practices without recourse to consumption? There is no single path of transformation. What ­anti-​­consumption research does do, nevertheless, is allow for the development, be it within schools, corporations, public policy, and the wider social sphere, of a critical understanding of restrictions the contemporary systems of consumption place upon the processes of creating a more sustainable and equality just future. In this collection of essays, we discover eclectic sets of ­anti-​­consumption actors who operate at many levels when negotiating and enacting a­nti-​ ­consumption. Contributors engage with the actions and practices of groups of marginalized consumers in search for meanings and/­or political changes (­e.g., voluntary simplicity, frugal lifestyles, minimalism, degrowth movement), extreme lifestyle experiments (­e.g., “­No Impact Man,” “­Zero Waste Home,” and tiny house living), collective waste ­re-​­use, demarketing campaigns, boycotting, alternative trading networks, and gifting bazaars, each questioning whether various sets of a­ nti-​­consumption actors who operate at many levels can enact drastic changes in societies. The plurality of perspectives not only brings hope for possible structural transformations but also raises concerns as ­anti-​­consumption can fail to materialize in practice. With this edited book, we do not place a­ nti-​­consumption on a high moral ground but rather aim to demonstrate its complexity and spur innovative and critical thinking on how people, organizations, businesses, and governments can start to enact change without recourse to consumption. A ­ nti-​­consumption literature, to date, has mainly explored the motivations and targets of actors who voluntarily reject targeted products, brands, or services, or reduce consumption in general (­Iyer  & Muncy, 2009). Authors have discussed ­anti-​ ­consumption as a personal decision for the construction of a desired identity. By rejecting, avoiding, or reducing consumption, ­self-​­motivated ­anti-​­consumers work on a s­elf-​­project perceived as more authentic and congruent to personal values, aspirations, and identity (­Cherrier & Murray, 2007; Lee, Motion, & Conroy, 2009). Authors have also explored ­anti-​­consumption as a political project grounded in a collective wish to make a difference. This perspective holds that ­anti-​­consumption is an arena where the social order is challenged, negotiated, and transformed (­­ Izberk-​­ Bilgin, 2010; Klein, Smith,  & John, 2004). A ­ nti-​­consumers who are politically motivated construct a revolutionary or hero identity oriented toward an outer change aimed at inf luencing the successes and failures of targeted products, brands, organizations, and policies (­Cherrier, 2009; Hollenbeck & Zinkhan, 2010). Within this debate, creative and alternative forms of consumption including e­co-​­businesses, sustainable consumption, and s­o-​­called green and ethical commodities endowed with a ­zero-​­waste pledge are unproblematic and even part of the ­anti-​­consumption

Introduction  3

umbrella (­­Izberk-​­Bilgin, 2010). However, with the current ecological crisis and increasing social inequalities, we are faced with a situation in which any unnecessary promotion of alternative consumption, however “­creative” or “­g reen” it might be, can be problematic. This understanding brings to a­ nti-​ ­consumption research the need to disintegrate the certainties of industrial society as well as the compulsion to find solutions in consumption rather than in the not acquiring, not using, and not wasting. In the first part of the book, we look at a­nti-​­consumption from a diversity of perspectives. Starting with the consumers, the first two chapters discuss boycotting, a politically motivated reaction against unacceptable corporate practices, and voluntary simplicity, a ­self-​­motivated engagement in consumption reduction, as distinct manifestations of a­ nti-​­consumption that nonetheless remain rooted in the logic of the market. Exploring consumers’ participation in boycotting, Hoffman highlights how ­anti-​­consumption is embedded in complex dynamics of moralities, social and material costs, and counterarguments, making consumers’ decision to reject targeted brands, products, and corporations ambiguous and conf licting. In his framework of boycott participation, we discover that boycotting unfolds from the interactions between activists highlighting the wrongdoing of corporations and mobilizing for boycott and consumers’ cognitive, affective, and situational ­ nti-​­consumption is not factors promoting or hindering their participation. A only a manifestation of consumer discontentment but can also be the result of disenchantment in the promises of the market. Delaure and Zavestoski’s review of voluntary simplicity captures disillusioned American consumers who dropped out of the rat race to live a simpler and more meaningful life. While ­anti-​­consumption challenges consumption, there remain dangers of the proposed principles being appropriated and used univocally by powerful market actors and policymakers to spur even more consumption. Delaure and Zavestoski’s concept of “­­d isillusionment-­​­­resistance-​­commodification cycle” brilliantly captures how simple living, initially enacted by American consumers to reject a life of commodification, debts, and clutter, has become incorporated into the marketplace as a ­pre-​­packaged sustainable form of life targeting segments of disillusioned consumers. Such perspective spurs debates on whether ­for-​­profit organizations can engage with and promote ­anti-​­consumption without replicating the false dichotomy between consumers as problem solvers and corporations and governments as power wielders. Exploring green demarketing using campaigns such as “­We ask you to buy less” and “­Don’t buy what you don’t need. Think twice before you buy anything,” Soule and Sekhon question whether the market c­ o-​­optation of a­ nti-​­consumption can benefit brands, people, and the planet. Their answer is a w ­ in-­​­­win-​­win scenario in which brands enhance their profit while supporting environmentally motivated ­anti-​­consumers opting to reduce their consumption. Is it possible for powerful market actors to embrace, support, and promote ­anti-​­consumption in ways of nurturing a sustainable and socially equitable future? While Soule and Sekhon’s work reveals the benefits to promote

4  Hélène Cherrier and Michael S.W. Lee

a­nti-​­consumption for both corporations and consumers, Dobscha offers a more nuanced perspective. Looking at the ­COVID-​­19 pandemic, Dobscha highlights the forces of the market in liaison with public policy to sustain consumerism via ­low-​­interest rates and incentives to increase the consumption of tests, masks, sanitary products, and vaccines, despite consumers’ differential access to the marketplace and the global climate crisis looming on all of us. While difficult, there remain hopes for ­anti-​­consumption to enact changes and help reset the button on overconsumption. Exploring the increasing popularity of the Buy Nothing Project, Dobscha considers a potential shift in the ideology of consumption to ensure a sustainable future. This shift in ideology is further explored by Muncy and Iyer who propose that a­ nti-​­consumption is an emerging social paradigm of consumption that conf licts with the currently dominant social paradigm of p­ ro-​­consumption for which producing and consuming more has a positive social outcome. The conf lict highlights a powerful and increasing disconnect between m ­ acro-​­forces of p­ ro-​­consumption and consumers’ s­ocio-​­environmental concerns and interests in consuming less, buying less, and producing less. Paving the way for critical perspectives on ­anti-​­consumption in terms of societal change and paradigm shift, the second part of this book highlights the importance of contextualizing ­anti-​­consumption. Exploring the importance of context, a­ nti-​­consumption research emphasizes complex institutional environments, with norms, regulations, political ideologies, and cultures shaping forms of individual choices and lifestyles embedded in and nurturing ­market-​­mediated exchanges. It also beings (­­anti-​­)­consumption to debates on gender inequalities, poverties, and questions of privilege and access in the marketplace. Scholars have shown that ­anti-​­consumption is difficult and at times impossible for consumers to achieve even when they wish to do so (­Cherrier & Murray, 2007). Instead of solely looking at the consumers for consumption reduction by virtue of ­well-​­being and morality, exploring ­anti-​­consumption take place at the institutional levels. Chatzidakis’ work on care provision emphasizes the neoliberal reconfiguration of care as a matter of individual consumption choices enacted by “­care customers” and facilitated by private business actors. Such marketization of care molds our ­self-​­concept as consumers rather than citizens and our relation to the world as a market exchange rather than the collective good provision and democratic participation. For Chatzidakis, the importance of a­ nti-​­consumption in a world dominated by marketized practices is the possibility to recreate a world in which existing as a citizen (­­non-​ ­consumer) with shared vulnerabilities and interdependence is institutionally supported. Embedded in the marketization of care is its politization, which Cherrier and Areni demonstrate in their analysis of social media pages and online forums discussing the symbolic significance of the mask during the ­COVID-​­19 pandemic. In the context of the ­COVID-​­19 pandemic, wearing masks created controversies and divided many consumers into pro versus ­anti-​ ­mask factions. Cherrier and Areni’s chapter explores how political ideologies

Introduction  5

serve to unify, rationalize, and legitimize ­pro-​­maskers’ and ­anti-​­maskers’ behavior. Their analysis reveals that two largely opposing political i­deologies –​ ­collective responsibility and individual ­liberty – ​­act as a filter through which consumers perceive the symbolic significance of wearing a mask. Legal, medical, fashion, and advertising systems interact with basic human needs for health and w ­ ell-​­being, autonomy, affiliation, and competence to shape the symbolism associated with wearing a mask during the ­COVID-​­19 pandemic. The consequence of this is that the symbolism of wearing masks for ­pro-​­maskers and ­anti-​­maskers ref lects different sides of the same proverbial coin. Both groups discuss health and ­well-​­being, autonomy, affiliation, and competence, but the distorting inf luence of the collective responsibility ideology translates to viewing masks as enabling these needs, whereas the individual liberty ideology translates to viewing masks as inhibitors. To appreciate ­anti-​­consumption and the importance of context, we recognized that existing research has been focused on the Global North and developed markets. The two following chapters redress such a gap. Putra and Lee’s work emphasizes the importance of considering different cultural perspective and demonstrate that a­ nti-​­consumption can be associated with distinct power distance, seniority, social class, and collectivism. Balikcioglu and Kiyak’s analysis of an online survey of 232 Muslim adults in Turkey demonstrates that religiosity and ­anti-​­consumption attitudes have a positive impact on life satisfaction and that religiosity positively impacts ­anti-​­consumption attitudes. The results demonstrate that highly religious individuals are less likely to be a materialist and are more likely to be with a­ nti-​­consumption attitudes and are more satisfied with their lives. Overarching the ­above-​­mentioned studies is a need to acknowledge ­anti-​ c­onsumption as a pathway for societal transformation in ways that benefit nature, society, our w ­ ell-​­being, and the less privileged populations. In fact, since Zavestoski’s (­2002, ­p. 121) definition of ­anti-​­consumption as the “­resistance to, distaste of, or even resentment or rejection,” ­anti-​­consumption research has evolved from developing a research agenda and delineating the field to tackling broader issues of sustainability, ideologies of consumerism, consumer w ­ ell-​­being, and public policy implications (­see ICAR website for a summary). To move the field forward, the third part of this book sets a roadmap for future research. The first two chapters in this section clearly resonate with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development launched in 2015, which consists of 17 goals and 169 related targets aimed at tackling the global grand challenges of our era, including poverty, climate change, biodiversity loss, and inequality. The agenda’s objective is to motivate immediate action to protect the planet and ensure a more sustainable future for all. While understanding of how to operationalize the SDGs is vague, scholars point to the essential role of consumption reduction to ensure a sustainable future (­Buckley, Doh,  & Benischke, 2017; Rousseau, Berrone, & Gelabert, 2019; Van Zanten & van Tulder, 2018).

6  Hélène Cherrier and Michael S.W. Lee

To capture ­anti-​­consumption as a pathway for societal change, Peattie’s chapter provides a typology of problematic consumption built on the differences in quality, quantity, motivations, and consequences of consumption. The typology helps better understand the forces at play in promoting problematic consumption (­wasteful, excessive, addictive, conspicuous, compensatory, obligatory, subsidized, unhealthy, or harmful) and provides an avenue for research on forces hindering or facilitating consumption reduction characterized by low impact choices, buying local and in season, ­self-​­production, efficient usage, slow consumption, and waste avoidance. Consumption reduction can unfold at all stages of the consumption process, including the acquisition, use, and disposal. Focusing on the disposal stage, Fernandez provides avenues for research in the field of r­ e-​­acquisition of consumer goods to facilitate the circular economy. Like Cherrier and Areni, Fernandez highlights the importance of symbolic consumption and emphasizes that ­anti-​ ­consumption in the form of sharing possessions can create contamination, which transforms the recipient in positive or negative ways. Considering the limitations of prior work on sharing, contamination, ­re-​­acquisition, and shared self that underpin the circular economy, much work is needed to help marketers, organization, and policymakers develop innovative ways to enhance the positive symbolics of r­e-​­acquiring consumer goods and acts and practices of ­anti-​­consumption more broadly. ­A nti-​­consumption as a pathway for societal change emphasizes the consequences of ­anti-​­consumption on environmental and social problems. Because the focus of research has mainly been on the environmental consequences of ­anti-​­consumption, ­García-­​­­de-​­Frutos and ­Ortega-​­Egea define and delimit ­anti-​­consumption for social ­reasons – ​­or socially oriented ­anti-​­consumption (­SOA). They provide a 2 x 3 matrix to delineate general versus specific SOA against environmentally oriented and animal welfare ­ anti-​­ consumption. Their analysis of the ­pro-​­social literature allows uncovering how SOA behaviors have been studied in the past and helps them develop 13 research questions for advancing the SOA field. This book is the result of a broad range of renowned and junior scholars, coming from different disciplines, with many having practiced ­anti-​ ­consumption. Guided by the editorial team and valuable peer reviews, these authors share their work on and experiences in ­anti-​­consumption. With this book, we have moved beyond understanding the various motivations or targets of ­anti-​­consumption to inform on the diverse and eclectic faces of active, engaged, and creative ­anti-​­consumption actors and structures playing a role in the development of a­nti-​­consumption. The current context of climate change and its implication on our ecosystem and increasing social disparities are urging drastic behavioral changes that will reform our current economies. In support of that challenging reformation, understanding how a multiplicity of actors can/­cannot and do/­don’t engage in a­ nti-​­consumption is necessary.

Introduction  7

References Baudrillard, J. (­1994). Simulacra and simulation, ed. Arbor, A. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Buckley, P. J., Doh, J. P., & Benischke, M. H. (­2017). Towards a renaissance in international business research? Big questions, grand challenges, and the future of IB scholarship. Journal of International Business Studies, 48(­9), ­1045–​­1064. Cherrier, H. (­2009). ­A nti-​­consumption discourses and ­consumer-​­resistant identities. Journal of Business Research, 62(­2), 1­ 81–​­190. https://­doi.org/­10.1016/­j.jbusres. 2008.01.025 Cherrier, H., & Murray, J. B. (­2007). Ref lexive dispossession and the self: Constructing a processual theory of identity. Consumption Markets & Culture, 10(­1), 1­ –​­29. ­Denegri-​­Knott, J., Zwick, D.,  & Schroeder, J. (­2006). Mapping consumer power: An integrative framework for marketing and consumer research. European Journal of Marketing, 40(­9/­10), 9­ 50–​­971. Firat, A.F., & Venkatesh, A. (­1995). Liberatory postmodernism and the reenchantment of consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, 22(­3), 2­ 39–​­267. Hollenbeck, C. R., & Zinkhan, G. M. (­2010). A ­ nti-​­brand communities, negotiation ­ al-​­Mart. Consumption of brand meaning, and the learning process: The case of W Markets & Culture, 13(­3), ­325–​­345. https://­doi.org/­10.1080/­10253861003787056 ICAR. www.icar.auckland.ac.nz Iyer, R., & Muncy, J. A. (­2009). Purpose and object of a­ nti-​­consumption. Journal of Business Research, 62(­2), 1­ 60–​­168. ­Izberk-​­Bilgin, E. (­2010). An interdisciplinary review of resistance to consumption, some marketing interpretations, and future research suggestions. Consumption Markets & Culture, 13(­3), 2­ 99–​­323 Klein, J. G., Smith, N. C., & John, A. (­2004). Why we Boycott: Consumer motivations for boycott participation. Journal of Marketing, 68(­3), 9­ 2–​­109. Lee, M. S., Motion, J., & Conroy, D. (­2009). ­A nti-​­consumption and brand avoidance. Journal of Business Research, 62(­2), ­169–​­180. Marcuse, H. (­1968). The affirmative character of culture. In Negations: Essays in critical theory (­p­­p. ­88–​­133). London: Penguin Press. Rousseau, H. E., Berrone, P., & Gelabert, L. (­2019). Localizing sustainable development goals: Nonprofit density and city sustainability. Academy of Management Discoveries, 5(­4), ­487–​­513. Van Zanten, J. A., & van Tulder, R. (­2018). Multinational enterprises and the sustainable development goals: An institutional approach to corporate engagement. Journal of International Business Policy, 1(­­3 –​­4), ­208–​­233. 1899). A theory of the leisure class. New York, NY: The Macmillan Veblen, T. (­ Company. Zavestoski, S. (­2002). The ­social–​­psychological bases of anticonsumption attitudes. Psychology & Marketing, 19(­2), 1­ 49–​­165.

Part 1

What Is A ­ nti-Consumption?

1 Consumer boycott participation Evidence for the trigger/­ promoter/­inhibitor model Stefan Hoffmann Introduction Half of U ­ S-​­American consumers, 40% of Thai consumers, 37% of European consumers, 32% of Indonesian consumers, 30% of Malaysian consumers, 27% of Singaporean consumers, and a quarter of Australian consumers have boycotted at least one business in their consumption history (­YouGov ­2017a-​­e, 2020a, b). Following these representative statistics, boycotting seems to be a global phenomenon and the most widespread form of political and ethical consumption. Boycotting is typically executed by a larger group of consumers in order to create momentum. As the participating consumers intentionally stop buying products or using services of a specific brand, company, or country, boycotting is a form of ­anti-​­consumption (­Hoffmann 2011; Makri et al. 2020). Boycotts will only be effective, if a large group of consumers participate. Therefore, boycotts are concerted and organised activities. Participating consumers follow a boycott call. Activists have repeatedly called boycotts and tried to urge consumers to join boycotts with the aim to exert economic pressure on corporations, which they deem as acting irresponsibly (­Friedman 1999). However, consumers do not respond to every boycott call. Indeed, only few boycott calls created ­long-​­lasting momentum (­Chavis  & Leslie 2009). Both the activists and the managers of the targeted companies are keen to learn which factors motivate consumers to join boycotts. Therefore, the consumer literature has intensively considered the drivers of boycott participation (­K lein et al. 2004; Sen et al. 2001). This chapter provides an overview of the state of the art of empirical research on consumers’ boycott motivation in the marketing research and (­anti)­consumption research. As an overarching framework to structure past empirical findings on consumers’ boycott participation, this chapter builds on the trigger/­promotor/­ inhibitor model (­Hoffmann 2011). The model suggests that the consumers’ boycott decision to join a boycott is triggered by their perception that a firm’s actions or policies are wrong, because they negatively and harmfully affect the environment, climate, workers, consumers, minorities, society at large, or other stakeholders. The model further considers promoters that drive

DOI: 10.4324/9780367821586-3

12  Stefan Hoffmann

consumers to join boycotts as well as inhibitors that prevent consumers from boycotting. The reminder of this chapter is structured as follows. The next sections define consumer boycotts and highlight the relationship between the concepts of ­anti-​­consumption and consumer sovereignty. Then, a taxonomy illustrates the variety of boycotts. The subsequent section details the trigger/­ promoter/­inhibitor model and gives an overview of the empirical literature that supports this model. Finally, a research outline provides avenues for future studies on boycott participation.

Conceptual background Consumer boycott rationale According to Friedman’s (­1985, ­p. 97) widely cited definition, a consumer boycott is “… an attempt by one or more parties to achieve certain objectives by urging individual consumers to refrain from making selected purchases in the market place”. The definition features that at least three groups are involved in boycotts: (­1) the activists calling for the boycott, (­2) the target company, and (­3) the consumers participating in the boycott (­Friedman 1999). This chapter focuses on the last group and discusses when individual consumers respond to the activists’ call to boycott a target company. Consumers’ boycott participation is a form of ­anti-​­consumption. Zavestoski (­2002, ­p.  121) defines the latter as “­resistance to, distaste of, or even resentment or rejection of consumption”. Chatzidakis and Lee (­2013) add that a­ nti-​­consumption is the study of reasons against consumption. Accordingly, Hoffmann (­2011) classified the boycott participation as a form of ­anti-​ ­consumption because boycotters intentionally and voluntarily restrict their consumption behaviour in a certain domain for some reasons (­Lee et al. 2009). Applying Iyer and Muncy’s (­2009) typology of ­anti-​­consumers, boycotters act for societal rather than personal reasons. They do not refuse consumption in general but reject products or services of a specific brand, company, or country. Boycotters either stop buying a specific product or switch to alternatives. Makri et  al. (­2020) agree that consumer boycotts are a form of a­nti-​­consumption. Building on Lee et al. (­2011), they define the “­anticonsumption umbrella” as “­rejecting, restricting, and reclaiming with the goal of avoiding consumption” (­Makri et al. 2020, p­ . 6). Consumers’ boycott participation is partly located under this umbrella as it implies to “­refrain from purchasing certain products due to ideological discontent/­incongruency with an organization or country”. However, boycotts are a unique form of a­ nti-​­consumption as they have a collective character and are initiated, organised, and ended by a third party. Boycotters engage in ­anti-​­consumption in order to achieve specific goals, such as urging the target company to change its behaviours and policies. Hence, boycotting is a type of consumer resistance (­Hoffmann 2011; Lee et al. 2011). Contrasting to Adam Smith’s metaphor of the invisible hand, which

Consumer boycott participation  13

aggregated the unconnected egoistic consumption decisions of individual consumers to define consumer sovereignty, the rationale of the consumer boycott builds on a revised understanding of consumer sovereignty: The organised, concerted, and conscious decisions of responsible consumers can intentionally exert inf luence via the marketplace and thus shape the target’s behaviours and policies (­­Denegri-​­Knott et al. 2006; Shaw et al. 2006). This perspective describes the decision to consume or not to consume a specific brand in analogy to the political voting behaviour of citizens: With their consumption decision, consumers deliberately determine which manufacturer should produce which products and under which conditions. However, this type of consumer sovereignty is only effective if the aggregated consumption decisions of multiple consumers are aligned. Consumer boycott taxonomy This chapter presents a model of the drivers of consumers’ boycott participation. Accordingly, we apply a m ­ icro-​­perspective, focusing on the individual consumers. Notably, each consumers’ boycott decision is contextualised as the boycott the consumer is deciding to join has its specific characteristics. Hence, we firstly consider different boycott types on the ­macro-​­perspective before we delve into the individual boycott decision. Throughout history, activists have repeatedly called for boycotts (­Friedman 1999). Prominent examples include the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, which marked the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the USA. Another example is Mahatma Gandhi’s boycott of British goods, which aimed to assert India’s independence. Besides these historical examples that used the marketplace to initiate a political change, many modern boycotts directly address companies. A ­well-​­recognised example is the boycott of the oil company Shell in 1995 after it announced that it would sink the Brent Spar oil platform in the North Sea. The ­non-​­governmental environmental organisation Greenpeace called on car drivers to stop using the company’s petrol stations. Other prominent examples include the boycott of the food company Nestlé, which emerged after the company was criticised in ­1977–​­1984 for its marketing strategy for breast milk substitutes in the third world. Or the boycott of the sportswear manufacturer Nike from 1997 to 1999 because of inhumane working conditions at its suppliers in Taiwan. Other international boycott calls (­see Yuksel et al. 2020 for more details) address issues such as human rights (­Driscoll’s Sakuma, FedEx, Intercontinental Hotels, Wendy’s), working conditions (­Staples, Starbucks), animal welfare (­Adidas, Hermes, L’Oreal), politics (­Ben  & Jerry’s, Cadbury, Elsevier), or environmental protection (­Kellog’s). These few examples already illustrate that consumer boycotts are an extremely heterogeneous phenomenon. First, boycotts can be differentiated according to the activists’ motivation. The distinction between economic vs. political boycotts serves as a fundamental classification criterion (­Sen et al. 2001). Economic boycotts address the economic

14  Stefan Hoffmann

interests of the boycotters themselves (­Sen et al. 2001). Take for example consumers who boycott a brand in order to urge the target company to reduce the products’ price (­Tyran & Engelmann 2005). In contrast, political boycotts address social, ecological, ethical, ideological, and political issues (­Friedman 1985; Smith 1990). For instance, in India, the ideology of “­swadeshi” as a reaction to colonialism, modernity, and globalisation stimulated a boycott movement against ­US-​­based multinationals, such as ­Coca-​­Cola (­Varman & Belk 2009). As another example, in 2020, activists called a boycott of the H ­ ispanic-​­owned food company Goya because the CEO Robert Unanue uttered publicly that the US president was a blessing. Also, in 2020, there was a boycott call against the coffee chain Starbucks after having prohibited its employees to wear cloths with the claims “­black live matters” (­YouGov 2020a). Consequently, Friedman (­1999) differentiates between several subcategories of political boycotts, such as labour (­K lein et al. 2004), minority, religious (­Abosag & Farah 2014), and ecological boycotts (­Hoffmann et al. 2018). According to the recent YouGov (­2020b) survey with approx. 10,000 respondents, European consumers agreed that the most relevant boycott reasons are environmental damage, animal abuse, and unfair treatment of employees. Second, considering the goals and the addressees of the boycott helps to further disentangle different types of boycotts (­Friedman 1999). In instrumental boycotts, activists initiate the movement to persuade the target company to change its behaviours and policies. Instrumental boycotts will only be effective via the marketplace, if a critical mass of consumers participates ( ­John & Klein 2003). The economic pressure on the target company needs to be strong enough. The Ethical Consumer (­2018) reports that in 2017 almost half of the adult UK consumers have boycotted at least one company and that the total amount of money withheld from these companies summed up to ₤2.74 billion. Nonetheless, it is a long way from a boycott call to a change in corporate policies. The literature still lacks broad evidence of the economic impact of boycotts (­beyond case studies of successful boycotts). Yet, there are further motivations to call a boycott. Expressive boycotts allow the activists and boycotters to express their displeasure with the target company’s behaviour and to vent frustration (­Friedman 1999). A hybrid of these two boycott types is punitive boycotts. If the criticised behaviour of the company is irreversible, this boycott form will at least send a signal to the target company and hopefully prevent future irresponsible behaviours. Catalytic boycotts aim to point politicians and the media to the irresponsible behaviour of the target. Third, the examples given above further highlight that boycotts can have a direct or indirect effect on the target object (­Friedman 1999). In a direct boycott, consumers boycott the products and services of the company whose actions and policies are deemed irresponsible. In many cases, however, it is not possible to boycott the target directly. The secondary boycott is a variant of the indirect boycott. It exerts pressure on a business partner of the boycotted company, such as a supplier (­Hoffmann et al. 2020). A transformative or surrogate boycott implies that the target object represents a political entity. As consumers are

Consumer boycott participation  15

unable to inf luence the latter directly via the marketplace, they try to exert inf luence via economic actors that are related to their target. A typical example is boycotts that arise due to consumer animosity (­K lein et al. 1998; Hoffmann et al. 2011). If consumers disagree with the actions of a national government and develop ­so-​­called consumer animosity, they will boycott the products of companies from this nation. Consider for example the intentional abandonment of French products by Australian consumers after France had carried out nuclear tests in the South Pacific (­Ettenson & Klein 2005).

Trigger/­promoter/­inhibitor model So far, we have distinguished different boycott types on the macro level, and we will now consider the m ­ icro-​­level of the individual boycott participation decision. The ­anti-​­consumption literature has intensively researched this perspective as boycotts will only be effective if a sufficiently large number of consumers are committed for a longer period of time. Accordingly, a more detailed analysis of the motivations of individual consumers to participate in a boycott is needed. Building on Hoffmann (­2008), ­Figure 1.1 presents a framework model that visualises the relevant inf luences on the individual decision, which is embedded in a broader contextual consideration of the boycott. In the following, the inf luencing factors on the individual boycott decision are systematically presented using the trigger/­promoter/­inhibitor model. This model is an extension and generalisation of the boycott model by Klein et al. (­2004). They found in their seminal study that the motivation to participate in a boycott largely depends on the perceived egregiousness of a corporate action. Whether this activating component actually leads to boycott participation depends on the subsequent tradeoff of subjective costs and benefits of boycott participation. Hoffmann (­2011) extended this model to the trigger/­promoter/­ inhibitor model of boycott participation. The categories triggers, promoters, and inhibitors are broader than the corresponding categories perceived egregiousness, benefits, and costs. Accordingly, the extended framework is more f lexible and can help structure a broader spectrum of drivers of boycott participation found in different studies. Trigger Triggers are factors that stimulate consumers to consider boycotting the target company. Typically, activists will detect a wrongdoing or a scandal or a cause that helps them to construct their identity; and they will call for a boycott. The news will be publically spread via the media and social media. Whether or not an individual consumer considers participating in this boycott depends on how the consumer thinks and feels about the target company’s wrongdoing. As consumer research shows, it is the subjective perspective of the consumer rather than the objective behaviour of the company that triggers individual boycott participation. Cognitive, affective, and situational triggers are relevant.

16  Stefan Hoffmann

Macro level (focus on the boycott)

Wrongdoing (e.g. unethical or egregious corporate behaviour and policy)

Boycott call

Boycott type

activists, NGOs, media, social media, social environment

motivation (e.g. political), goal (e.g. instrumental), effect (e.g. direct)

Micro level (focus on the boycotter)

Trigger cognitive (perceived egregiousness), affective (outrage), situational (proximity)

Promoter moral (e.g. moral obligation), expressive (e.g. self-view), instrumental (e.g. self-efficacy)

Inhibitor positive attitudes towards firm, subjective costs, free-riding, counter-arguments

Conditions ethical involvement, reciprocity, rationalizations

Boycott participation Others‘ boycott participation Reaction (e.g. changed corporate behaviour and policy)

­Figure 1.1 Framework of Boycott Participation

As a rather cognitive aspect, Klein et al. (­2004) identified the perceived egregiousness as the central trigger of the boycott participation. The construct describes consumers’ “­belief that a firm has engaged in conduct that is strikingly wrong and that has negative and possibly harmful consequences” (­K lein et al. 2004, ­p. 96). This evaluation may result from all the factors that are also relevant boycott motivations on the macro level, including social, ecological, ethical, ideological, and political issues. Adding a more affective component, Lindenmeier et al. (­2012) confirm the role of consumer outrage as a boycott trigger.

Consumer boycott participation  17

Besides these evaluative factors, the consumers’ relationship and proximity to the target and the question whether they are directly affected by the company’s wrongdoings are highly relevant as situational triggers of the boycott participation (­Hoffmann 2008, 2011, 2013a, b). If, for example, a highly ­profit-​­oriented company closes a production site and dismisses numerous employees without a social plan, the impulse and perceived moral obligation of the consumer to join a boycott is greater the closer the consumer lives to the triggering event and the more personal relationships s/­he has to those individuals directly affected. Promotors Promoters are factors that foster boycott participation. Promoters include moral, expressive, and instrumental factors. The moral evaluation and the level to which consumers feel that a company’s wrongdoing is violating moral norms is an important driver of boycott participation (­Lindenmeier et al. 2012; Trautwein & Lindenmeier 2019), which can lead to a perceived moral obligation to join the boycott (­Hoffmann 2013b). The hypocritical behaviour of a company also intensifies the willingness of consumers to participate in a boycott (­Hoffmann et al. 2020). If a company explicitly states (­e.g., in the context of CSR communication) that it is behaving responsibly and if the company subsequently violates the s­elf-​­imposed moral standards, consumers react particularly sensitively. Expressive promoters are related to moral factors, because consumers consider joining a boycott a morally laden action, which helps them to demonstrate their moral identity and to lift their s­ elf-​­views by doing the right thing (­Hoffmann 2013a; Klein et al. 2004; Kozinets & Handelman 1998). Boycotting is a kind of prosocial behaviour and an action to support a good cause. Joining a boycott and in particular uttering publicly that one is joining (­e.g., via social media) also help improve one’s moral reputation. Finally, instrumental considerations strongly inf luence the boycott decision. Consumers are more likely to join a boycott if they expect that they will contribute to the boycott’s success, such as effecting a change in the target company’s behaviour (­Hoffmann 2013a; Klein et al. 2004; Sen et al. 2001). Recent market data show that most ­US-​­American consumers actually believe in boycott effectiveness as they state that boycotts may be very (­21%) or somewhat (­42%) effective in changing a company’s behaviour (­YouGov 2020a). Remarkably, the European YouGov (­2020b) survey found that the two main reasons to restart buying the brand are that (­a) the brand actually handled the topic that caused the boycott and (­b) the brand is committed to resolving the issues that led to the boycott. With regard to the instrumental drivers, empirical research analysed in particular the inf luence of expected s­elf-​­efficacy and perceived behavioural control (­Farah & Newman 2010; Hoffmann 2013a; Klein et al. 2004). These two constructs capture the consumers’ belief that they can perform a certain behaviour to achieve a specific goal. Since the boycott

18  Stefan Hoffmann

can only be effective if many consumers join, the expected participation of a large number of other consumers also has a positive effect on individual boycott participation (­A lbrecht et al. 2013; Sen et al. 2001). Inhibitors Inhibitors are factors that hinder individual participation in the boycott. These factors include positive attitudes toward the target company, subjective costs, ­free-​­riding, and counter arguments, such as the small agent argument or a boomerang effect. A positive image of the target company (­Hoffmann  & Müller 2009) and trust in the management (­Hoffmann 2013a) can significantly reduce the consumer’s intention to participate in a boycott. If consumers hold positive associations with the company and if they feel a certain degree of brand attachment, the likelihood of them boycotting in times of crisis decreases (­K lein & Dawar 2004; Schmalz & Orth 2012). In times of brand crises, additional positive information about the company (­or negative information about competitors) can also weaken the intention to boycott (­Yuksel & Mryteza 2009). It should be noted, however, that companies can only provide credibly positive information in a crisis situation if they have built up a positive image beforehand. If this is not the case, consumers may consider the information distributed as glossy or even hypocritical and it may even strengthen their intention to boycott. Boycotting is associated with subjective costs for the consumer (­Hutter & Hoffmann 2013), including the inconvenient and ­time-​­consuming search for information about alternatives, switching to more expensive alternatives, paying higher procurement costs, or even the complete lack of alternatives. How grave consumers perceive the sacrifices of abandoning a specific product or brand depends on their preferences for the product or brand (­K lein et al. 2004) and on the availability of substitutes, i.e., alternative products or brands that meet the same need (­Sen et al. 2001). Remarkably, a recent representative YouGov (­2020b) survey based on the answers of over 10,000 European adults from ten countries confirms that most boycotters avoid specific food and drinks brands (­compared to car components, car manufacturers, skin care, cosmetics, financial services, retailers). The market report of the Ethical Consumer (­2018) also confirms that food and drink boycotts (­i.e., meat, palm oil, carbon emissions) have the largest effect on the lost in the target company’s revenues. Obviously, consumers will more easily find adequate substitutes for groceries and drinks than for brands in other product categories. The need to orchestrate consumers’ buying decision implies that boycotts are often subject to social dilemmas (­Sen et al. 2001). Consumers often consider boycotting a preferred brand for the greater good as a sacrifice (­Hutter & Hoffmann 2013). They need to make a tradeoff of their individual benefits from continuing to use the banned brand (­e.g., cheap sneakers made with the help of child labour) and their contribution to the cause by boycotting the brand. Due to the high individual costs of boycotting, there is also a great incentive to free ride that is consumers want to benefit from the successful

Consumer boycott participation  19

boycott achieved with the boycott behaviour of other consumers ( ­John  & Klein 2003; Klein et al. 2004; Sen et al. 2001). They assume that a sufficient number of other consumers are already participating and it is thus not necessary that they themselves join. Consumers unwilling to boycott often use the s­o-​­called “­small agent” assumption as a counter argument (­K lein et  al. 2004; Yuksel et  al. 2020). Consumers’ motivation to participate in a boycott decreases the more they are convinced that the importance of their own buying behaviour is small compared to the aggregate buying decision of other consumers ( ­John & Klein 2003). Notably, the small agent problem increases with the number of boycott calls. Since activists can call boycotts easily, quickly, and inexpensively via social media (­Makarem & Jae 2016), the number of boycott calls continues to grow and consumers are increasingly asked to join a boycott or sign an online ­boycott-​­supporting petition. However, this provokes choice overload for consumers. Which boycott call is serious and actually relevant? Which calls should they follow? This uncertainty ultimately lowers the willingness to participate and the effectiveness of boycott calls. Yuksel et al. (­2020) provided empirical support that the b­ oycott-​­choice overload goes hand in hand with the small agent argument. Their study shows an interesting moderated mediation effect: Consumers facing a large ­boycott-­​­­choice-​­set (­compared to a small choice-set) will more likely engage in the small-agent rationalisation. In turn, they are less likely to sign the petition to support a boycott. Interestingly, a recent YouGov (­2020b) survey of European consumers shows that most boycotters are abandoning about two to three ­brands – ​­but not more. Finally, the fear of a boomerang effect can also deter consumers from participating in a boycott. Klein et al. (­2004) detected this counter argument in their study on factory closings and the subsequent dismissals. In such situations, boycotts are a frequently used method to support a labour strike (­Gerth 2020). In 2006, for example, after the Swedish home appliance manufacturer Electrolux announced to close the production site in Nuremberg, Germany, the labour union and activists called for a boycott (­Hoffmann 2008). Numerous consumers followed the call, particularly those in the surrounding area. However, there is the fear that if local consumers boycott international corporations that close a local production site, potential future investors could consider the local boycott readiness as a location disadvantage. As a result, fewer new jobs could be created in the long term. With regard to boycotts due to perceived unethical labour conditions in a firm’s production site in developing countries, consumers may also hesitate to participate because a boycott that urges companies to relocate and investigate in other locations may worsen the former employees living conditions. Conditions The direct effects of the triggers, promoters, and inhibitors on boycott participation are well researched and studies consistently confirm their effects. Still, there is heterogeneity in consumers’ boycotting behaviour and more

20  Stefan Hoffmann

knowledge about the conditions under which consumers join a boycott is needed. This requires a more ­fine-​­grained analysis of the moderators and mediators that colour the ­trigger–­​­­promoter–­​­­inhibitor–​­participation relationship. So far, scholars have discussed the following factors: ethical involvement, reciprocity, and rationalisations. The degree to which consumers consider a company’s wrongdoing as a reason to actually boycott is contingent on their personal values as these inf luence how consumers evaluate the company’s transgression. The involvement in the boycott cause, such as human rights, animal welfare, environmental protection, and religion, is relevant (­A lbrecht et al. 2013). Accordingly, Hoffmann et al. (­2018) confirmed the role of environmental and social concern. Trautwein and Lindenmeier (­2019) suggested a d­ ual-​­channel model, which also disentangles the role of affective (­e.g., anger, disgust) and cognitive factors (­ethical judgement in terms of moral equity, relativism, contractualism, and utilitarism). They demonstrated that boycotting is more strongly driven by cognitive factors for consumers with a high preference of ethical product options, while consumers with a low preference of ethical product options are more strongly driven by affective factors when they boycott. Fernandes (­2020) has recently shown that the political ideology (­liberal vs. conservative) is also associated with the motives to join boycotts (­individualised vs. binding moral values). Relatedly, Hahn and Albert (­2017) have suggested considering the role of reciprocity. Strong reciprocity is defined as consumers’ desire to reciprocate others’ unfair behaviour, even if this would imply costs for the boycotting consumers. Hahn and Albert (­2017) propose that ­self-​­regarding consumers will only experience a high degree of egregiousness if they are directly affected by the target firm’s wrongdoings. In contrast, strongly reciprocal consumers will also perceive high levels of egregiousness when others are affected. They are more willing to join a boycott, even if it is unlikely that the target firm will change its behaviour. Though highly plausible, this proposition still needs empirical confirmation. Lastly, Hoffmann (­2013a) highlighted that the promoters and inhibitors are by no means fixed and stable. In line with Klein et al. (­2004), he confirmed that promoters such as striving for ­self-​­enhancement and perceived efficacy foster the boycott participation, whereas counter arguments and trust in the management hamper boycott participation. However, a multiple mediation model demonstrated that these promoters and inhibitors are strongly inf luenced by consumers’ proximity, which is the “­closeness of the relationship between a single consumer and those who suffer from the action of a certain company or another institution that stimulates the boycott call” (­Hoffmann 2013a, ­p.  215). The study shows that proximity (­including the dimensions “­being personally affected”, “­being socially affected”, and “­being spatially affected”) is actually the driving force of boycott participations. Consumers adjust the promoters and inhibitors to this motivation in a rationalisation process. Rationalisation is a psychological defence mechanism, in which consumers

Consumer boycott participation  21

reinterpret and justify their own behaviours, cognitions, and feelings, which misfit their own moral standards (­Markin 1979, p­ .  323). By doing so, consumers convince themselves or others that their behaviours are in line with their moral standards and are guided by a rational d­ ecision-​­making process (­Bhattacharjee et al. 2013; Gruber and Schlegelmilch 2014). In a similar manner, Lasarov et al. (­2019) revealed that environmentally motivated consumption reduction (­EMCR) as another type of a­ nti-​­consumption is also based on a similar rationalisation process. They showed that the perceived seriousness (­a construct related to proximity) affects consumers’ subscription to counter arguments, which then inf luences the EMCR. In sum, we can conclude that the degree to which consumers subscribe to promoters and inhibitors largely depends on proximity.

Discussion The present overview of previous literature on consumer boycott participation confirms that the categories of triggers, promoters, and inhibitors help us disentangle and understand consumers’ boycott motivation. Research confirms that affective, cognitive, and situational processes are involved. The boycott decision is partly a result of a rather rational comparison of subjective costs and benefits. However, affective reactions and the proximity to the case are also highly relevant. Boycotting is a collective action, which often implies that societal benefits come along with individual sacrifices, which creates a social dilemma and elicits f­ree-​­riding and the rationalisation processes. Moreover, we have seen that the individual boycott motivation is contextualised. We can only explain and predict the boycott motivation if we also consider the role of the media and the activists as well as the boycott motivation (­economic or political), the boycott cause (­e.g., environmental damage, minority, and working conditions), the goal (­instrumental, expressive, hybrid), and the directness of the effect (­e.g., is the company or a related organisation the actual target?). Thus far, the direct inf luences of triggers, promoters, and inhibitors are largely researched. However, more research is needed that systematically embeds boycott research in context and that considers more moderating and mediating processes within the trigger/­promoter/­­inhibitor–​­participation relationship. Further relevant directions of research include the gap between ­self-​ ­reported and actual boycotting behaviour, rationalisation processes, duration of the boycott momentum, and the role of social media. Most of our knowledge on boycotting participation stems from consumers’ s­elf-​­reports in survey studies. Obviously, boycotting is a form of ethical consumption that is associated with high subjective costs. Doubtlessly, s­elf-​ ­reports are subject to social desirability response tendencies. The number of boycotting consumers may thus be overestimated. We know from other fields of ethical consumption that there is often an ­intention–​­behaviour gap when we compare ­self-​­reported intentions and real buying behaviour (­Carrigan & Attalla 2001; Carrington et  al. 2010; Hassan et  al. 2016). To rule out this

22  Stefan Hoffmann

potential distortion, future boycott studies need to combine survey data and real (­non)­purchase data. Another worthwhile research endeavor is to dive deeper into justification and rationalisations processes that “­help” consumers who actually perceive a high level of egregiousness because of the company’s wrongdoing, but who struggle to abstain from their preferred products and services. Past research has already confirmed processes of f­ree-​­riding (­Sen et al. 2001; Klein et al. 2004), rationalisations (­K lein et  al. 2004; Hoffmann 2013a; Yuksel et  al. 2020), and counter arguments (­K lein et al. 2004). The literature on moral licensing (­Blanken et  al. 2015; Merritt et  al. 2010) and moral decoupling (­Bhattacharjee et al. 2013; Haberstroh et al. 2017; Orth et al. 2019) might provide more insights. The moral decoupling literature, for example, shows that once the company’s transgression is too strong to deny it, consumers decouple the moral consideration from other evaluations. Moral decouplers agree that certain wrongdoings of a company are morally reprehensible, but they do not include moral evaluations in their overall assessment of the product. Against the background of the high subjective costs of boycott participation (­K lein et al. 2004; Sen et al. 2001), the question arises of how long consumers will be involved in boycotts. At the macro level, research has already demonstrated that boycotts usually lose supporters after a relatively short period of time and thus also lose momentum (­Chavis & Leslie 2009; Ettenson & Klein 2005). A YouGov (­2020b) survey shows that o ­ ne-​­third of the European consumers who have boycotted state that they have already restarted to use the brand after a ­while – ​­although 28% still reduced the level of brand usage. This study shows that the time until boycotters rebought the brand varies greatly with almost similar share of boycotters who rebought after one week, one month, six months, one year, five years, or longer. As the time component is apparently highly relevant, future research should examine the factors inf luencing the individual boycott duration. Actually, in a recent survey of German 1,347 consumers who have already boycotted a brand, 85% claimed that they could ­imagine—​­under certain ­circumstances—​­to return to the brand (­YouGov 2017f ). These circumstances include that the company changes or refrains from the practices in question, that the company commits to refrain from the practices in question in the future, that the company compensates affected and injured parties, that the responsible persons leave or are dismissed from the company, and that the products and services in question improve in quality. Finally, more research on the role of social media is needed (­Makarem & Jae 2016). Relevant research questions include the spread of the boycott call and whether social media stimulates actual boycott participation. In social media platforms, consumers are often asked to sign a petition to express that they support the boycott. For expressive boycotts, it might be sufficient if consumers like and share the boycott call. However, for an instrumental boycott to be effective real boycott behaviour (­no purchases) is needed. Remarkably, Yuksel et al. (­2020) argue that signing a petition is still helpful as it creates word of mouth and it may thus move other consumers to join. Moreover, it could

Consumer boycott participation  23

be assumed that those who sign the petition are actually more likely to join the boycott. However, the latter assumption needs more research. Building on the ­above-​­mentioned research on moral licensing, processes of slacktivism (“­slack” + “­activism”) and clicktivism (“­click” + “­activism”) seems to be particularly relevant here. Clicktivism is a form of political activism that consists exclusively of distributing likes and dislikes in social media. Skoric (­2012) shows that clicks are often not followed by other moral acts as consumers consider clicks as an ethical act per se, which provides them a moral license and frees them from translating their moral opinion in purchase behaviour (­Cornelissen et al. 2013). Further studies should thus research whether consumers who support and spread the boycott call on social media are actually boycotters or whether they only engage in impression management.

Conclusion To conclude, the a­nti-​­consumption research has extensively analysed consumers’ motivation to participate in boycotts in the last two decades. The “­trigger/­promotor/­inhibitor” model provides a useful framework to organise the inf luencing factors confirmed by empirical research. Accordingly, the boycott decision is triggered by the consumer’s perception that a firm’s behaviour is wrong, because it negatively and harmfully affects workers, consumers, society at large, or other stakeholders. The extent to which the firm’s action is considered egregious varies interindividually. The model further considers moral, expressive, and instrumental promoters that drive consumers to join boycotts. There are also inhibitors that prevent consumers from boycotting, such as positive attitudes toward the target company, subjective costs, ­free-​ ­riding, or counter arguments. This chapter has also shown that consumers’ boycott decision on the ­m icro-​­level is embedded in a specific context. There is a great variety of boycott types on the macro level and scholars should always acknowledge the specific conditions when regarding consumers’ readiness to boycott. Given the contextuality of consumer boycott decisions, ongoing research is needed as the causes and motivations as well as the methods to spread the boycott call will continuously change. Megatrends like climate change, globalisation, and digitalisation will result in negative side effects of corporate actions that are perceived egregious and which stimulate boycott calls (­e.g., data privacy concern). Modern forms of communication (­e.g., social media, microblogging) will also alter the mechanisms how boycott calls diffuse. The “­trigger/­promoter/­inhibitor” will serve as an analytical tool to understand these new developments.

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Consumer boycott participation  25 Hoffmann, N.C., Yin, J., Hoffmann, S. (­2020). Chain of blame: A ­multi-​­country study of consumer reactions towards supplier hypocrisy in global supply chains. Management International Review, 60,­247–​­286. Hoffmann, S. (­2008). Boykottpartizipation: Entwicklung und Validierung eines Erklärungsmodells durch ein vollständig integriertes Forschungsdesign. Wiesbaden: Gabler. Hoffmann, S. (­2011). ­A nti-​­consumption as a means of saving jobs. European Journal of Marketing, 45(­11/­12), ­1702–​­1714. Hoffmann, S. (­2013a). Are boycott motives rationalizations? Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 12(­3), ­214–​­222. Hoffmann, S. (­2013b). Home country bias in the moral obligation to boycott offshoring companies. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 21(­4), 3­ 71–​­388. Hoffmann, S., Balderjahn, I., Seegebarth, B., Mai, R., Peyer, M. (­2018). Under which conditions are consumers ready to boycott or boycott? The roles of hedonism and simplicity. Ecological Economics, 147, ­167–​­178. Hoffmann, S., Mai, R., Smirnova, M. (­2011). Development and validation of a ­cross-​ n ­ ationally stable scale of consumer animosity. Journal of Marketing Theory & Practice, 19(­2), ­235–​­252. Hoffmann, S., Müller, S. (­2009). Consumer boycotts due to factory relocation. Journal of Business Research, 62(­2), 2­ 39–​­247. Hutter, K., Hoffmann, S. (­2013). Carrotmob and ­anti-​­consumption. Same motives, but different willingness to make sacrificies? Journal of Macromarketing, 33(­3), 2­ 17–​­231. Iyer, R., Muncy, J.A. (­2009). Purpose and object of a­nti-​­consumption. Journal of Business Research, 62(­2), 1­ 60–​­168. John, A., Klein, J.G. (­2003). The boycott puzzle: Consumer motivations for purchase sacrifice. Management Science, 49(­9), ­1196–​­1209. Klein, J.G., Dawar, N. (­2004). Corporate social responsibility and consumers’ attributions and brand evaluations in a p­ roduct–​­harm crisis. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 21(­3), 203 217. Klein, J.G., Ettenson, R., Morris, M.D. (­1998). The animosity model of foreign product purchase: An empirical test in the People’s Republic of China. Journal of Marketing, 62(­1), ­89–​­100. Klein, J.G., Smith, N.C., John, A. (­2004). Why we boycott: Consumer motivations for boycott participation. Journal of Marketing, 68(­3), ­92–​­109. Kozinets, R.V., Handelman, J. (­1998). Ensouling consumption: A netnographic exploration of the meaning of boycotting behavior. In Alba, J.W., Hutchinson, J.W. (­eds.) Advances in consumer research Vol. 25, Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, ­475–​­480. Lasarov, W., Mai, R., de Frutos, N.G., Egea, J.M.O., Hoffmann, S. (­2019). ­Counter-​ ­ a rguing as barriers to environmentally motivated consumption reduction: A ­ ulti-​­country study. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 36(­2), ­281–​­305. m Lee, M.S.W., Motion, J., Conroy, D. (­2009). ­A nti-​­consumption and brand avoidance. Journal of Business Research, 62(­2), ­169–​­180. Lee, M.S.W., Roux, D., Cherrier, H., Cova, B. (­2011). ­A nti-​­consumption and consumer resistance: Concepts, concerns, conf licts and convergence. European Journal of Marketing, 45, 11/­12. Lindenmeier, J., Schleer, C., Pricl, D. (­2012). Consumer outrage: Emotional reactions to unethical corporate behavior. Journal of Business Research, 65(­9), ­1364–​­1373. Makarem, S.C., Jae, H. (­2016). Consumer boycott behavior: An exploratory analysis of twitter feeds. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 50(­1), ­193–​­223.

26  Stefan Hoffmann Makri, K., Schlegelmilch, B.B., Mai, R., Dinhof, K. (­2020). What we know about anticonsumption: An attempt to nail jelly to the wall. Psychology & Marketing, 37 (­2), ­177–​­215. Markin, R.J. (­1979). The role of rationalization in consumer decision processes: A revisionist approach to consumer behavior. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 7(­3), 3­ 16–​­334. Merritt, A.C., Effron, D.A., Monin, B. (­2010). Moral ­self-​­licensing: When being good frees us to be bad. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(­5), 3­ 44–​­357. Orth, U.R., Hoffmann, S., Nickel, K. (­2019). Moral decoupling feels good and makes buying counterfeits easy. Journal of Business Research, 98, ­117–​­125. Schmalz, S., Orth, U.R. (­2012). Brand attachment and consumer emotional response to unethical firm behaviour. Psychology & Marketing, 29(­11), ­869–​­884. Sen, S., ­Gurhan-​­Canli, Z., Morwitz, V. (­2001). Withholding consumption: A social dilemma perspective on consumer boycotts. Journal of Consumer Research, 28(­3), ­399–​­417. Shaw, D., Newholm, T., Dickinson, R. (­2006). Consumption as voting: An exploration of consumer empowerment. European Journal of Marketing, 40(­9/­10), ­1049–​­1067. Skoric, M.M. (­2012). What is slack about slacktivism. Methodological and Conceptual Issues in Cyber Activism Research, 77, ­77–​­92. Smith, N. C. (­1990). Morality and the market: Consumer pressure for corporate accountability. London: Routledge. Trautwein, S., Lindenmeier, J. (­2019). The effect of affective response to corporate social irresponsibility on consumer resistance behaviour: validation of a d­ ual-​ c­ hannel model. Journal of Marketing Management, 35(­­3 –​­4), ­253–​­276. Tyran, J.R., Engelmann, D. (­2005). To buy or not to buy? An experimental study of consumer boycotts in retail markets. Economica, 72(­285), 1­ –​­16. Varman, R., Belk, R. W. (­2009). Nationalism and ideology in an anticonsumption movement. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(­4), ­686–​­700. Yuksel, U., Mryteza, V. (­2009). An evaluation of strategic responses to consumer boycotts. Journal of Business Research, 62(­2), ­248–​­259. Yuksel, U., Thai, N.T., Lee, M.S.W. (­2020). Boycott them! No, boycott this! Do choice overload and small-agent rationalization inhibit the signing of anti-consumption petitions? Psychology & Marketing, 37(­2), ­340–​­354. YouGov (­2017a). Brand boycotters. Thailand. Retrieved from: https://­d 25d2506sf b94s. cloudfront.net/­r/­48/­Thailand%20Brand%20Boycotters.pdf. YouGov (­2017b). Brand boycotters. Australia. Retrieved from: https://­d 25d2506sf b94s. cloudfront.net/­r/­48/­Australia%20Brand%20Boycotters_final.pdf. YouGov (­2017c). Brand boycotters. Indonesia. Retrieved from: https://­d 25d2506sf b94s. cloudfront.net/­r/­48/­Indonesia%20Brand%20Boycotters.pdf. YouGov (­2017d). Brand boycotters. Malaysia. Retrieved from: https://­d 25d2506sf b94s. cloudfront.net/­r/­48/­Malaysia%20Brand%20Boycotters.pdf. YouGov (­2017e). Brand boycotters. Singapore. Retrieved from: https://­d 25d2506sf b94s. cloudfront.net/­r/­48/­Singapore%20Brand%20Boycotters.pdf. YouGov (­2017f ). Skandale, Pleiten, Pannen. Wie Sie infolge von Skandalen abgewanderte Kunden DE_2017_10_ zurückgewinnen können. Retrieved from: campaign.yougov.com/­ Brand_crisis_Reports.html. YouGov (­2020a). Half of Americans have boycotted a brand. Retrieved from: https://­ today.yougov.com/­topics/­politics/­­a rticles-​­reports/­2020/­07/­15/­­brand-​­boycotts.

Consumer boycott participation  27 YouGov (­2020b). Brand boycotters. Warum Verbraucher in Europa sich von Marken abwenden und was sie zu einer Rückkehr bewegt. Retrieved from: https://­campaign. yougov.com/­DE_2020_10_BrandBoycotters_Whitepaper.html?utm_medium= Media&utm_source=Press%20Release&utm_campaign=DE_2020_10_White paper_BrandBoycotters. Zavestoski, S. (­2002). The social-psychological bases of anticonsumption attitudes. Psychology and Marketing, 19(­2), 1­ 49–​­165.

2 The Evolution of Voluntary Simplicity From Soulful Search for Meaning to Extreme Lifestyle Experiment Stephen Zavestoski and Marilyn DeLaure Introduction A year before the C ­ OVID-​­19 pandemic upended lives around the world, Chiu (­2019) reported that Americans were “­the unhappiest they’ve ever been.” Writing for the 2019 World Happiness Report, Twenge (­2020) noted a paradox, stating that by most accounts, Americans should be happier now than ever...the violent crime rate is low, as is the unemployment rate. Income per capita has steadily grown over the last few decades…. As the standard of living improves, so should ­happiness – but ​­ it has not. Growing income and standard of living has translated to increased ­spending—​ ­consumer debt in the U.S. hit a new record high in 2020 (­Cox 2020)—​­but not, apparently, to greater happiness or ­well-​­being. Part of the problem may be consumption itself  … or, more accurately, overconsumption: of material goods, junk food, drugs and alcohol, social media, and other online content (­see Twenge). How did we get to this ­place—​­where so many of us seek solace and escape in solitary shopping, scrolling, bingeing? Where our primary connections to the world are via channels that feed us advertisements and endless inducements to buy yet more stuff? The story of American consumer culture has been told many times in many ways (­Cohen 2004; Cross 2000; Schor 1998; Trentmann 2016). If American consumerism was born with the glut of goods brought on by the Industrial Revolution, American ­hyper-​­consumerism emerged following WWII, when the country pivoted from a war economy to one rooted in the mass production of goods. With the advertising industry reaching maturity around the same time, the treadmill of production (­Gould, Pellow, and Schnaiberg 2008), now paired with a treadmill of consumption, provided the basis for a culture of ­hyper-​­consumption. Consumption was tied not only to seeking happiness and showing success, it also became interwoven with citizenship and patriotic duty such that “­the good customer devoted to ‘­more, newer, and better’ was in fact the good citizen” (­Cohen 2004: 237). President George W.

DOI: 10.4324/9780367821586-4

The Evolution of Voluntary Simplicity  29

Bush (­2001) famously reaffirmed this patriotic duty when he told Americans after the 9/­11 terrorist attacks to “­Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed.” The interlocking treadmills of production and consumption bring us to the current moment with $14.3 trillion in American consumer debt and historical lows in happiness. Unhappy and indebted, these are the “­Overspent Americans” Schor (­1998) described more than 20 years ago. Yet the predicted rise of “­downshifters” and voluntary s­ implifiers—​­people who would be motivated by their disillusionment with consumerism’s promise and their disease of having too much s­tuff—​­is yet to broadly materialize. Whatever happened to the voluntary simplifiers and “­downshifters next door”? Have they dwindled or become invisible, like the countercultural alternative communities, buying clubs, consumer rights organizations, and the wide range of other alternative and ­anti-​­consumption practices and philosophies that have come and gone throughout American history? Our aim in this chapter is to explore the question of what happens to consumer resistance when it becomes commodified by the very system it resists. Our analysis begins by revisiting Zavestoski’s (­2002) analysis of Voluntary Simplicity books published between 1973 and 1998. Our updated analysis, covering the period from 1999 to 2020, reveals a drastic decline in Voluntary Simplicity books, coupled with an increase in books, blogs, and online courses promoting “­m inimalism” and “­decluttering.” Next, we examine an ­anti-​­consumption phenomenon that arose in the early 2000s that we label “­extreme lifestyle experiments.” We offer a brief analysis of blogs, films, vlogs, and other new media sources that culminate in the minimalism/­decluttering “­revolution” of the last six years. We propose that Voluntary Simplicity never disappeared; rather, it transformed in the new digital media landscape into a complicated web of new movements, organizations, and practices embodying everything from foundational principles of Voluntary Simplicity and a new type of sustainable materialism (­Schlosberg 2019) to potentially problematic minimalist and other aesthetics rooted not in consuming less but in consuming differently. In the concluding section, we introduce the concept of a “­­d isillusionment–­​­­resistance–​­commodification cycle” and ask what role digital technologies like social media might be playing in either disrupting or perpetuating this cycle. Ultimately, we argue that ­anti-​­consumption movements must find ways of challenging consumer capitalism’s power to commodify resistance through collective, ­community-​­oriented efforts, which more individualistic expressions of consumer resistance lack.

Voluntary Simplicity: Origins and Evolution As a philosophy of life and a movement, Voluntary Simplicity arose in the U.S. in the 1970s as one strand within a web of countercultural ideas and movements that included eastern spirituality, resistance to authority, experiments in communal living, and nascent environmentalism. In an early attempt to

30  Stephen Zavestoski and Marilyn DeLaure

describe the i­dentity-​­motivated roots of ­anti-​­consumption attitudes, Zavestoski characterized Voluntary Simplicity as “­both a system of beliefs and a practice … centered on the idea that personal satisfaction, fulfillment, and happiness result from a commitment to the nonmaterial aspects of life” (­2002: 149). First introduced by Gregg (­1936), the concept of Voluntary Simplicity gained traction with the publication in 1977 of “­Voluntary Simplicity” in the countercultural periodical The ­Co-​­Evolution Quarterly (­Elgin and Mitchell 1977), soon followed by Elgin’s canonical statement on the subject: Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich (­1981). Boujbel and d’Astous (­2012: 487) identify “­material simplicity, ­self-​ ­determination and s­ elf-​­sufficiency, ecological awareness, social responsibility, and spirituality and personal growth” as common themes across most of the subsequent work engaging Voluntary Simplicity (­e.g., ­Craig-​­Lees  & Hill, 2002; Etzioni, 1999; Huneke, 2005; Shama 1985). Despite some variation, Boujbel and d’Astous (­2012: 487) maintain that all definitions of Voluntary Simplicity “­converge toward the general idea of a way of life that seeks to maintain some balance between the inner and outer growth of the individual” (­Elgin, 2010). In 1977, Elgin and Mitchell estimated that 10 million American adults were already following Voluntary Simplicity tenets. They utilized polling data on Americans’ willingness to reduce consumption of material goods as well as several other sources of data to arrive at this figure, then extrapolated from this estimate to predict that Voluntary Simplifiers’ “­combined numbers could exceed 40 million by 1987 and 90 million by the year 2000.” From the publication a few years later of Elgin’s Voluntary Simplicity (­1981), a revised edition in 1993, Schor’s Overspent American in 1998, and eventually a second revised edition of Voluntary Simplicity in 2010, there appeared to be, at least in the United States, a growing Voluntary Simplicity movement. We revisited Zavestoski’s (­2002) analysis of Voluntary Simplicity books published between 1973 and 1998 to see if we could find evidence of continued growth as measured by titles in print. Zavestoski identified a substantial increase in the number of books published across the time span: from 26 books in the two decades spanning ­1973–​­1994, to 32 books in just the next four years. But he also detected a shift in the content from an early focus on the “­v irtues of simplicity” (­e.g., a more spiritual life, a more meaningful life, and reducing one’s impact on the planet) to a focus on reducing the overwhelming feelings of stress brought about by hectic ­consumption-​ ­d riven lives. In extending Zavestoski’s analysis from 1998 to the present, we found very few books on Voluntary Simplicity at all. Searching the keyword “­simplicity,” we identified only 14 books over the time period, one of which was the 2009 second revised edition of Elgin’s Voluntary Simplicity. Eleven of these focus on the virtues of simplicity. Only t­ hree—​­with titles like Stuffocation: Why We’ve Had Enough of Stuff and Need Experience More Than Ever (­Wallman 2015)—​­appeal to people’s feelings of stress and overwhelm caused by consumer lifestyles. Excluding books published by the Simplicity

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Institute, there hasn’t been a single book explicitly focused on Voluntary Simplicity in the decade since the 2010 reissue of Elgin’s classic. Instead, the ideas of Voluntary Simplicity, as mentioned above, reappear in new forms in the 21st century’s digital media landscape. Were we discovering a reversal of the trend Zavestoski had identified, or something else? Our first inclination was to run new searches on the words “­m inimalism” and “­declutter,” which returned 88 results, the oldest of which was published in 2014. We also researched the top ten blogs tagged with the keyword “­simple living.” “­M inimalism” is in the very names of two of the top ­three—​­“­The Minimalists” (­Fields Millburn and Nicodemus) and “­Becoming Minimalist” (­Becker)—​­and they use keywords like “­declutter” and “­simple living” to direct traffic to their sites. Interestingly, whereas Elgin’s 2010 edition of Voluntary Simplicity ranks 3,421st in Amazon.com’s “­Happiness ­Self-​­Help” category (­and only 1,441st in the “­Sustainable Living” category), Minimalism: Live a Meaning ful Life (­Fields Millburn and Nicodemus 2011) ranks 1,594th in “­Happiness ­Self-​­Help.” More popular still is Marie Kondo’s bestselling The ­Life-​­Changing Magic of Tidying Up (­2014), which ranks 1,240th out of all books in Amazon’s inventory. Put differently, by the time minimalism and decluttering had begun to gain significant traction around 2014, Voluntary Simplicity as a dominant theme, at least in book titles, had virtually vanished. While the original spiritual values of Voluntary Simplicity appear to some extent in minimalism, as we explain in greater depth below, the newer movement emphasizes a “­how to” orientation focused on the specific steps or courses of action needed to simplify. What had become of Schor’s “­downshifters”? Where were the prospective 90 million voluntary simplifiers that Elgin and Mitchell (­1977) had predicted? Had they become minimalists and declutterers? Are decluttering and minimalism even practices of ­anti-​­consumption at all? If Voluntary Simplicity was ever a movement with potential for social change, then what do we make of minimalism and decluttering? Answering these questions requires understanding how minimalism and decluttering came to supplant Voluntary Simplicity, so we turn next to explore another phenomenon that was occurring around the same time: the rise of digital media.

Shifting Media Landscapes, Extreme Lifestyle Experiments, and the Rise of Minimalism The shifting media landscape in the late 20th and early 21st centuries presented new opportunities for sharing a­ nti-​­consumption ideas with the public: authors and content creators were no longer beholden to editorial gatekeepers of traditional publishing and broadcast media. The growth of the World Wide Web through the 1990s enabled people to build websites and share content through blogs on platforms like Blogger, Wordpress, and Tumblr. YouTube, founded in 2005, allowed users to share video content, including “­vlogs.”

32  Stephen Zavestoski and Marilyn DeLaure

Social media behemoth Facebook became widely available starting in 2006, later adding a variety of interest group features.1 The ­photo-​­sharing app Instagram launched in 2010 and was acquired by Facebook in 2012.2 Early on, these social media platforms attracted users with features that made “­connecting” with friends seem easy and fun. Soon, however, friendship networks gave way to the economics of clicks, engagements, and followers, the optimization of which could be converted into income through Google AdSense, sponsored vlog content, and product endorsements. Social media platforms became targeted advertising spaces masquerading as free and fun ways to connect with friends and “­d iscover” new content.3 While celebrity culture long predates the Internet, social media gave birth to a new type of ­celebrity—​­the Social Media Inf luencer. So rapid was the rise of this new “­profession” that a marketing consultancy recently published the results of a poll in which parents reported what their children, aged ­11–​­16 years, said they want to be when they grow up. Following right behind doctor (­18%) are social media inf luencer (­17%) and YouTuber (­14%). Interestingly, the poll found that almost half (­45%) of parents didn’t understand what a social media inf luencer did, and 58% were unaware that you could make money as an inf luencer (­Skeldon 2019). An American market research company found that 86% of respondents aged ­13–​­38 aspired to become social media inf luencers (­Duaine Hahn 2019). By accumulating likes and clicks and followers, social media inf luencers can earn handsome incomes simply by living the high life, publicizing their private consumption, and curating themselves as a product to be consumed. The growing reach and sophistication of the Internet in the early 2000s opened up a range of novel modes of making money. For example, simple living, minimalism, and decluttering experts can build communities of followers willing to support their YouTube channels or podcasts directly through platforms like Patreon or BuyMeACoffee.com.4 With a large enough following, these experts might offer paid online courses where they train their subscribers in the finer points of simple living and decluttering. And, of course, bloggers and inf luencers can always become “­A mazon Associates,” who get kickbacks for purchases of Amazon products they recommend. Before the meteoric rise of the inf luencer, the first decade of the 21st century saw a number of new ­anti-​­consumption advocates capitalize on the interactive platforms of Web 2.0 by launching extreme lifestyle experiments to see if they could limit their c­ onsumption—​­in some cases, quite severely. Some vowed to eat only locally grown food, others sought to reduce their trash production to zero. Some adopted a new green habit each day, and others swore off money altogether. The general template was to launch a green living experiment, blog about it, garner media attention, land a book deal, and perhaps become the subject of a documentary film. The following snapshots of these extreme lifestyle experimenters do not comprise an exhaustive survey, nor are these projects unified in their motivations, methods, or impact. Still, it’s worth noting that these simple green living experiments were

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conducted predominantly by white, ­college-​­educated, ­m iddle-​­class people living in the Global North. Extreme Lifestyle Experiments of the Early 2000s Daniel Suelo stopped using money in 2000. He lived ­part-​­time in a cave near Moab, Utah, and blogged about his experience using computers at the public library. Suelo believes that money is an illusion and that people are enslaved by our financial system; his solution was to opt out entirely. Suelo gained media attention in 2009; his friend Mark Sundeen published a biography about Suelo, The Man Who Quit Money, in 2012, and the BBC News produced a short film about Suelo. In a similar vein, Irish activist Mark Boyle launched an experiment to live for one year without money in 2008. At the end of that year, he found himself “­more content, healthier, and at peace” than he had ever been and so continued for another two years (­Boyle 2015). Boyle blogged at Freeconomy and has written several books, including The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living, published in June 2010. A documentary film about Boyle followed in 2012. A Canadian couple in their thirties, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon, began a ­year-​­long experiment on the first day of spring in March 2005, vowing to eat only foods produced within a ­hundred-​­mile radius of their Vancouver residence. They first wrote a series of articles for an online magazine (­T he Tyee), which then grew into a book: The ­100-​­Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating (­2007).5 Smith and MacKinnon next developed the concept into a ­six-​­episode reality TV series, The ­100-​­Mile Challenge, aired by Food Network Canada in 2009. New ­York-​­based writer Colin Beavan launched a project in November 2006 called “­No Impact Man.” The plan was that he and his ­family—​­wife Michelle Conlin and their ­t wo-­​­­year-​­old daughter, ­Isabella—​­would try to live for one year making zero net impact on the environment. They ate only local foods, stopped generating trash, used only ­human-​­powered transportation, turned off their electricity, and did laundry by stomping it in the bathtub ... all while living in a ­n inth-​­f loor ­co-​­op in Manhattan. Bevan blogged throughout the year and then in 2009 published a book titled No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process. A documentary film was also released in 2009, and Beavan was featured in the New York Times and New Yorker and appeared on Good Morning America and The Colbert Report. Another young Canadian, Vanessa Farquharson, started her ­year-​­long experiment on March 1, 2007. She first blogged at Green as a Thistle and then published her book Sleeping Naked Is Green: How an ­Eco-​­Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days (­2009). The book is a breezy compendium of diary entries recounting a year in the life of a ­20-​­something journalist. Farquharson’s list of 366 daily green actions includes giving up ­Q -​­tips, baths, nail polish, highlighters, downhill skiing, and ultimately, her

34  Stephen Zavestoski and Marilyn DeLaure

car; using “­natural” household products, including ­corn-​­based cat litter; and some rather eclectic items like “­learn shorthand to reduce paper use,” “­g room cat regularly to prevent hairballs and shedding,” and “­bring my own bib to the dentist office.” The book’s short epilogue reports that Farquharson has kept up with 74% of her new green habits and that, according to the environmental auditing company ­Zero-​­footprint, she saved more than 11 tons of carbon dioxide during her year of living green. Decluttering and Minimalism Several prominent downsizing experts have also shared stories of their lifestyle experiments. In 2009, the ­French-​­born California mom Bea Johnson launched a blog called ZeroWasteHome.com after her family downsized from a 3,­0 00-­​­­square-​­foot suburban house with a t­hree-​­car garage to a home half that size with no yard. The Johnsons felt liberated by having fewer possessions to care for and also started to pay attention to environmental issues. We learned about the f­ ar-​­reaching implications of unhealthy diets and irresponsible consumption. We started to understand for the first time not only how profoundly endangered our planet is but also how our careless everyday decisions were making matters worse for our world and the world we’d leave behind for our kids. ( ­Johnson 2013: 5) Johnson embarked on a goal of reducing their household waste to zero, or as close to that as possible: each year, the family produces one small glass mason jar of trash. The Zero Waste Home website boldly proclaims “­From a Blog to a Movement,” and offers quantitative evidence of Johnson’s global inf luence: “­Social Media ICON: 600K+ followers; Bestselling AUTHOR: 28 languages; World Renowned SPEAKER: 70 countries; Lifestyle EXPERT: 100+ TV features.” The website links to a bulk food finder app where users can enter their zip code and find the closest stores that sell bulk food. There is also a ­store—​­a ­curated-­​­­by-​­category list including glass mason jars, refillable fountain pens, toothbrushes, and cleaning brushes made of wood and natural bristles (­compostable). Each item includes a “­Bea’s Notes” explanation; clicking “­View Product Details” links to that item on Amazon.com.6 Another home organizing guru, Japanese author Marie Kondo, rose to fame even greater than Johnson’s with the 2014 English translation of her book The ­Life-​­Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (­originally published in 2011), which has sold over 8.5 million copies in 40 different languages. Kondo’s exhortation to keep only possessions that “­spark joy” helped transform her name into a trademarked method (­KonMari ) and even a trendy verb (­to ­Kondo-​­ize). Since her blockbuster first

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book success, Kondo has published three more books, partnered with Netf lix for the 2019 reality series Tidying Up, and opened an online shop. Kondo now offers both an online course teaching the fundamentals of her method for $39.99 and a t­hree-​­day Consultant Certification Course for $2,000. Kondo launched a partnership with The Container Store in January 2021. Alongside Zero Waste Home and the KonMari method arose several successful purveyors of “­m inimalism,” including Joshua Becker, founder of BecomingMinimalist.com, and “­The Minimalists,” Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodeums. In 2008, Becker, then a s­tudent-​­ministry pastor, had a revelation one weekend as he spent hours clearing out the garage rather than playing ball with his young son. He realized that excess possessions were taking time away from what really mattered most in life, so his family began to get rid of their belongings. In 2014, Becker turned to the minimalism business full time; he’s published four books, ­co-​­founded a media company that publishes two magazines, teaches an online “­Uncluttered” course, and has 1.7 million followers on social media. Becker’s blog has 2 million readers a month.7 In a similar vein, Fields Millburn and Nicodemus grew weary of the corporate rat race: while still in their 20s, they found themselves overweight, stressed out, and unhappy, despite their s­ix-​­figure incomes and luxury cars. They started TheMinimalists.com in December 2010 and quit their jobs shortly thereafter. The Minimalists found success across media platforms: their website boasts 20 million viewers, they’ve published four books (­and created their own publishing company), their podcast launched in 2016, and they’ve produced two documentary films. Their YouTube channel has 342,000 subscribers. The Minimalists incorporate some elements of the “­extreme lifestyle experiment” idea; for instance, one of their notable trials was The Packing Party. Rather than sort through every belonging K ­ ondo-​­style, deciding what to keep and what to toss, Nicodemus packed everything into boxes as though he was going to move and then unpacked only the small number of items he needed to live over a period of three weeks. At the end of those few weeks, Nicodemus ref lected, 80% of my stuff was still in those boxes. Just sitting there. Unaccessed. I looked at those boxes and couldn’t even remember what was in most of them. All those things that were supposed to make me happy weren’t doing their job. So I donated and sold all of it. And you know what? I started to feel rich for the first time in my life. I felt rich once I got everything out of the way, so I could make room for everything that remains. (­Nicodemus, n.d.) The Minimalists explain that applying principles of minimalism creates more time and space to devote to health and wellness, meaningful relationships, and philanthropic projects.

36  Stephen Zavestoski and Marilyn DeLaure

Critiquing the New Simplifiers It’s difficult to quantify the impact achieved by the lifestyle experimenters and minimalists profiled above in terms of purchases avoided, money saved, stress relieved, homes downsized, carbon footprints lightened, and overall material throughput reduced. At the very least, the large number of followers, subscribers, and sales gleaned by these New Simplifiers suggests they’ve been successful in drawing considerable attention to ­anti-​­consumption ideas and practices: this we see as a positive outcome. But they’ve also attracted a fair amount of criticism. “­No Impact Man” Colin Beavan drew fire for the performative nature of his experiment; he was framed as an opportunist who “­went green” just to sell a book. In her New Yorker review essay, Elizabeth Kolbert asserts that No Impact Man and other similar “­g reen like me” projects are organized around “­some ­noveau-​­Thoreauvian conceit” that directs attention to the authors themselves, rather than to the environmental problems they are purportedly trying to address (­DeLaure 2011). Building on Kolbert, as well as Hultman’s (­2013) critique of the “­environmental hero,” we wonder whether there is some risk in how these extreme green experiments focus on the single heroic individual: first, they frame ­anti-​­consumption as a personal choice and responsibility, rather than a collective, political project; second, they entrench conservative stereotypes of environmentalists as ­holier-­​­­than-​ ­thou elitists. The rigid rules and boundaries established by these experimenters may make for good entertainment value, but they provide rather poor models for the public to emulate. Who, really, is going to voluntarily turn off their electricity, especially in the dead of winter? These extreme rules may also invite competition, ­one-​­upmanship, and puritanical judgment of self and others, as we wonder who is most authentically performing green or a­nti-​­consumer identities. Indeed, some of these experimenters admitted to engaging in rivalry: Beavan contemplates making his “­local food” radius smaller than Smith and MacKinnon’s; Farquharson recounts meeting Beavan for coffee in New York City and reveals feeling envy, since Beavan had just sold the film rights to his forthcoming book. Perhaps conspicuous ­anti-​­consumption (­to adapt Thorstein Veblen) leads to another form of “­keeping up with the Joneses”—​­a competitive pressure to declutter, minimize, and green every aspect of life. Decluttering celebrities like Marie Kondo have also sparked reproof. Some critics note that, while Kondo instructs devotees to thank each possession for its service before discarding it, she gives no advice about recycling, donating, repurposing, or other ways to avoid sending discarded belongings to the landfill. Furthermore, with her online store filled with pricey items and partnership with The Container Store, Kondo’s message does seem to be about shifting ­consumption, rather than achieving net reduction. As Susie Khamis argues, “­­De-­​­­cluttering—​­at least as Kondo has popularized i­ t—​­sees the removal of excess less as a commitment to social or environmental concerns than a testament to a new and improved consumer self ” (­2019: 524, emphasis added). Several other

The Evolution of Voluntary Simplicity  37

organizing gurus have followed in Kondo’s steps with great success, including Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin, founders of wildly popular Home Edit, whose 2020 Netflix reality series helped boost their followers on Instagram to 4.6 million, outpacing Kondo. The show features Shearer and Teplin organizing celebrity homes with their signature ­color-​­coding method (­including the hair extension collection of Khloe Karsashian) which Amanda FitzSimons (­2020) calls “­Pinterest organization porn.” ­M inimalism-​­-​­arguably the most prominent ­anti-​­consumption concept of the past ­decade-​­-​­has a range of iterations, some very much in line with the original tenets of Voluntary Simplicity, others less so. Joshua Becker, for instance, echoes the Voluntary Simplicity principles and frames minimalism explicitly as a rejection of mainstream values: Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it. It requires a conscious decision because it is a countercultural lifestyle that stands against the culture of overconsumption that surrounds us. (­Becker, “­Encouraging Simplicity. Weekend Reads.” n.d. a,b) But other versions of minimalism focus more on cultivating a particular ­aesthetic—​­often with clear white spaces, modern Scandinavian design, and carefully curated items purchased at exclusive boutiques. This “­veneer of minimalist style,” writes critic Kyle Chayka (­2020), becomes like an organic food label, expensive green juices, or complex skin treatments being sold as a ‘­­no-​­makeup’ look. It’s another ­class-​­dependent way of feeling better about yourself by buying a product, as Spartan as the product might be. It takes a lot of money to look this simple. (­Chayka: 39) The Minimalists (­Fields Millburn and Nicodeums) don’t espouse a particular aesthetic, nor do they have a “­shop” on their website hawking products. They do promote reducing the quantity of one’s possessions and also clearing out other areas of one’s l­ife—​­calendar engagements, relationships, o ­ bligations—​ ­that may be impeding one’s personal development and pursuit of happiness. Still, their project is primarily an individual one, and, as the New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino notes, they stop short of mounting a serious critique of consumer capitalism: Millburn and Nicodemus write about the joy that comes from choosing to earn less money, even if they avoid discussing the more common situation of having your wages kept low against your will. But they also assure their audience that “­capitalism is not broken”—​­we are. They insist that there’s “­nothing wrong with earning a shedload of ­money—​­it’s just that

38  Stephen Zavestoski and Marilyn DeLaure

the money doesn’t matter if you’re not happy with who you’ve become in the process.” Even these sincere prophets of ­anti-​­consumerism are hesitant to conclude that the excessive purchasing of stuff may be a symptom of larger structural problems, or that a life built around maximum accumulation may be not only insufficiently conducive to happiness but actually, morally bad. (­Tolentino 2020: n.p.) A central shortcoming of the decluttering/­m inimalist New Simplifiers, then, is that they offer an individualistic, even therapeutic response to a broader cultural, economic, political, and ecological problem. To be sure, there is something appealing and efficacious about the power of a single story. Audiences may take vicarious pleasure in following the misadventures of the experimenters as they struggle to quash old habits and go to great lengths to discover their own limits, like when Bea Johnson realizes that maybe she’s gone too far when she finds herself foraging for moss to use in place of toilet paper. Perhaps we feel empowered, at least temporarily, by consuming the inspiring advice of a Kondo or Becker, urging us to follow in their footsteps toward liberation from our clutter. These New Simplifiers also seem to have tapped into a broad yearning for connection and community, as their online groups serve as virtual gathering places where members support one another in the struggle to downsize possessions and let go. Thanks to Web 2.0 and social media, these New Simplifiers can build larger networks than the Voluntary Simplifiers of the past. At the same time, however, these platforms have also led to increasing loneliness and isolation, as we distractedly chase “­likes” and followers and accumulate ­weak-​­tie friends, in lieu of pursuing the strong ties of f­ace-­​­­to-​­face relationships, nurtured through o ­ ld-​­fashioned conversation (­see Marche 2012; Turkle 2011). In relying on social media and digital platforms to encourage material decluttering, perhaps the New Simplifiers are paradoxically contributing to digital clutter and even disconnection. Just as feelings of being overwhelmed by material clutter spawned the minimalist movement, digital clutter seems to be triggering calls for “­d igital minimalism” (­Newport 2019), digital detoxes (­Syvertsen 2020), and digital diets (­Brabazon 2012). More research is needed on how these new digital and social media movements are impacting people and consumption: are they increasing digital clutter and isolation? Or are they providing valuable tools for people to find the connection and contentment promised by Voluntary Simplicity?

Conclusion: The Future of Voluntary Simplicity Consumption practices have changed dramatically over the first decades of the 21st century: online shopping, o ­ ne-​­click ordering, ­next-​­day shipping, and targeted digital advertising have largely displaced brick and mortar stores. A ­ nti-​ ­consumption movements have also transformed during this time. Voluntary

The Evolution of Voluntary Simplicity  39

Simplicity as a dominant term has given way to minimalism. Extreme lifestyle experimenters and green superheroes found eager audiences and helped spread awareness about the possibilities of constraining or reducing consumption. And decluttering experts discovered a lucrative business model via online platforms. While several of these newer minimalism gurus have carried forward the VS f lame and emphasized spiritual, social, mental, and planetary w ­ ell-​­being, we also see evidence of the cooptation and commodification of ­anti-​­consumption by the capitalist ­system—​­from The Zero Waste Home recommending more than 600,000 followers the $74 “­Stainless Steel Rectangular Kimchi Food Storage Container” available at Amazon, to The Shop at KonMari hawking an organic meditation f loor cushion for $169. What the digital platforms and social media tools we’ve highlighted made possible was the appropriation of Voluntary Simplicity so that it could be reconstituted into new c­onsumer-​ ­palatable forms called minimalism and decluttering. This stripping away of Voluntary Simplicity’s spiritual and ecological dimensions made room for a new form of materialism that requires eliminating certain belongings so that new aesthetically pleasing or ­joy-​­sparking objects can take their place. We see this phenomenon as part of a historical cycle in which market economies dependent on consumerism push consumers to a state of disillusionment that carries the potential to foment resistance to the culture of consumption. Before this resistance builds to the point of slowing the treadmills of production and consumption, however, the system inevitably finds ways to reappropriate and commodify the resistance. In our view, some of the New Simplifiers have redirected consumer disaffection, channeling it into an aesthetic form of minimalism that requires the substitution of one set of goods with a new more refined set of goods. Eventually, these products, and the lifestyles built around them, will lose their meaning and the cycle of ­d isillusionment–­​­­resistance–​­commodification begins again. A slightly less critical view sees minimalism as akin to Voluntary Simplicity in its emphasis on paring down material possessions in order to create more time and space for finding meaning in relationships and community. Yet, as we have attempted to demonstrate, by leveraging social media and other digital platforms to spread their gospel, the New Simplifiers have built an ethos of minimalism on a foundation rooted in technologies that have tended to nurture the isolation and individualism essential to consumer capitalism. The attention economy both muddies and compresses the space between the advertising message and the consumer’s decision to buy. Yet it is precisely in this space where the s­elf-​­ref lexivity essential to questioning the meaning of the good life or the meaning of one’s existence resides. The end result may be the complete dissolution of the very s­elf-​­ref lexivity vital to the arousal of feelings of disillusionment in the consumer culture. The future of Voluntary ­Simplicity—​­in fact, the future possibility of a habitable p­ lanet—​­depends on disrupting the ­d isillusionment–­​­­resistance–​­commodification cycle (­see ­Figure 2.1). There are some currents and movements that hold promise for disrupting this cycle through collective action and politically oriented Voluntary

40  Stephen Zavestoski and Marilyn DeLaure

Figure 2.1  The Disillusionment-Resistance-Commodification Cycle

Simplicity: these include the degrowth movement (­Fournier 2008), the sharing economy and collaborative consumption (­Belk 2014; Schor 2016), the circular economy (­Stahel 2016), and slow media, which Rauch argues “­has fruitfully encouraged people to reassess consumer culture and struggle against artifice” (­2015: 579). We close by highlighting one specific anti-​­consumption project that is both interrupting the consumption treadmill and successfully resisting commodification. The Buy Nothing Project (­BNP) is a decentralized network of local groups that foster neighborhood gift economies where people freely give and receive items, share stories, and build relationships and community. Founded by Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller in 2013, BNP has grown into a worldwide movement with groups in 44 countries. The project’s key objective is to connect people and to set aside “­the scarcity model of our cash economy in favor of creatively and collaboratively sharing the abundance around us.” Consistent with the BNP philosophy, all of the materials—​­including starter kits for launching a BNP group, whether online or off line—​­are free. There are no memberships, instructional courses, or t-​­shirts for sale. While many BNP participants use social media to connect to neighbors, form new chapters, announce events (­a “­Free Fair” or “­Gift-​­a-​ ­palooza”), post an ask (“­I need a high chair”) or gift (“­I have a kayak paddle I don’t need”), the ultimate goal is to facilitate in-​­person connections and foster ways to give and receive, helping people opt out of the cycle of overconsumption, and strengthening community ties in the process. Research is urgently needed to assess the extent to which these ­anti-​ ­consumption groups and movements are susceptible to being commodified

The Evolution of Voluntary Simplicity  41

and sold back to disillusioned consumers. As long as Voluntary Simplicity and other forms of consumer resistance are confined to individuals sharing their personal stories of finding meaning in their lives by consuming less, the capitalist machine can continue to repackage these stories as yet another commodity to purchase in the pursuit of happiness and meaningful life.

Notes 1 On Facebook, for example, Becoming Minimalist has 2,027,055 followers. Meanwhile, the “­Voluntary Simplicity” group for people “­interested in living simpler lives, living slower, getting more quality and happiness out of life” and in “­being a bit more green, a bit less consumerist,” has a mere 2,800 followers. 2 On instagram the hashtag #simplelife has been used 4.3 million times while the #minimalism hashtag has been used 20.5 million times and @theminimalists have 486,000 followers. 3 As an information delivery medium, books traditionally do not try to sell other things, nor do they collect data on their readers in order to sell them things. Whereas a book publisher like HarperCollins, for example, sells books to book readers, Facebook does not sell access to Facebook nor does it sell content to users. Rather, it sells access to information about the consumers of its content. As such, social media platforms are built from the ground up as digital edifices of consumerism. They are the newest iteration of the suburban shopping mall, only they live in every smartphone owner’s purse or pocket and they get, on a global average, two hours and t­ wenty-​­four minutes of our attention every single day. 4 A rough estimate of the monthly revenue received by The Minimalists from their 5,465 patrons is $38,255 (­based on a calculation method provided in a Patreon.com blog post: “­Figuring Out How Much You Might Make on Patreon”). 5 Also published the same year was Barbara Kingsolver’s widely acclaimed Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (­2007), which chronicled her family’s move to an Appalachian farm, where they embraced the locavore diet. 6 Linking to the Amazon store implicitly suggests that readers can “­buy these products to be good minimalists,” thus introducing a gray area regarding a­ nti-​ ­consumption. 7 Becker’s “­Uncluttered” course costs $89 and offers lifetime access to the materials, and membership in a closed Facebook support group.

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The Evolution of Voluntary Simplicity  43 FitzSimons, A. (­September 4, 2020). “­Instagram is coming for your sock drawer.” The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved from: https://­w ww.nytimes.com/­2020/­ 09/­04/­m agazine/­­i nstagram-­​­­is-­​­­coming-­​­­for-­​­­your-­​­­sock-​­d rawer.html Fournier, V. (­2008). Escaping from the economy: The politics of degrowth. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 28(­11/­12), ­528–​­545. Gould, K.A., Pellow, D. N.,  & Schnaiberg, A. (­2008). The Treadmill of Production: Injustice and Unsustainability in a Global Economy. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Press. Gregg R. B. (­ 1936). The Voluntary Simplicity. Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill Publications. Hultman, M. (­2013). The making of an environmental hero: A history of ecomodern masculinity, fuel cells and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Environmental Humanities, 2(­1), ­79–​­99. Huneke, M. E. (­2005). The face of the un-consumer: An empirical examination of the practice of voluntary simplicity in the United States. Psychology & Marketing, 22(­7), ­527–​­550. Johnson, B. (­2013). Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying Your Life. London: Penguin Books Limited. 2019). The aestheticization of restraint: The popular appeal of ­ de-​ Khamis, S. (­ ­cluttering after the global financial crisis. Journal of Consumer Culture, 19(­4), ­513–​­531. Kingsolver, B. (­2007). Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. New York: Harper Perennial. Kondo, M. (­2014). The ­Life-​­Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press. Marche, S. (­2012). Is Facebook making us lonely? The Atlantic, 2. Retrieved from: https://­w ww.theatlantic.com/­m agazine/­a rchive/­2 012/­05/­­i s-­​­­f acebook-­​­­m aking-­​ ­­us-​­lonely/­308930/ Newport, C. (­2019). Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. New York: Penguin. n.d.). “­ Packing party: Unpack a simpler life.” The Minimalists. Nicodemus, R. (­ Retrieved from: https://­w ww.theminimalists.com/­packing/ Rauch, J. (­2015). Slow media as alternative media: Cultural resistance through print and analog revivals. In The Routledge Companion to Alternative and Community Media (­p­­p. ­571–​­581). New York: Routledge. Schlosberg, D. (­2019). From postmaterialism to sustainable materialism: The environmental politics of p­ractice-​­based movements. Environmental Politics, DOI: 10.1080/­09644016.2019.1587215. Schor, J. (­1998). Overspent American: Upscaling, Downshifting, and the New Consumer. New York: Basic Books. ­ elf-​­Governance and ManSchor, J. (­2016). Debating the sharing economy. Journal of S agement Economics, 4(­3), ­7–​­22. Shama, A. (­1985). The voluntary simplicity consumer. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 2(­4), ­57–​­63. Skeldon, P. ( ­January 31, 2019). “­Young affiliates: Nearly a fifth of British children aspire to be social media inf luencers.” Telemedia Online. Retrieved from: https://­ www.telemediaonline.co.uk/­­young-­​­­a ffiliates-­​­­nearly-­​­­a-­​­­f ifth-­​­­of-­​­­british-­​­­children-­​ ­­a spire-­​­­to-­​­­be-­​­­social-­​­­media-​­i nf luencers/ Smith, A.,  & MacKinnon, J. B. (­2007). The 1 ­ 00-​­mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating. Toronto: Vintage Canada.

44  Stephen Zavestoski and Marilyn DeLaure Smith, A., & MacKinnon, J. B. (­2007). Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally. New York: Harmony Books. Stahel, W. R. (­2016). The circular economy. Nature, 531(­7595), ­435–​­438. Sundeen, M. (­2012). The Man Who Quit Money. New York: Penguin. Syvertsen, T. (­2020). Digital Detox: The Politics of Disconnecting. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited. Tolentino, J. ( ­January 27, 2020). “­The Pitfalls and the Potential of the New Minimalism.” The New Yorker. Retrieved from: https://­w ww.newyorker.com/­m agazine/­ 2020/­02/­03/­­the-­​­­pitfalls-­​­­a nd-­​­­the-­​­­potential-­​­­of-­​­­the-­​­­new-​­m inimalism Trentmann, F. (­2016). Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the T ­ wenty-​­First. London: Harper. Turkle, S. (­2011). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books. Twenge, J. (­2020). The sad state of happiness in the United States and the role of digital media. In J. F. Helliwell, R. Layard, J. Sachs,  & J.-​­E. De Neve (­Eds.), World Happiness Report 2020. New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Retrieved from: https://­worldhappiness.report/­ed/­2019/­­the-­​­­sad-­​­­state-­​­­of-­​ ­­happiness-­​­­i n-­​­­the-­​­­united-­​­­states-­​­­a nd-­​­­the-­​­­role-­​­­of-­​­­d igital-​­media/ Wallman, J. (­2015). Stuffocation: Why We’ve Had Enough of Stuff and Need Experience More Than Ever. London: Random House Publishing Group. Zavestoski, S. (­2002). The ­social–​­psychological bases of anticonsumption attitudes. Psychology & Marketing, 19(­2), ­149–​­165.

3 How Green Demarketing Brands Can Successfully Support A ­ nti-​­Consumption Catherine Armstrong Soule and Tejvir Sekhon

Introduction “­Don’t buy” is an unusual statement to see in an advertisement. As consumers, we are used to marketing communications persuading us to buy, and to buy more often and larger quantities from companies that produce more and more stuff in order to grow profits each quarter. For decades, perhaps centuries, marketers and ­for-​­profit brands have subscribed to a demand maximization ­model – ​­a trajectory that has led to irresponsibly produced, cheaper and lower quality goods on quicker trend cycles. This combination of technical, planned, and perceived obsolescence has contributed to the societal overconsumption that has wreaked havoc on our natural environment. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (­2021) paints a dire picture of the continuing impacts that human consumption continues to wreak on our atmosphere through the production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. This report suggests that only extreme and sustained reductions in consumption can possibly mitigate these extreme climate consequences of rising global temperatures, increased rainfall, rising sea levels, and melting permafrost. Reaching ­net-​­zero CO2 emissions is imperative and governments and individuals must act to do so, but is there a possibility that brands, normally thought of as antithetical to these goals, could instead be part of the solution? Recently, some brands are attempting to pivot in a more radical manner than traditional green or ­eco-​­friendly practices by discouraging consumption in order to reduce negative environmental ­impact – ​­a strategy referred to as green demarketing (­GD) (­A rmstrong Soule  & Reich, 2015). Where “­demarketing” refers to all strategies whereby a brand actively discourages consumption for various reasons (­Kotler & Levy, 1971), GD specifically communicates around and appeals to consumers’ environmental motivations. For example, Patagonia created advertisements explicitly telling consumers “­We ask you to buy less” and “­Don’t buy what you don’t need. Think twice before you buy anything” as well as sharing the negative environmental impact of clothing production. In tandem with ad campaigns, Patagonia greens its production process, enhances the durability of its clothes to extend the product

DOI: 10.4324/9780367821586-5

46  Catherine Armstrong Soule and Tejvir Sekhon

lifespan, and accepts returns of used clothing to repurpose or recycle. GD brands still make and sell products, but do so in a way that enables consumers to reduce their overall consumption. These ­anti-​­consumption activities and messages from brands have the potential to be very ­impactful – ​­but are they counterproductive to profits and antithetical to capitalism? We argue that these activities can result in a ­w in-­​­­win-​­win scenario for brands, people, and the planet. To understand how we must explore how consumers perceive and react to brands that engage in these counterintuitive actions. In this chapter, we explore how ­for-​­profit brands can successfully support consumers in environmentally motivated ­anti-​­consumption (­­García-­​­­de-​­Frutos, ­Ortega-​­Egea,  & ­Martínez-­​­­del-​­R ío, 2018) ­meaning  – ​­what can traditional brands do to encourage consumers to buy less while maintaining viability in the marketplace. We start with exploring the role of brands as meaningful and effective partners in the realm between governmental agencies and ­individual-​ ­level consumers to tackle climate change. Next, we describe the need to shift perspectives from excessive consumption to reduced or ­anti-​­consumption in the face of the climate crisis. We then explicate the differences between a GD strategy and more traditional green strategies. Most importantly, we present a framework for understanding the consumer response to a brand’s support of ­anti-​­consumption in the marketplace. Finally, we suggest directions for future research in the area of ­brand-​­supported ­anti-​­consumption.

Conceptual Overview of ­Brand-​­Supported ­A nti- ​­Consumption The Role of ­For-​­Profit Brands in Creating a Scalable Change Reversing climate change requires massive societal change. Most often, we look to two sources to drive these ­large-​­scale behavioral ­changes – ­​­­top-​­down levers created and enforced by regulatory bodies or ­bottom-​­up actions voluntarily engaged in and promoted by individual consumers. Both of these methods have severe limitations related to ­large-​­scale changes. The macro lens offers a large potential impact but is slow and cumbersome to enact and enforce. Micro or c­ onsumer-​­level initiatives can be piecemeal, painful, and difficult for individuals and thus hard to scale and ineffective. We suggest that brands at a meso (­or intermediate) level are positioned to affect these necessary societal changes in actionable, scalable, and effective ways. For a recent example, consider the controversy over plastic straws. In order to eliminate this waste from consumption, policymakers could ban the use of straws in restaurants and retail environments, as some regions have done, such as Seattle and Washington, D.C. These bans are slow, sparse, and controversial. Another option would be social marketing initiatives focused on discouraging use at the consumer level. Each consumer could be educated on the impact of the choice related to the affected sea life and amount of waste, and each time confronted with the option to resist its use. This type of consistent action is

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arduous and demotivating due to “­drop in the bucket” perceptions and puts the responsibility each time on the consumer in the face of choice overload and competing motivations. The third level, however, is voluntary brand response and numerous brands like Starbucks, Alaska Airlines, and McDonald’s voluntarily ceased to offer disposable straws. While each level has its pros and cons, ­brand-​­level action is certainly more scalable than the individual level and more f lexible and innovative than the policy level. In fact, m ­ eso-​­level change may be realized from existing ­top-​­down and ­bottom-​­up pressure, but it remains the actions of the brands that can actually affect change. Brands are uniquely situated in the middle to inf luence consumers, competitors, social norms, and regulating bodies, both nudging, as well as being nudged by, ­m icro-​­and ­macro-​­level actions in each direction. Brands can facilitate, persuade, and support consumers’ a­ nti-​­consumption actions through innovations to the marketing mix. Successful brands also act as category leaders that inf luence competitors’ actions. At a more abstract level, brands can start conversations that may shift cultural norms and change the meaning of consumption. All these effects can be achieved through successful GD initiatives. However, there are major hurdles that might prevent brands from embracing GD as their main competitive strategy. Because ­for-​­profit brands have historically been a major driver in overconsumption, these actions are c­ ounter-​ ­normative and, as such, there can be risks for those that attempt to fill in this space. GD can inherently be viewed as antithetical to traditional marketing systems (­i.e., selling as much as possible), brands must implement these strategies with caution and pay attention to perceived authenticity, meaning that consumers believe that the brand lives up to its promise and is true to its positioning (­Dwivedi  & McDonald, 2018). Are consumers going to trust and reward their GD initiatives or will they see them as hypocritical and therefore, punish them in the marketplace? Another issue is whether the messages and actions are actually effective in changing behavior, or whether consumers will continue perceiving behavior change as too cumbersome and would rather go for “­­business-­​­­as-​­usual” brands? Further, if it’s too effective and discourages all brand purchases, it will be difficult for the brand to remain viable. When a ­for-​­profit brand decides to encourage a­ nti-​­consumption, are consumers buying it? Next, we discuss the urgency as well as the difficulty of scaling ­anti-​ ­consumption initiatives from an environmental perspective. ­Anti-​­Consumption as an Environmental Imperative Society, researchers, consumers, and brands have all realized the need to reduce environmental impact in order to slow or reverse climate change and environmental degradation. Climate change is one of the most important challenges faced by business currently (­­Howard-​­Grenville et al., 2014). In the marketing field, the connection to sustainability is particularly important and problematic, given the tight relationships between marketing, production, demand creation, and overconsumption. Environmental concern and its connections

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to consumption motivations and implications have been widely studied in academic marketing research, although there is still a lack of agreement on exactly what is green, ­eco-​­, environmental, or sustainable marketing. Until recently, research in environmental marketing has mostly focused on understanding the motivations and needs of environmentally focused consumers, “­g reening” products/­supply chains, and understanding the persuasiveness of environmental messaging. As Peattie and Charter (­2003) suggest, the bulk of green marketing in fact closely resembles conventional marketing, due to its continued focus on consumption. We agree with McDonagh and Prothero (­2014) that there is both a massive need for change in this area and that marketing’s role in this shift requires a more dramatic and radical reimagining of the connection between sustainability, consumption, and marketing. More recently, as the urgency continues to escalate, it is clear that shifting from conventional to “­greener” products will not do enough to push back the tide against climate change. The human race must drastically alter consumption patterns and reduce consumption in general. As noted by Joshua Becker (­n.d.), the most environmentally friendly product is the one that isn’t bought (­or produced) in the first ­place -​­a statement that is becoming something of a truism in environmentalism. Recent research (­Levänen et al., 2021) provides evidence that consumption reduction activities have less global warming potential than ­ nti-​ other “­green” consumption patterns such as reuse, recycling, and sharing. A ­consumption practices refer to behaviors aimed at rejection, restriction, and reclaiming (­Lee et al., 2011). ­Anti-​­consumption has various motivations, a major one being a concern for the environment (­Chatzidakis  & Lee, 2013; Makri et al., 2020). ­García-­​­­de-​­Frutos et al. (­2018) define environmentally oriented ­anti-​­consumption (­EOA) as acts directed against consumption and driven by environmental motivations. This definition includes consumer behaviors such as reduction, avoidance, and rejection that can be brand or category specific. Therefore, acts such as reusing a metal water bottle as an alternative to purchasing ­single-​­use plastic water bottles would be categorized as EOA, while selecting a ­single-​­use water bottle that is made of recycled paper would be considered green consumption. Although green consumption patterns are clearly better than conventional ones from an environmental perspective, EOA can be much more impactful than “­green.” However, EOA can be very challenging, even painful, for consumers as it violates societal norms, requires larger behavioral changes (­De Nardo et al., 2017), and forces consumers to forgo the pleasure of consumption (­Sekhon & Armstrong Soule, 2020). GD: ­Brand-​­Supported ­Anti-​­Consumption The majority of the small but burgeoning area of research that connects environmental motives and ­anti-​­consumption actions tends to focus on the perspective of the individual consumer. For example, researchers have explored ­anti-​­consumers’ environmental footprints (­K ropfeld et al., 2018), the meanings a­ nti-​­consumers ascribe to their actions (­e.g., Black & Cherrier, 2010),

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motives for action/­inaction (­e.g., Seegebarth et al., 2016), antecedents, processes, and outcomes for product lifespan extension (­PLE) (­Scott & Weaver, 2018) and ­anti-​­consumers’ perceptions of others (­Cherrier et al., 2011). However, there are very few studies focused on the brand ­perspective – ​­the role that marketers and companies have in supporting a­nti-​­consumers, notable exceptions include Armstrong Soule and Reich (­2015), Reich and Armstrong Soule (­2016), and Sekhon and Armstrong Soule (­2020). Kolter and Levy (­1971) describe actions whereby a brand attempts to decrease the demand for products for general, selective, and ostensible motives as demarketing. In a social marketing and governmental context, Shiu, Hassan, and Walsh (­2009) explore how demarketing initiatives (­in this case, a­ nti-​­smoking) can effectively discourage negative or harmful consumer behaviors using each element of the marketing mix. From an environmental perspective, demarketing activities by ­for-​­profit brands may in fact be needed to deter consumers from selecting and consuming environmentally harmful products (­Peattie & Charter, 2003). According to Russ Klein (­2019), the CEO of the American Marketing Association in an article titled “­This Changes Everything,” marketers have a moral imperative to move towards a world that supports reduced consumption. We next explore how brands can become meaningful change agents that support, enable, and encourage ­anti-​­consumption at individual, competitor, and societal levels. Brands can engage in ­anti-​­consumption through the adoption of GD strategies. GD refers to brand strategies motivated by environmental concern that facilitate reduced consumption in the product category through the support of the focal brand (­A rmstrong Soule & Reich, 2015). A GD brand is different than a green marketer in that its actions and communications must be focused on enabling and/­or promoting reduced (­or ­anti-​­) consumption rather than a shift to green products. We explore whether there is a meaningful role for ­for-​ ­profit brands that make and sell products to support a­ nti-​­consumption successfully. A classic example is Patagonia’s “­Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign that explicitly urged ­consumer-​­level ­anti-​­consumption. The ad copy educates consumers about actions the brand is taking as well as outlining consumer actions, for example, “­W E make useful gear that lasts a long time, YOU don’t buy what you don’t need” and “­W E help you repair your Patagonia gear, YOU pledge to fix what’s broken” (­emphasis in original). This chapter is focused on what “­we” as marketers can do to support end consumers in their ­anti-​­consumption initiatives. There are several categories of GD activities outlined below. For example, REI’s Opt Outside initiative involves an action (­closing stores on Black Friday) and a communication campaign that reminds consumers about the harm of needless overconsumption. Moreover, it encourages ­anti-​­consumption ­actions –​ ­not to shop on Black Friday and provides a means to tell others about one’s a­ nti-​ ­consumption actions (­use of #OptOutside on social media as well as signing the pledge on REI’s website). Broadly, we can organize these activities into three categories based on each consumption stage (­before, during, and after).

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• • •

Discouraging unnecessary consumption Product design and innovation Reclaiming waste

The most fundamental type of GD activity is perhaps discouraging ­individual-​ ­level traditional consumption. This encapsulates actions and messages that deter an individual from overconsumption. Brands can educate consumers about the impact of consumption via advertisements, like Don’t Buy This Jacket and its ad copy about the negative environmental impact of its own garment production: Consider the R2 Jacket shown, one of our bestsellers. To make it required 135 liters of water, enough to meet the daily needs (­three glasses a day) for 45 people. Its journey from its origin…generated nearly 20 pounds of carbon dioxide… [it] left behind t­ wo-​­thirds of its weight in waste… this jacket comes with an environmental cost higher than its price. With this copy, Patagonia teaches the consumer about the environmental impact and asks consumers to “­think twice before you buy anything.” Alternatively, brands can literally close retail operations like REI making shopping impossible (­albeit only for one day). KLM, a Dutch airline, recently released a video ad that asked f lyers to consider more environmentally friendly options, such as taking the train, before booking a f light. Another example of this type would be providing conspicuous ­anti-​­consumption signals, a means to signal one’s environmental motives for ­anti-​­consumption and thus, providing symbolic value (­Sekhon & Armstrong Soule, 2020). For example, when a consumer forgoes a new jacket purchase by getting an old one repaired, the brand stitches on a patch that communicates ­eco-​­motives, which can effectively dissuade consumers from new purchases. Another subtype of GD is through product design and innovation. Brands can create products that replace disposables with reusables. LastObject, for example, is a startup that creates reusable alternatives for products that are often ­one-​­time use items Its first product is a replacement for the cotton swab that lasts for 1,000 uses. The LastSwab is meant to be the final purchase of its kind for the consumer, promoted in ad copy as “­the last q­ -​­tip you will ever buy” (­emphasis in original). Companies that enable ­zero-​­waste, reusable packaging can also be considered in this category. For example, Loop has partnered with FMGC brands Kroger, Walgreens, Procter  & Gamble, and Nestle to sell popular consumables like ice cream and toothpaste in reusable packaging that is collected, refilled, and resold. Purchasing these products facilitates decreased consumption related to waste in the category. Although individuals are still purchasing the consumables, the packaging waste is reduced (­to zero) as compared to traditionally packaged offerings. This category also includes brand actions that allow consumers to extend the product lifespan by delaying or reducing future purchases. Repair is perhaps the most visible type of

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PLE whereby brands can normalize, encourage, and facilitate the repair of products. This type also includes durability of design in more l­ong-​­term use categories, such as clothing. For example, in opposition to cheap clothes from brands like Zara and H&M that last for a few wears, alternatives like Taylor Stitch make garments “­responsibly built for the long haul” that are “­timeless” classics in style and designed for durability to last a lifetime. L.L. Bean, Boden, Patagonia, and others include three name lines (­rather than one) on children’s garments to encourage the practice of “­hand me downs.” Finally, we consider GD actions that reduce category consumption through reclaiming waste at the end of product life. Brands can collect their own used products for resale, such as W ­ al-​­Mart currently partnered with thredUP to resell products. Athleta, REI, and Patagonia all ask consumers to return their clothes in exchange for brand credit. Nike has been asking consumers to return their used running shoes for decades and making them into new shoes. By reclaiming waste, these brands can funnel back into product innovation by allowing consumers to buy secondhand or repurposed goods, which reduces virgin material consumption. This category of actions results in less overall material consumption and production. Many actions by brands can span across multiple ­areas – ​­for example, Patagonia’s Worn Wear initiative discourages consumption through advertising that advocates repair rather than new purchases and uses the patch to signal to others that the ­anti-​­consumer is environmentally motivated. Related to product innovation, the brand helps consumers repair their garments and thereby extend their lifespan. To reclaim waste, Patagonia asks consumers to return unwanted or irreparable items for resale, repurposing, and/­or recycling. Recently, the brand launched R ­ ecrafted – ​­a capsule collection made from reclaimed pieces of old clothing and gear not fit to be resold. At the same time, Patagonia also engages in more traditional green activities such as using organic cotton and donating its tax incentive to environmental causes. The next section will provide a framework for understanding how these various GD actions are perceived in the marketplace and how brands can achieve the best ­outcomes – ​­namely, increased purchase of the focal brand and decreased category consumption.

A Framework for Successful B ­ rand-​­Supported ­A nti- ​­Consumption For brands considering a GD strategy, it is imperative to understand the positive and negative reactions that may happen at the consumer level and how these perceptions are related to the specific brand based on its positioning, product category, and target market. Successful ­brand-​­supported ­anti-​­consumption necessitates reduced ­category-​­level consumption and continued brand profitability. This framework uses the lens of reasons for and against b­ rand-​­supported ­anti-​­consumption to consider these outcomes and factors (­see F ­ igure 3.1). It is not intended to be exhaustive in terms of all potential moderators but to

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­Figure 3.1  A ­Reasons-​­Based Model of ­Brand-​­Supported ­A nti-​­Consumption

provide a roadmap to think about how some factors can enhance or mitigate the reasons for and against ­brand-​­supported ­anti-​­consumption. Building on psychological research that distinguishes “­reasons for” and “­reasons against” performing a behavior, Chatzidakis and Lee (­2013) argue that studying reasons for and against consumption can provide fruitful avenues for reducing the intention behavior gap by understanding ­context-​­specific nuances. They argue that reasons against consumption are not necessarily the opposite of the reasons for doing so. To use their example, an ­anti-​­consumer of meat (­i.e., a vegan consumer) may avoid meat for animal welfare reasons, but it is unlikely that omnivores consume meat in order to kill animals. Similarly, an omnivore’s reasons for eating meat could be taste, price, convenience, or habits but a vegan (­considered here an ­anti-​­consumer of animal products) consumer’s reasons for buying a ­plant-​­based brand is unlikely to be its taste, high price, or highly processed nature. This suggests that for vegan brands, perceived poor taste, processed nature, or the high price can be important inhibitors to mitigate in order to encourage broader adoption of their brands while reducing meat consumption (­A rmstrong Soule & Sekhon, 2019). This example suggests that brands need to understand the broad inventory of reasons for and against product ­category-​­specific ­anti-​­consumption. Such an inventory can go a long way in leveraging brands’ substantial resources towards the goal of scalable reduction in societal consumption. Moreover, as people need a certain level of consumption to meet their basic needs, consumers constantly balance their reasons for and against consumption with their reasons for and against a­ nti-​­consumption. Even very dedicated ­anti-​­consumers may have difficulty restraining themselves from consumption for various reasons. Brands can help consumers manage the inhibitors of ­anti-​ ­consumption, such as taste (­A rmstrong Soule & Sekhon, 2019) or lack of availability of reusable and ­long-​­lasting products (­Vermeir & Verbeke, 2008). Also, unlike past ­anti-​­consumption research that confounds the reasons against the consumption of specific brands with those against more general consumption, our focus here is to encourage focal brand consumption as a means to reduce category consumption. This framework captures both reasons for and against

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the consumption of the focal brand as well as reasons for and against a­nti-​ ­consumption at the category level. This broader perspective could also help in scaling a­ nti-​­consumption movements beyond a small fringe group of extreme consumers. Currently, the bulk of research focuses on a sliver of consumers who have strong reasons against consumption or those simply lacking reasons for consumption. However, by understanding and emphasizing reasons for a­nti-​­consumption and mitigating reasons against ­anti-​­consumption, brands can target a broader swath of “­m iddle of the road” or moderate consumers who do not hold strong intrinsic ­anti-​­consumption motivations. Reasons against B ­ rand-​­Supported ­Anti-​­Consumption One important reason against ­brand-​­supported ­anti-​­consumption could be similar to responses to green marketing in general. For example, the perception of greenwashing, i.e., assuming that the brand’s motives are disingenuous, deceptive, and divorced from the actual practices of the brand (­Laufer, 2003). Though most research on greenwashing focuses on unambiguous and extreme forms as well as assumes deliberate deceit, recent research argues that greenwashing is in the eyes of the beholder (­Seele & Gatti, 2017; de Jong et al., 2020). These activities that either are deceptive or are perceived as such have an extremely negative impact overall as they can affect consumer trust in general and reduce the marketplace effectiveness of brands that are in fact making impactful environmental changes. Atkinson and Kim (­2014) showed that consumers can have a range of reactions from confusion to dissonance when exposed to green claims of n ­ on-​­green products. Therefore, we are focusing on a range of possible consumer reactions to GD initiatives, as these activities may be more unexpected and counterinitiative, and hence even more likely to spur negative consumer responses. Reactance. Reactance is an unpleasant psychological response to a removal of freedom or the threat of such, and marketing activities can cause this state (­Clee & Wicklund, 1980). Consumers who recognize GD messages as inappropriate persuasion attempts based on their persuasion knowledge (­Friestad & Wright, 1994) may have overly negative reactions such as reactance responses, which results in behavior contrary to the persuasion attempt. Fitzsimmons and Lehmann (­2004) find that when receiving product recommendations that are unsolicited, consumers act in opposition. It is possible these a­ nti-​­consumption messages from brands may be interpreted in a similar fashion and result in backlash consumption. Considering that Patagonia’s annual sales increased by more than 30% over the previous year after “­Don’t Buy This Jacket” (­Martin, 2012), it’s clear that many consumers did the opposite, they did in fact consume. One can hope that those initial purchases were not in reactance, but instead allowed future ­anti-​­consumption through PLE. Skepticism. Consumers also possess general skepticism against persuasive attempts and marketers (­Friestad & Wright, 1994), as well as advertisements

54  Catherine Armstrong Soule and Tejvir Sekhon

(­Obermiller et  al., 2005). Heightened levels of persuasion protections and skepticism might be experienced in the face of GD messages because it is so counter to expectations. In addition to skepticism about the brand’s environmental commitment, consumers can also be skeptical of the firm’s ability to provide reasonable functional benefits such as quality, accessibility, or convenience without compromising on the environmental footprint of their products (­Gleim et al., 2013). Finally, these types of messages have the possibility to be perceived as disingenuous due to the conf lict with past brand behaviors or general conf lict with sales and promotional persuasion attempts. For example, Armstrong Soule and Reich (­2015) find that when a company has a poor environmental reputation, consumers perceive strong exploitative motivations, in that the GD company is only acting to make money. Vredenburg et al. (­2020) also show that when congruence between a brand’s activist messaging and practices is low, activist brands can be seen as inauthentic and can trigger skeptical responses. Confusion. It is also possible that a consumer has a more mixed or ambiguous reaction to GD strategies that result in ambivalence. One example is disf luency. Fluency or ease of processing has been widely documented to increase positive evaluation (­A lter & Oppenheimer, 2009). Because GD messages run counter to traditional marketing messages and the demand creation paradigm, they may be more difficult for consumers to process. This disf luency may result in decreased evaluations, but some research suggests that disf luency effects are moderated by a variety of factors, such as mindset (­Tsai and Thomas, 2011). Although these messages are likely conceptually disf luent, the perceptual reaction may be more neutral than negative. Confusion is a related concept that may encourage increased attention devoted to processing and understanding messages or provoke negative responses. Mitchell and Papavassiliou (­1999) report that consumers find environmental messages confusing due to concerns and uncertainty around their believability and validity. GD messages may be even more likely to result in confusion. Confusion can result in many suboptimal behaviors from both the consumer and brand perspective, however, strategies to reduce confusion can be effective in reducing the negative effects. Ideological Opposition to P ­ rofit-​­Making Brands. Brands that discourage consumption are antithetical to the norm of f­or-​­profit business and marketing communications. Therefore, the idea of engaging in a­ nti-​­consumption at the category level by buying a brand can seem so jarring and inauthentic to more ­ideological-​­driven consumers that they might reject all ­anti-​­consumption initiatives by ­for-​­profit brands. The very feasibility of consumer resistance within capitalistic systems has been questioned (­A rnould, 2007; Kozinets, 2002) and consumers might critique brands for giving a false sense of comfort without making any systematic changes. In order to minimize such ideological opposition, brands should start from a position of admitting the role that capitalistic systems, in general, and marketing, in particular, have played in the overconsumption crises and providing solutions within the scope of brand reach.

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Reasons for ­Brand-​­Supported A ­ nti-​­Consumption Though consumer resistance can result in resisting purchases altogether, literature shows that consumer resistance can also be expressed through acts of consumption in terms of buying products or brands that are seen to be doing good in the world (­Lee et  al., 2011; Hoffmann, et  al., 2018; Makri et  al., 2020). Therefore, some consumers are likely to support brands that help them reduce ­category-​­level consumption. However, brands need to understand the full range of reasons for and against ­anti-​­consumption to successfully help make ­anti-​­consumers’ choices and lives a little easier. Here we explore a range of personal as well as prosocial reasons that brands could leverage to encourage ­anti-​­consumption based on three ­well-​­established categories of benefits that brands can provide: functional, experiential, and symbolic (­Park et al., 1986). By restoring some of the functional, symbolic, and experiential benefits that are lost due to ­anti-​­consumption, brands can reduce the risk on the part of consumers, building their confidence as ­anti-​­consumers. The confidence that one is not totally on her own in a quixotic quest to minimize consumption can also engender a ­long-​­term ­consumer-​­brand relationship that can be instrumental in reducing one’s consumption footprint in a particular category. Though we use Park et al.’s (­1986) typology of brand benefits, there could be other benefit typologies that could be useful for this exercise as long as they satisfy the goal of being broad (­if not exhaustive) in understanding consumers’ reasons for consumption as well as ­anti-​­consumption. Functional Benefits. A common reason against ­anti-​­consumption is a desire to maintain current lifestyles (­R ichetin et al., 2012). ­A nti-​­consumption results in the loss of functional benefits of owing and using a p­ roduct – including ​­ the basic function (­what the product does for the person) as well as convenience, accessibility, style, taste, etc. depending upon the category. According to Keller (­2003), functional benefits correspond to product attributes and are linked to basic motivations, such as physiological needs, health, safety, problem removal, and so on. Functional benefits are the biggest and most challenging hurdle to clear for demarketing brands. Therefore, by innovating the marketing mix, brands can attempt to restore some of the functional benefits that consumption provides to minimize or help with the lifestyle/­behavioral changes required for ­anti-​­consumption. For example, the Starbucks lid alteration made the straw unnecessary for comfortable drinking at the same time taking out an element of waste. Another example would be to make products that “­last” ­longer  –​ ­both in durability and in style so that consumers can retain functional benefits from purchases for a longer period, reducing lifetime consumption. Symbolic Benefits. Symbolic benefits are a function of what the brand symbolizes to oneself and to others that stem from ­non-­​­­product-​­related attribexpression, social approval, and s­elf-​­ esteem utes and satisfy needs for s­elf-​­ (­Keller, 2003). Symbolic benefits are very important to consumers and, at the same time, challenging for brands to provide in ­anti-​­consumption contexts. Green consumption has an advantage over a­ nti-​­consumption in terms of the

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existence of a product that can signal green/­a ltruistic motives of the consumer. However, the absence of consumption is more likely to signal a lack of financial resources than an altruistic environmental motive. Sekhon and Armstrong Soule (­2020) showed that conspicuous ­anti-​­consumption can be an effective means for GD success. The researchers demonstrate that without any signal, observers perceive a­ nti-​­consumers to have lower socioeconomic status. However, when a brand provides a visible signal imbued with an environmental motive expression, the observers’ negative status inferences are mitigated and the consumer and the brand are both evaluated more favorably. Therefore, it is important for brands to not only provide visible a­ nti-​­consumption signals such as Patagonia’s Worn Wear patch or REI’s #OptOutside but also communicate and clarify the meanings of that signal to the broader population. Such symbolic benefits not only serve an ­other-​­signaling function but can also be used for ­self-​­signaling as well as providing that warm fuzzy glow that accompanies altruistic actions. Symbolic meanings associated with brands can also be instrumental in providing socialization opportunities helping consumers claim a place in the community of l­ike-​­minded ­anti-​­consumers. Being a member of such a community can go a long way in helping a­ nti-​­consumers deal with the lifestyle/­ behavioral changes required for ­anti-​­consumption. Moreover, brands can also add meanings related to opposing a force of domination (­Dobscha, 1998), which could be another brand in the category or the norms/­culture of the category/­industry itself which is an important motivator of consumer resistance (­Makri et  al., 2020; Valor, Diaz,  & Merino, 2017). A brand imbued with authentic ­anti-­​­­consumption-​­related meanings can add such meanings to consumers’ lives to encourage them to engage in ­anti-​­consumption at the category level. Experiential Benefits. Experiential benefits are associated with how it feels to use the product and satisfy experiential needs such as pleasure, variety, and cognitive stimulation (­Keller, 2003). Improving one’s quality of life, leading a simpler, ­stress-​­free life, and developing nonmaterial sources of meaning are important personal motivators for engaging in ­anti-​­consumption (­Huneke, 2005; Iyer & Muncy, 2009; Makri et al., 2020). We suggest that brands can help consumers achieve these goals, perhaps more easily than traditional consumption. A key component of the GD strategy adopted by outdoor apparel and gear brands such as REI and Patagonia is the focus on environmental stewardship as a key component of developing nonmaterial facets of one’s existence. These brands focus on using consumption as just a means to achieve that particular ideal of the good life (“­A Life Outdoors is a Life Well Lived”) and not as an end goal in itself. Marie Kondo brand has been successful in focusing on the experiential benefits of “­joyful” downsizing to promote curated consumption as a way to manage the stresses of everyday life (­Ouellette, 2019). Brands can provide opportunities to both promote as well as facilitate these alternative versions of a good life while reducing category consumption.

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Factors Moderating the Reasons for and against ­Brand-​­Supported ­Anti-​­Consumption ­ nti-​­consumption activities and communications by brands are currently A novel, unexpected, and infrequent in the marketplace. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the factors that inf luence consumers’ reasons for and against ­brand-​­supported ­anti-​­consumption that were described above in order to understand and predict the consumer responses to these activities. Factors that moderate these responses will be myriad, but they can be organized into brand elements, consumer differences, and contextual inf luences. These three factors will inf luence the consumer response and, subsequently the marketplace outcomes. Next, we draw from the literature on green consumption and corporate social responsibility (­CSR) to put forth some of the factors that we believe will be meaningful in each category. Brand Factors. For brands to support ­consumer-​­level ­anti-​­consumption, it is important to consider its current and historical brand positioning, brand actions, and communication activities. There has been some research specific to the role of brand positioning in GD messaging. Armstrong Soule and Reich (­2015) showed that consumers attribute more altruistic (­and less exploitative) motives to GD initiatives of a brand with an excellent environmental reputation and as a result, evaluate the GD brand more positively. da Luz et al. (­2020) showed that luxury (­vs. m ­ ass-​­market) positioning leads to more positive evaluations of a brand using a GD (­vs. environmental) message. However, they found no differences for brands with strong green positioning. The concepts of luxury and product durability as well as quality align well with each other and can be used to emphasize an ­anti-​­consumption positioning (­Janssen et al., 2014). More broadly, CSR research has shown higher perceived sincerity and credibility and resulting in positive brand attitudes when there is a high “­­company–​ ­cause fit” (­Ellen et  al., 2006), CSR focused positioning (­Du et  al., 2007), engagement in proactive (­vs. reactive) CSR activities (­Groza et al., 2011), and a credible CSR communication campaign (­Eberle et al., 2013). As the concept of fit (­or congruence) between the CSR cause and brand (­and its business model) encompasses all the ­above-​­mentioned factors, it is a widely studied factor in the CSR literature (­de Jong, & van der Meer, 2017) and we expect will translate to an ­anti-​­consumption context. It may be that brands that make and sell tangible goods being “­­anti-​­consumption” are inherently perceived as a poor fit. However, we suggest that a brand positioning built around supporting ­anti-​­consumption at the category level through a credible business model and ­well-​­executed marketing mix can in fact be seen as ­high-​­fit. When an apparel brand with an a­ nti-​­consumption positioning aims to reduce category consumption by making clothes that last longer through a minimal waste process, it is achieving a high ­brand-​­cause fit and is likely to be perceived as more proactive as well as more credible. Organizational strategy literature suggests that implementing sustainability strategies as separate and peripheral to a company’s mainstream competitive

58  Catherine Armstrong Soule and Tejvir Sekhon

strategy is likely to result in a mere symbolic adoption of sustainability strategies (­Aguinis & Glavas, 2013). However, embedding sustainability into core competencies and integrating it within a firm’s strategy, routines, and operations at the policy, organizational, and action levels is important for achieving positive outcomes for the society and the firm (­Aguinis & Glavas, 2013; Bromley & Powell, 2012; Yuan et al., 2011). Patagonia is a great example of a company using GD as the main competitive strategy where sustainability is embedded into everything the company and the brand do to distinguish itself from the competition. Therefore, brand actions that match public commitment to reduce consumption and environmental footprint at the category level can serve an important communication function. In addition to the broad positioning and concrete brand actions, specific communication strategies play an important role in terms of how consumers perceive brands’ ­anti-​­consumption actions. Reich and Armstrong Soule (­2016) showed that for institutional ads, GD (­vs. green) appeals lead to more favorable evaluations whereas for product ads, green (­vs. GD) appeals lead to more favorable evaluations and the effect is mediated by inferences of higher environmental concern in both cases. This shows that consumers are less skeptical of the brand’s motives if environmentalism is a core component of the brand’s identity and the business model instead of a o ­ ne-​­off communication campaign for a particular product. CSR literature also shows the importance of framing in crafting credible messages (­Atkinson & Kim, 2014). Framing refers to the way certain elements of a message are highlighted and made salient as compared to others (­Entman, 1993). A GD message could be framed in terms of personal benefits (­convenience, status, simplicity, durability, quality, ­cost-​­savings, etc.) or prosocial benefits (­environmental, social justice, animal welfare, etc.). Therefore, more research is needed to test the effectiveness of these different types of frames with different types of target segments (­e.g., green vs. n ­ on-​­green consumers). It is important that communications are matched by the actions of the firm to avoid perceptions of hypocrisy. However, building on the idea of “­CSR as aspirational talk” in terms of ambitious CSR communication acting as a driver of organizational change (­Chaudhri, 2016; Christensen et al., 2013), we suggest that brand communications can also play an aspirational role not just for the company but for the consumer society and capitalistic system as a whole. Vredenburg et al. (­2020) argue that authentic brand activism has the potential for bringing social change in the service of social justice goals. Similarly, GD communications can motivate external and internal stakeholders to understand the critical need to reduce consumption more broadly in order to achieve climate and sustainability goals. Consumer Factors. Based on past consumer research, several lifestyle and trait differences will likely moderate the relationship between reasons for and against ­anti-​­consumption and the outcomes. For example, materialism (­Banerjee  & McKeage, 1994), compulsive consumption (­Hassay & Smith, 1996), advertising skepticism (­Obermiller & Spangenberg, 1998), frugality (­Lastovicka et al., 1997),

Green Demarketing Brands  59

and voluntary simplicity (­Shaw & Newholm, 2002), among others, should be explored as moderators in the context of ­brand-​­supported ­anti-​­consumption. CSR literature has shown that consumers’ existing level of support for a CSR cause is an important factor that determines their response to the particular CSR activities (­A lcañiz et al., 2010). Similarly, green marketing research has focused on understanding green consumers and developing a typology of them based on both demographics as well as psychographics (­Atkinson & Kim, 2014; Bennett & Williams, 2011; Shrum et al., 1995) with the goal of identifying consumers who are most likely to have positive intentions and behaviors towards green products. Therefore, existing proclivity towards environment oriented ­anti-​­consumption and other individual differences such as ­eco-​­friendliness and green motivations can be important moderators for these strategies. ­A nti-​­consumption research needs to build upon but also extend these research streams in two important ways. One, most sustainability research is focused on targeting a small sliver of consumers who are more ­other-​­oriented (­prosocial/­environmental) and collective and have a ­long-​­term outlook as opposed to a larger segment of consumers who are more ­self-​­oriented and pursue personal, ­short-​­term goals (­Naderi & Strutton, 2015). Brands can target both of these segments by clearly identifying and targeting their potential customers based on their reasons for and against b­ rand-​­supported ­anti-​­consumption. It may be more beneficial for brands to focus on the larger, “­lighter” green segment of consumers in order to drive ­larger-​­scale change since there are more of them and they have more room to reduce their consumption footprints as compared to the smaller group of extremely green or existing a­ nti-​­consumers. Second, though Armstrong Soule and Reich (­2015) showed that green consumers attribute more altruistic motives to a GD brand, research on green marketing is equivocal in terms of whether green consumers take environmental messages at face value or are more skeptical of them (­Johnstone & Tan, 2015; Zinkhan & Carlson, 1995). An a­ nti-​­consumption message from a f­or-​­profit brand is so ­counter-​­normative that it is bound to generate some skepticism amongst different customer segments and so, it is important to identify how various individuals differing in their personal and prosocial goal orientations react to such messages. Contextual Factors. Contextual factors related to the type of industry and the competitive dynamics within the category could determine perceptions of the brand’s authenticity and intrinsic motivation in terms of its GD initiatives. ­Industry-​­specific factors could include how egregious the particular industry has been in terms of overconsumption and environmental impact, and how strong the pressures or incentives are from external stakeholders (­Delmas & Burbano, 2011). Competitive dynamics could include whether the brand has been a first mover or follower in terms of adopting a GD strategy, and how proactive the company has been relative to competition in terms of acknowledging its contribution to the environmental harm. CSR literature has started looking at consumer perceptions of CSR activities of companies in “­sinful” or “­controversial”

60  Catherine Armstrong Soule and Tejvir Sekhon

industries, i.e., categories that have particularly grave societal and/­or environmental costs and how stakeholder pressure and expectations in these categories are different (­Aqueveque et al., 2018; Lindgreen et al., 2012; Oh et al., 2017). Perez et al. (­2015) argue that stakeholders in such categories are more demanding in terms of how firms in these categories should engage in CSR. Aqueveque et al. (­2018) showed that CSR activities can increase the reputation of firms in controversial industries but only in the case of a specific type of ­company–​­cause fit, i.e., by directly reducing the inherent controversial impact. This suggests that brands from industries egregious for their environmental impact can use GD as an effective CSR strategy as it is directly linked to reducing the harmful impact of the category. However, they need to first acknowledge the historical harm their industries might have done in order to be perceived as authentic in their commitment to ­brand-​­supported ­anti-​­consumption. Next, we will explore a range of possible outcomes of GD strategies for the brand, the consumer, and the environment depending upon how these strategies impact consumption at the brand and category level. Outcomes Given the novelty of GD strategies, predicting outcomes is of utmost importance. The goal of this research is to assist brands support ­anti-​­consumption successfully, meaning that the brand remains profitable and reduces category consumption. From this viewpoint, we must explore the effects of these strategies on both focal brand consumption and category consumption patterns (­see ­Figure 3.2). Failure. If a GD strategy does not (­1) reduce category consumption and also does not (­2) enhance brand equity or share for the brand itself, it is a failure. There is the chance that these actions and messages are disregarded or just f latly ineffective. Even worse, it is possible that there be a backlash or

­Figure 3.2  G  reen Demarketing Outcomes Based on Consumption Changes

Green Demarketing Brands  61

reactance against the GD brand eroding its equity while increasing (­or maintaining) category consumption of the brand’s competitors. Traditional Marketing Success. While increased sales for the brand would usually be seen as a marketing success, in this case, it needs to be qualified. GD activities cannot be seen as true successes from a triple ­bottom-​­line perspective if overall consumption is increased (­or maintained). This possible outcome lies at the heart of the consumers’ perception of ­d isingenuousness –​ ­brands still make products, grow and make more profits, but it remains at the expense of the environment. Another possibility is that consumers could display licensing effects (­K han  & Dhar, 2006)  – by ​­ reducing consumption through the support of the focal brand, they may act “­badly” in future purchase and consumption contexts. Social Marketing Success. Another mixed result would be that both category consumption and ­brand-​­specific consumption are reduced. This is positive from an environmental perspective but is troubling when considering a marketing strategy. A ­for-​­profit brand is not in the business of social marketing only and must remain financially viable to continue to operate. So, if GD actions reduce consumption but do not result in brand benefits, these actions are not sustainable within the capitalistic system. The messages or the actions may successfully remind consumers that reducing their consumption is imperative and they may do so, but it would be at the expense of the l­ong-​­term viability of the brand. GD Success. These campaigns are ­win-­​­­win-​­wins, where the brand has enabled and supported the consumer to reduce category consumption in the marketplace and achieved brand benefits (­such as sales, increased market share, brand equity, and quality perceptions). Another possibility is that some consumers will abstain from the purchase because they deem it unnecessary, but when they do need to purchase down the road, at a reduced rate, it could reward the company in the future. Further, even if abstaining from category consumption altogether, consumers can have a positive image of the company that can contribute to positive word of mouth and reputational benefits that influence others. Any metric of success here requires a ­long-​­term view in that category consumption reduction often relies on forgoing future consumption. Such a metric could be challenging to develop but this result would be the gold standard. When Patagonia’s Don’t Buy This Jacket campaign ran, it sold a lot of jackets. It is difficult to measure whether GD strategies like this one are only traditional marketing successes or whether they have a real, l­ong-​­term impact on consumption patterns. Understanding this framework will offer guidance to ensure that brands are authentically bolstering their brand and achieving positive environmental impact through consumption reduction.

Research Agenda for Brands and A ­ nti-​­Consumption Future research should explore and empirically test if and how the facilitators and inhibitors of b­ rand-​­supported ­anti-​­consumption outlined here are

62  Catherine Armstrong Soule and Tejvir Sekhon

able to reduce consumption at the category level. This is challenging to capture and will require mixed methods research, including longitudinal and qualitative methodological designs. Though we hope that by building strong ­consumer-​­brand relationships, brands should be able to help consumers in their ­anti-​­consumption journeys, there could be some unintended negative ­individual-​­level consequences such as licensing (­i.e., increased consumption) at both the brand and category levels. Brands may bestow consumers with a readymade and perhaps unearned a­ nti-​­consumer identity that might prevent real behavioral change and even worse could promote more needless consumption. Therefore, longitudinal sales data at the brand and the category level can go a long way in establishing the outcomes of this strategy for the brand, the consumers, and especially, the environment and society at large. Another challenge is defining the borders of reduced consumption related to the brand and its product portfolio. We conceptualize reduced consumption as related to the same product (­LastSwab = no more ­q-​­tips) but considering other items that the brand may sell and how is that related to an individual’s other ­cross-​­categorical consumption in other areas adds complexity to measuring the effectiveness of these strategies. Empirical research is also needed to understand and test a multitude of the brand, consumer, and contextual factors that could likely moderate the relationship between reasons for and against ­brand-​­supported a­nti-​­consumption, and the intended outcomes in terms of brand equity and category consumption.

Conclusion Brands have a meaningful and critical role in not only supporting, but also driving ­large-​­scale consumption changes resulting in reduced societal consumption. GD activities by f­or-​­profit brands have the potential to be more impactful than individual or regulatory efforts if executed successfully. Brands inhabit a sweet spot between macro (­regulation) and micro (­individual behavior change) levels that allow for quick adaptation and scaling. But, strategically, these brands must be rewarded by consumers in the marketplace in order to be successful in driving real change. This chapter suggests a framework that businesses can employ to consider motivations for and against b­ rand-​­supported ­anti-​­consumption and the brand, consumer, and contextual factors at play to better understand and predict the responses and outcomes related to these strategies.

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66  Catherine Armstrong Soule and Tejvir Sekhon Ouellette, L. (­2019). Spark joy? Compulsory happiness and the feminist politics of decluttering. Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 11(­­3 –​­4), 5­ 34–​­550. Park, C. W., Jaworski, B. J., & MacInnis, D. J. (­1986). Strategic brand c­ oncept-​­image management. Journal of Marketing, 50(­4), ­135–​­145. Peattie, K., & Charter, M. (­2003). Green marketing. In M.J. Baker (­Ed.), The Marketing Book: 5th Edition (­p­­p. ­726–​­755). Oxford: ­Butterworth-​­Heinemann. Perez, A., García de los Salmones, Md. M., & Lopez, C. (­2015). Corporate reputation in the Spanish context: An interaction between reporting to stakeholders and industry. Journal of Business Ethics, 129(­3), 7­ 33–​­746. Reich, B. J.,  & Armstrong Soule, C. A. (­2016). Green demarketing in advertisements: Comparing “­buy green” and “­buy less” appeals in product and institutional advertising contexts. Journal of Advertising, 45(­4), ­441–​­458. Richetin, J., Perugini, M., Conner, M., Adjali, I., Hurling, R., Sengupta, A.,  & Greetham, D. (­2012). To reduce and not to reduce resource consumption? That is two questions. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32(­2), ­112–​­122. Scott, K. A., & Weaver, S. T. (­2018). The intersection of sustainable consumption and anticonsumption: Repurposing to extend product life spans. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 37(­2), 2­ 91–​­305. Seegebarth, B., Peyer, M., Balderjahn, I., & Wiedmann, K. P. (­2016). The sustainability roots of anticonsumption lifestyles and initial insights regarding their effects on consumers’ well-being. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 50(­1), ­68–​­99. Seele, P., & Gatti, L. (­2017). Greenwashing revisited: In search of a typology and ­accusation-​­based definition incorporating legitimacy strategies. Business Strategy and the Environment, 26(­2), ­239–​­252. Sekhon, T. S.,  & Armstrong Soule, C. A. (­2020). Conspicuous anticonsumption: When green demarketing brands restore symbolic benefits to anticonsumers. Psychology & Marketing, 37(­2), 2­ 78–​­290. Shaw, D., & Newholm, T. (­2002). Voluntary simplicity and the ethics of consumption. Psychology & Marketing, 19(­2), ­167–​­185. Shiu, E., Hassan, L. M., & Walsh, G. (­2009). Demarketing tobacco through governmental ­policies–​­The 4Ps revisited. Journal of Business Research, 62(­2), 2­ 69–​­278. Shrum, L., McCarty, J., & Lowrey, T. (­1995). Buyer characteristics of the green consumer and their implications for advertising strategy. Journal of Advertising, 24(­2), 7­ 1–​­82. Tsai, C. I., & Thomas, M. (­2011). When does feeling of f luency matter? How abstract and concrete thinking inf luence f luency effects. Psychological Science, 22(­3), ­348–​­354. Valor, C., Diaz, E. M., & Merino, A. (­2017). The discourse of the consumer resistance movement: Adversarial and prognostic framings through the lens of power. Journal of Macromarketing, 37(­1), ­72–​­84. Vermeir, I.,  & Verbeke, W. (­2008). Sustainable food consumption among young adults in Belgium: Theory of planned behaviour and the role of confidence and values. Ecological Economics, 64(­3), 5­ 42–​­553. Vredenburg, J., Kapitan, S., Spry, A., & Kemper, J. A. (­2020). Brands taking a stand: Authentic brand activism or woke washing? Journal of Public Policy  & Marketing, 39(­4), ­444–​­460. Yuan, W., Bao, Y., & Verbeke, A. (­2011). Integrating CSR initiatives in business: An organizing framework. Journal of Business Ethics, 101(­1), ­75–​­92. Zinkhan, G. M.,  & Carlson, L. (­1995). Green advertising and the reluctant consumer. Journal of Advertising, 24(­2), 1­ –​­6.

4 “­I am NOT a consumer” or “­I don’t WANT to be a consumer” or “­I CAN’T be a consumer” A fresh look at the new strategies consumers use to avoid the marketplace Susan Dobscha Introduction I was asked to write this chapter because I am considered one of the “­old timers” in this corner of academia. My dissertation, published in 1995, focused on women who had made a commitment to live as sustainably as they could. Terms like “­reduce carbon footprint,” and “­food miles” didn’t exist back then but my informants were engaging in exactly those behaviors. Perhaps most radical, they refused to label themselves as consumers; to do so, in their minds, was to perpetuate a wasteful global capitalist system that did much more harm than good. They could be described as “­market avoiders” or “­market critics.” Their heroic efforts in their ­hyper-​­local environment are what led me to devote my entire career to advancing the agenda of these women. This chapter is devoted to them. Thirty years ago, when I began my academic journey to professorhood, I changed geographic regions within the USA. Prior to this move, I spent most of my childhood in Texas and New Mexico, typically referred to as the “­A merican Southwest,” in the 1980s before it became a playground for billionaires such as Elon Musk and Jeffrey Epstein and a retirement haven for New Yorkers. My family experienced many natural disasters including extreme drought, f looding, tornadoes, and heat waves. These extreme climate conditions forced us to change our consumption behavior. We were often living under water bans and other government mandates. For example, it wasn’t until I moved back to the Eastern USA that I was given a glass of water at a restaurant without asking for it. I thought this was a luxury but also a waste. I also experienced the deleterious effects of suburban sprawl as we moved every 18 months into new and more remote subdivisions of Texas and New Mexico. One house that we lived in sat next to a creek that had been excavated and r­e-​­routed to make room for a golf course. Every time it rained, the edges

DOI: 10.4324/9780367821586-6

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of the creek crept up to our house’s foundation. I moved to Blacksburg VA in 1990 to begin my doctoral studies at Virginia Tech in part to connect with my Appalachian roots. Both sides of my family are ­multi-​­generational West Virginians and one side of my family has been there since before the civil war. I took this opportunity to learn more about my family’s toils and sacrifices as they were forced to become coal and steel miners. I also learned about how coal companies raped pristine mountain ranges for profit. White men that owned these companies got rich off the backs of my ancestors. My great grandfather died in the mines and my great grandmother was denied his pension. She raised four young boys by sewing and taking in boarders. When I arrived in Virginia in 1990, I was neither an environmentalist nor a feminist. By the time I left four years later, I strongly identified as both and my dissertation was squarely situated at this intersection. I continue to publish in this area to this day (­Prothero and Dobscha, 2021). My dual interests in the emancipation of women and the preservation of the planet led me to the ­anti-​­consumption canon. My dissertation had one rather heretical theme: “­I am not a consumer” (­Dobscha, 1995). Since then, consumers have tried to define themselves outside the marketplace with varied success. But the important thing is that some consumers are actually interested and trying to extract themselves from mainstream marketplaces locally and global capitalist practices generally. ­A nti-​­consumption research continues to study those consumers who at least attempt to disentangle from market practices they deem wasteful and unethical. Yet, we have to ask ourselves at this particular historical moment in time: have we done enough? Are we accomplishing the editors’ desire to acknowledge ­anti-​­consumption in ways that benefit nature, society, our w ­ ell-​­being, as well as the less privileged populations, and so to bring ­anti-​­consumption to debates on gender inequalities, poverties, and questions of privilege and access is important (­­anti-​­consumption book proposal)? And it is impossible to ignore the impact the C ­ OVID-​­19 pandemic has had on consumption, production, globalization, capitalism, philanthropy, health care, and community. The pandemic revealed to us our true selves, and the revelations were mixed at best. From a global health perspective, the pandemic highlighted what most of us already knew, that the most vulnerable among us are always at higher risk of contracting whatever plagues come our way. Financially, the C ­ OVID-​­19 pandemic also left no doubt that the “­rich get richer” during crises while the middle and lower echelons of the s­ocio-​ ­economic ladder suffer. Billionaire wealth rose 35% from $3.4bn to $4.6bn during the pandemic (­­Peterson-​­Withorn, 2021) while lower strata struggled to put food on the table, keep jobs, and pay rent (­Covid Hardship Watch, 2021). As opportunities for consumer spending plummeted, savings rates skyrocketed among the wealthy nations in the world (­Gailey, 2021). Nations with typically

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high consumption rates saw extraordinary increases in savings rates, while countries with struggling economies saw more people pulling money from savings in order to cover basic expenses (­Dossche et al., 2021). Many consumers stockpiled disposable income when they halted their commutes, postponed socializing with friends in restaurants and cafes, stopped drinking retail big chain coffee, canceled vacations, and were unable to consume everyday personal care products such as dry cleaning, hair, and nail care, and gym memberships. This reduction in consumer spending was for the most part involuntary. But, even if temporary and involuntary, many consumers were confronted for the first time with the visceral experience of “­not being able to consume.” It will be interesting to see if this temporary discomfort leads to a rethinking of consumption patterns or a rush to return to normalcy, or perhaps both. Not surprisingly, the fear of widespread reductions in consumer spending was immediately labeled a crisis by the financial services industry. Large global financial conglomerates began pushing for the “­unlocking” of “­excess saving from Covid” as early as April 2020 (­w ww.eulerhermes.com). Instead of lauding the more conservative spending habits of millions of consumers, Euler Hermes, the global leader in “­­trade-​­credit insurance,” warned of a “­precautionary savings” crisis and recommended three policies for “­unlocking savings.” Investment consultants recommended that “­policymakers should focus on policies to unlock savings” and that investors should focus on “­tests, masks, sanitary protocols and vaccines” in their financial portfolios in order to “­create a conducive environment for dissaving.” They provided guidance to their financial advisors to advise “­avoiding deadweight effects” of saving and instead investing in infrastructure, warned that customers may feel an “­­old-​ ­age provision” that may make them balk at investing their COVID windfalls (“­Europe should unlock excess savings from ­Covid-​­19 response,” 2020). Meanwhile, money has become incredibly “­cheap”; savings interest rates are basically at 0% and mortgage and car loan rates are at historic lows. Cheap money coupled with a powerful global financial sector studying ways in which to “­nudge” consumers to spend their savings back into the marketplace during a global crisis is just one illustration of how much the global economy relies on one thing to keep it going: rampant consumption and sustained consumerism. It is clear that the climate crisis is predominantly a crisis of consumption (­and production of said consumables), or perhaps more specifically, a crisis of waste. Aff luent nations create more waste, both from consumption and production than less aff luent nations. Less aff luent nations, however, are more prone to ecological destruction, such as deforestation, drought, f looding, and the like. The same s­ocio-​­economic group that was socking away all their excess income is also the biggest ­consumer-​­based contributor to pollution and environmental degradation. We contribute through our larger houses, ­gas-​ ­g uzzling cars, larger families, larger amounts of bottled water, longer and farther vacations, and less donation behavior per capita (­W hat a Waste 2.0). Add these catastrophic events together and you have the current global climate crisis we are all facing (­Gerretson, 2021).

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In order to combat what seems like inevitable global devastation, academic collectives began tackling this problem from every possible angle. Even marketing is trying to create a world where consumption is defetishized and rendered less powerful. It is difficult for any critical perspective (­including Marxism, feminism, and decolonialism) to gain a foothold in an academic discipline that fetishizes capitalism, consumption, and firm performance. ­A nti-​­consumption has created new knowledge by first operationalizing it as a behavior, attitude, lifestyle, set of motivations, or set of practices. Without going into an overview of all ­anti-​­consumption literature (­cf. Makri et al., 2020)), Makri provides a synthesis of the major issues in play: ­A nti-​­consumption is treated as “behavior (­e.g., García-de-Frutos et  al., 2015), attitude (­e.g., Galvagno, 2011), lifestyle (­e.g., Cherrier  & Murray, 2007), set of motivations (­e.g., Cherrier, Black, & Lee, 2011; Iyer & Muncy, 2009; Lee et al., 2009a; Sandikci & Ekici, 2009), or set of practices (­e.g., Cherrier, 2009).” (­Makri et al., 2020) While Makri et  al. (­2020) call for a more specific definition in order to develop reliable measures into a valid construct, I say that by keeping the definition broad, it allows for all possible avenues of research to fit under its umbrella. My early work on e­ co-​­feminism and sustainability fits neatly within Zavestoski’s definition (­2002): “­resistance to, distate of, or even resentment or rejection of consumption.” “­the pandemic changed everything”-​­or did it? The ­COVID-​­19 Pandemic of 2020 will be a permanent historical marker much like 9/­11, Crystal Nacht, the London bombings, and ­D-​­Day. Of course, it is too early to determine if such a crisis will result in a cataclysmic shift in ideology. Commentators like Giridharadas (­2021) predict it will not have a major impact on the way global economies are structured, income inequality, or how social safety are and are not created and maintained because the inherent global structures of stock markets, tax loopholes, global financing, and trade, haven’t changed. Yet, science in all fields rushed to research how this pandemic was impacting people, communities, nations, and the planet. While epidemiologists traced the genome and created vaccines, social justice researchers quickly pointed out the racial inequalities in C ­ OVID-​­related illness and deaths. Marketing as a discipline has had its own C ­ OVID-​­19 research gold rush. A recent special issue call for papers for the Journal of Association of Consumer Research (­JACR) on COVID received 138 manuscripts. The amount was so voluminous that the special issue editors decided to run two volumes, one in January 2020 and one in January 2021 (­private correspondence). Of the 20 papers accepted, zero focused on ­anti-​­consumption. The most relevant paper on ­anti-​­consumption is Wilson et al. (­2022) who found that consumers who declined social interactions were afraid they would be harshly judged. This decision to avoid or resist social gatherings was fraught with fears of potential isolation or loss of friendships. Similar results were found by Cherrier and Areni (­2021) with regard to

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the politicization of masks and mask wearing. It will be quite a while before we know what the ­long-​­term repercussions will be of this pandemic on consumers’ attitudes, motivations, lifestyles, or practices. Sustainability researchers are hoping that this pandemic will act as a “­reset” button on overconsumption, fossil fuel consumption, o ­ ver-​­production of nonessential goods, and a restructuring of economies, governments, and communities in order to reverse the trends that are threatening to destroy the planet. Yet, history has consistently proven that societies yearn to return to the good ole days after a substantial global interruption (­A mbrosino, 2020). As discussed above, the speed with which the financial, investment, and government institutions labeled inf lated savings rates as problematic and the requirement of these same institutions to show consistent growth to satiate stakeholders and voters, the possibility of a global shift away from overconsumption and hypercapitalism seems low.

Now is our time…isn’t it? But in the spirit of hope, I’d like to take a look at some encouraging indicators that a shift in ideology may be happening. Only with widescale, global shifts in ideology, rather than mundane shifts in everyday consumption habits, will we be able to combat the climate crisis. Having said that, mundane shifts may be just what we need to study in order to start to expose the fissures in ­long-​­standing institutions that have prevented us from shifting human ideology away from consumption. If a­ nti-​­consumption is to become healthy, if not competing, paradigm, we must be prepared for the fallout that this shift will create. For example, the stock market and firm valuation must be rethought. Economic indicators such as GDP must also be dismantled. The word “­g rowth” would have to be stricken from the language taught to business students and sought by financiers. And our thirst for consumption immediacy would have to be quenched by other things. The pandemic has put a halt to many c­ onsumption-​­related activities: vacations, parties, dining out, and business travel. Yet, it increased our reliance on delivered goods via Amazon, Instacart, Ubereats, and the like. The Great Toilet Paper Rush of 2020 confounded many of us who study consumption for a living. Why toilet paper? We understood hand sanitizer, alcohol wipes, masks, but toilet paper? And what about the guy who was publicly shamed for buying up all the hand sanitizer and then selling it for a premium? Wasn’t he just applying the same principles we teach our students about supply and demand? About scarcity of goods and price premiums? Why was his ­behavior-​­labeled wrong while Amazon continued to place delivery fees on essential items that consumers were not able to obtain through brick and mortar retailers?

Indicators that bigger conversations are beginning to happen The pandemic has broken some things loose that were deeply entrenched for generations. Some of these things have been good; some of these things have

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been bad. However, both of these loosenings have been crucial to propel conversations both big and small. While families have had to wrestle with their own hard conversations, around political and scientific ideology, larger, more powerful entities have also begun to grapple more directly with the social and political challenges that surfaced during 2020. #BLM and #MeToo were just two social justice movements that shaped the global conversation in 2020. Racism came to a head in several countries while more subtle forms of discrimination, such as s­ocio-​­economic, immigrant status, and rural/­urban also came to the fore. Global companies and brands had a racial reckoning in 2020 and major brands reviewed, retired, or reconfigured traditional logos in light of a new understanding of the relationship between marketing and racism (­Spielmann et al. 2021). For some brands, a­ nti-​­consumption in the form of boycotts forced companies to take critical internal inventory of their diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. These boycotts were not merely “­cancel culture” as labeled by critics of consumer activism; brands such as Schweppes, Kholo, Gillette, and TopShop experienced a reduction in sales as a result of their ­tone-​­deaf or offensive responses (­Baggs, 2019; Dobush, 2018; ­Reyes-​ ­Menendez et al., 2020). In a way, the national responses to the pandemic clearly ref lected the core values of each nation. Nations where the group is favored over the individual fared better; nations where the individual is favored fared worse. Countries that rely on democratic socialism as their dominant political paradigm were better able to persuade their citizens to act for the betterment of all. ­Hyper-​ ­capitalistic countries are failing miserably. This initial, clearly anecdotal, evidence points to the conclusion that where capitalism is most fetishized, the pandemic exacted a larger toll. Capitalism, like viruses, thrives on the backs of connected physical and social infrastructures. Since the advent of the modern global spice trade in the 15th century, production, trade, and consumption require physical and virtual connectedness and local intermediaries. Viruses were spread as a result of new global trade routes. The current pandemic seems to have spread in modern distribution hubs such as airports and ground transportation. In order to view the pandemic through the lens of a­ nti-​­consumption, these viewpoints must be studied further with more rigor. But what is clear from 2020, is that the presence of consumption did not save us from a pandemic. Can its absence save us? And as Witkowski (­2021) rightly points out, can we decouple ­anti-​­consumption from political poles in order to improve upon its reach, thus giving those of us who research in this area the solution we have been pleading for: decentralizing consumption globally and within our discipline. Can this pandemic and its aftermath be the impetus to mobilize consumers against particular types of consumption that are dangerous, deadly, polluting, materialistic, and unethical? And can we begin to see some trends as Makri et al. (­2020) ask for in their synthesis by including voluntary vs. nonvoluntary ­anti-​­consumption, intentional vs. unintentional ­anti-​­consumption, ­anti-​­consumption based on availability, or ­motive-​­intensive vs. ­motive-​­neutral

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intentions. For example, the great toilet paper shortage of 2020 will undoubtably be studied for generations to come. Yet, what should be equally studied are those things we did without. Consumers of a certain means did without leisure travel, ­in-​­person wellness services, dining out, housekeeping, and commuting. Those things we were able to so easily cut out (­either voluntarily or involuntarily) deserve our attention as well. As in all crises, new behaviors emerge to deal with new restrictions. In this case, many consumers were immediately cut off from their workplaces, nonessential shopping, friends and family members, places of worship, informal places of leisure, and travel. How will this ­full-​­stop withdrawal from these facets of consumption impact our ­long-​­term consumption patterns? Did new market alternatives emerge to fill the gap left by our inability (­due to shortages) or unwillingness (­due to fears of contracting the virus) to engage in these consumption practices? One of the markets that has emerged during the pandemic is “­­hyper-​­local” buy nothing groups. “­Hyper local” is a broadly used term to ref lect the closeness and shortness of the distribution channel from producer to consumer. De ­Chabert-​­Rios and Deale (­2018) defined the term ­hyper-​­local to study restaurants as local sourcing of the foods used in those restaurants, in some cases “­from the restaurant’s own properties” (­­p.  389). ­Hyper-​­local marketing is a term used in small business circles to refer to “­a very specific area, locally… very close to home (­your place of business)” (­Wolfe, 2019, n.p.). Examples of ­hyper-​­locality include the people in your office, local park, driving down Main Street, and everyone else within walking or driving the distance to a particular destination, or, that is united somehow into one identifiable community. ­Vorobjovas-​­Pinta et D ­ ella-​­Fontana (­2019) studied the use of dating apps by gay patrons of a resort and found perplexing results that the patrons continued to use the apps even though they were all at a very inclusive, open g­ ay-​­resort vacation. And Baines (­2012) used the term h ­ yper-​­local in relation to how local news can serve to bind rural communities together. He argues that ­hyper-​ ­local news should be c­o-​­produced by the local citizenry and should display and convey the ­hyper-​­specific cultural mores, norms, traditions, and customs that uniquely bind small communities, with the goal being to “­maintain the social and cultural interests of its inhabitants, including equal access to various services, good opportunities for political and cultural participation, expression and integration and an enduring sense of community” (­Baines, p­p. 153, 212). Did engagement with ­hyper-​­local markets increase during the pandemic? In the USA, the answer is unequivocally yes. Exchange sites such as Freecycle saw over a 100% increase in posts during the time frame. BNP saw an increase in members from 2.5 to 4 million in less than a year. Other authors have discussed how consumers create new markets in the absence of a viable alternative (­Martin and Schouten, 2014; Roux and Guiot, 2020), and sustainability researchers have established that things like “­food miles,” “­shop local,” and “­reduce, reuse, recycle” do have some impact on consumer behavior (­­Kemp-​­Benedict et al., 2010; Onozaka et al., 2010). Other

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forms of h ­ yper-​­local market practices, such as Craigslist or Freecycle, have not had the impact the founders had hoped for (­A rsel and Dobscha, 2011). While Craigslist offers a bit of localization (­north of Boston is one geographical category for example), Freecycle was very localized by town, however, users were not permitted to browse more than a few towns’ sites. This created a “­haves” and “­have nots” environment that the founders did not anticipate. ­Hyper-​­local markets may also suffer this same fate as one is only allowed to join the community group in which they reside. In fact, a recent rift in the “­Buy Nothing Salem MA” group resulted in a new group forming called “­Gift in Salem?” where new norms that attempted to hurdle this issue were created. These types of markets differ from Arsel’s conceptualization of “­recirculation markets” which she defines as those loose collectives that are formed via word of mouth and where members can participate in more than one community (­A rsel, 2016). These ­hyper-​­local markets are more akin to Guillard and Del Bucchia’s work on online recycling (­2012). They delineated their domain by focusing on sites where strangers exchange items for free. They concluded that online recycling can be both rewarding and liberating for givers: unlike giving to charities, it nurtures the recognition that some givers seek thanks to the interaction with the unknown recipient, and yet, unlike giving to family or friends, it does not create a bond of dependence.” (­pg. 49.)

The Buy Nothing Project The Buy Nothing Project (­BNP) defines its mission as a true “­g ift economy.” They define their h ­ yper-​­local communities as a place to “­g ive away, lend, or share among neighbors.” Their rules of conduct are typical of these types of groups: “­Keep it legal. Keep it civil. No buying or selling, no trades or bartering, we’re a gift economy.” Group membership is strictly limited to one’s own neighborhood or town and members may only be affiliated with one group. Without delving too much into the gifting literature, g­ ift-​­giving tends to rely on the concept of reciprocity (­P yyhtinen, 2014). With the BNP, there is no opportunity for direct reciprocity since bartering and exchanging are forbidden. In their attempt to describe their mission with the greatest deal of altruism as possible, they have confused several concepts that marketing scholars have studied, notably the “­sharing economy” (­Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2012) and traditional and cultural approaches to gifting (­Marcoux, 2009). The founders promise that this is “­not another recycling platform” but that the “­real wealth is the people involved and web of connections that form to support them.” Their goal is to “­share the abundance around us” by laying aside the “­scarcity model of our cash economy” (­BNP Website). The BNP website highlights such goals as sharing, sidestepping traditional economies, and creating local connections. As one member puts it:

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I am so thankful for the Buy Nothing Project! We have not only ­de-​ ­cluttered and found some pretty interesting things but I have formed many friendships and have learned a different way to give and think! I have been a volunteer admin for over a year now and love our local group, being a part of BNP has expanded my mind & heart and that of my families! We enjoy being part of such a great thing! This quote illustrates the key difference between BNP and other sharing groups such as Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. BNP emphasizes the fostering of social relationships that may form as a result of engaging with local neighbors while giving away or obtaining items. Indeed, this ­hyper-​­locality and the neighborly connection are codified into the BNP ecosystem, as explained by the owner to a person inquiring why he cannot join multiple BNP groups: Hi, Bob! Our mission is to create ­hyper-​­local gift economies in which the true wealth is the web of connections formed between people who are ­real-​­life neighbors. Because of this, we have a “­Give Where You Live” rule. Our groups are about connecting people more than about free stuff, and we’ve found that these connections need trust and familiarity to ­ yper-​­local group per person, the one where f lourish. So our rule is one h you live. Thanks for your interest in our social experiment! This explanation of BNP provides us with a clear roadmap to the intentions of the creators and the means by which they perceive success can be achieved (­through “­trust and familiarity”). How are objects actually exchanged? What is interesting about BNP is that they do not provide guidelines for who should receive the object if there are multiple takers. This issue ref lects how it is actually not really a gift economy because most gifts are exchanged on an interpersonal level between two people and formal and informal rules and norms are ingrained in the exchange. In a typical BNP post, several people will respond if they want the object. It is up to the giver to decide who receives it. In a forum post, the owners state: our members are free to select a recipient for their gifts in anyway they see fit. They can choose someone at random, select someone they already know, or try gifting to someone new. It is *ALWAYS* up to the giver to decide who they give to, there is no wrong way to choose a neighbor for your gift (­BNP website). On one local BNP page, givers have several different ways in which they decide who the receiver will be. Some people roll dice or use a random number generator. Others will ask a question: “­first to answer the following question….” And others will just choose the first person who responded and go

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down the list from there. Recently, a new member who just moved to the neighborhood from San Francisco shared a different system that worked well in her previous group: “­let it simmer” (­f ield notes 2021). This term means that the poster will wait a few hours to allow everyone to log into Facebook and see the post rather than just giving it away to the first person who responds. This simmering strategy was created by and for working mothers who felt excluded from items posted during work hours. This degree of thoughtfulness is very different from other sites where people will just answer with “­sold” (­a lthough there seems to be some emerging backlash from “­just replying sold” due to the perceived cold and rude nature of a ­one-​­word response). Some BNP members complain about people not picking things up after being gifted the item: Hey, Maggie! Thanks for your feedback. Each group finds the best way to work with situations like what you have described. Our ultimate goal is that when writing a post, members write them as though they are talking directly to their neighbor right next door. Sometimes, people get frustrated with slow pickups, n ­ o-​­shows, etc. and at this point, the admins can post a friendly reminder to all members. However, each member can post as they would like, as long as it meets the rules and guidelines. Feel free to reach out to your local admin and see if they are willing to post a friendly reminder to all members. We don’t consider this a rule, but it does help a group to foster community and connection. Feel free to reach out to me if you have more questions! The company’s founders often respond to consumer complaints in very upbeat and positive tones. Their corporate communication strategy ref lects the neighborly vibe they are trying to create. Responses to listed items are also more upbeat and neighborly than in traditional exchange sites such as Craiglist free stuff or Freecycle. The context seems to be a common inclusion in replies, thus reinforcing the “­trust and familiarity” credo the BNP creators intended: I did not know this existed. I have been working on my basement for months and have so many negatives and photos that I am trying to save. Three generations of photos. Thanks so much would love to be considered. Thank you. Would love to introduce Uncle Wiggly to our ­g reat -​­grands, 3 and 5, if not gone. I loved them as a child. I would really be happy to be considered for this desk lamp as I am trying to improve the lighting in my apartment in my jewelry making space! I would be very grateful thank you This personalization of responses from the receiver is designed to create an emotional connection with the giver so that the receiver will be chosen over

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others. A more cynical view is that people are having to “­sell” themselves in order to receive the “­g ift.” The giver then chooses the most worthy of the gift, in essence, reducing the altruistic nature of giving and placing it more squarely in the less fraternal “­exchange” economic platform. BNP’s complete agnosticism about what is exchanged is not without controversy. For example, pets and livestock can be given or received. Typically, sites such as Freecycle and Craigslist have banned animal trading due to unscrupulous animal breeders. BNP’s philosophy is based on the notion that ­hyper-​­local groups will have a higher level of trust among them due to the fact that “­strangers” can’t join and members begin to get to know their fellow members. The founders explain it thusly: Yes, we let people offer their pets and livestock to their fellow group members. We’re well aware of all of the horrible things that happen to animals when they’re carelessly ­re-​­homed or, worse, abandoned. When someone offers their beloved animals to a new home via their BNP group, they’re able to choose the new home, ask as many questions as they’d like, see where the animal will be living, and stay in touch with the people adopting it. We trust the transparency in our groups and the fact that our groups are populated by real life neighbors to provide a layer of protection not present in anonymous ­re-​­homing situations. When you find a new home for an animal in a BNP group, you’re doing that in full view of your neighbors, who will most definitely be keeping an eye on what’s happening. The last sentence hints at a more regulatory stance rather than a communal ­one-​­“­we are watching you.” Although it reduces things purchased which is good for the planet in the long run (­Benton Jr, 2015; McDonagh et al., 2020), the ­hyper-​­local nature of the BNP project does have its f laws. Particularly, in geodemographic areas with many small towns next to each other or large cities with distinct neighborhoods, communities are typically stratified by income and social class. Therefore, if a town or neighborhood is particularly wealthy, the strictness of the “­one town only” policy means that wealthy people are giving and receiving items from other wealthy people. Poorer towns also may only give and receive items to their members as well. This consequence of the one town policy means that the benefits of BNP cannot be transferred from wealthier to poorer communities. Sustainability professor Maurie Cohen noted that “­we can’t dismiss the process of stratification” (­cited in Kowitt, 2021, n.p.) that may make participating more comfortable. And, not surprisingly, “­higher levels of education and income in block groups are associated with the presence and activity of Buy Nothing Groups” (­Peters, 2020, pg. 1). In fact, one BNP group in Massachusetts decided that their ­hyper-​­local sharing circle was too small and skewed toward one income level so they created a new sharing group to be more inclusive of different s­ ocio-​­economic

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levels within the city (­field notes). That group attempted to overcome the stratification embedded in the BNP ethos. Yet, in the end, B ­ argain-​­Darrigues (­2021) states, “­those who have incorporated the a­ nti-​­consumerist discourse without radical lifestyle change” into their everyday lives are merely sidestepping the dominant consumer logic associated with capitalism. In the end, BNP and groups like them are still embedded in a capitalist system. They still rely on consumption to grow and thrive and they still put the onus of fixing the problem on the consumer.

Going forward Can the increased participation rates within BNP during the pandemic signal the dawn of a new a­nti-​­consumption movement? The data about participation rates are incontrovertible: between March 2020 and January 2021, BNP added 1.5 million new members, bringing the group to 4 million and Freecycle found posts increased by more than 100%. Top economist and consumption critic Juliet Schor noted “­The wastefulness, the cycle of acquisition and discard, is increasing unappealing to consumers” (­Kowitt, 2021, n.p.). She concludes that the pandemic may end up creating the push for meaningful change among the mainstream population. Whereas many environmentalists have worked hard to find new homes for outdated items, these consumers have remained mainly at the fringe. How can ­anti-​­consumption researchers harness the power of this disruptive moment in world history? Very rarely has there been a seismic shift in consciousness that has included all corners of the planet. What cultural, social, personal, political, and ideological shifts will create opportunities for ­anti-​­consumption researchers to promote their ideological agenda of reducing consumption globally in order to save and preserve it for future generations? Groups like BNP and others still represent a tiny fraction of the goods that are exchanged every day. Other initiatives, such as makerspaces, are also a part of this alternative economy by providing members the opportunity to make and repair things in a communal space rather than buying the tools themselves: Located in downtown Decatur, our 2,500 square foot makerspace has a woodshop, electronics shop, biolab, textiles area, arts and crafts, 3D printers, laser cutters, metalworking, and more under one roof. Our programs include membership to our space, classes that are open to the public, free community gatherings for youth and adults, youth STEAM outreach and teacher professional development, and solving problems with the help of our community expertise to build solutions for our community partners (­w ww.decaturmakers.org). Coworking spaces were also thought to be the wave of the future with real estate ­anti-​­consumption consequences on the line (­w ww.wework.com) until

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­ OVID-​­19 hit and many companies realized their workers could work from C home with similar levels of output. This disruption in how offices are conceived and used in the future is another area of fruitful pursuit for a­ nti-​­consumption researchers. If large swaths of the urban landscape that was previously dedicated to office buildings were suddenly repurposed, what ­large-​­scale problems could be addressed? It is exactly moments like this in history that disrupt our way of life, our way of thinking about previously taken for granted institutional structures, and allow us to dream bigger than ever before.

Defetishizing (­or merely refetishizing?) capitalism In the end, it all leads back to defetishizing consumption and more broadly capitalism. Giridharadas (­2019) provides a roadmap for part of this defishization by critiquing philanthropy by billionaires. He posits that philanthropic activities by ­multi-​­national corporations provide them cover from their transgressions, crimes, or merely unethical business practices. For example, Verizon touts its CSR initiatives by boasting that its employees donated 235,000 hours to local schools as volunteered, donated $7.4m, and matched that donation with $8m in donations. Their employees had to volunteer and contribute their own money to the program rather than Verizon just donating the money without relying on the forced philanthropy of their workers. He also dissects the hypocrisy of American billionaires donating millions of dollars a year to charities when those millions are but a tiny fraction of their total wealth, all while skirting paying taxes on their wealth through the use of “­good accountants.” Real reform can only be achieved through a wealth tax, a living wage, and the decoupling of health care from employment. Initiatives like BNP are not new. Craigslist and Freecycle have been around for many years and exist in almost every ­consumer-​­centric country. Sites where used items can be given away or requested have certainly contributed to the reduction in landfill waste, yet, have clearly not shifted the cultural tide away from buying new or buying more. Indeed, some critics claim that these types of sites in the end increase consumption because disposition has become so easy, g­ uilt-​­free, and indeed, been reconstituted to represent close community ties, feelings of kinship, and a sense of p­ ro-​­social satisfaction (­Mehta, 2020; The “­Buy Nothing” Groups on Facebook Are What Humanity Needs Right Now | by Foram Mehta | The Bold Italic.) It may appeal to consumers to reconstitute or give away their unneeded items because of the rising costs of waste disposal, which has steadily increased and is projected to climb even higher as land becomes more scarce (­Thompson et al., 2017). Adding to Iyer and Muncy’s typology of a­ nti-​­consumers there needs to be an acknowledgment of the geography of consumption. Perhaps a third vector should be added that ref lects the degree to which the a­ nti-​­consumption behavior is performed locally or globally. Local a­ nti-​­consumption sites seem to be less brand focused and more general consumption focused. While some consumers do brag about luxury items procured on BNG (“­I just got a Longchamps

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bag!”-​­Twitter 2020) for the most part BNG, Freecycle, and Craigslist are necessarily local and also dyadic in that people are giving away and receiving within the group. It is not a ­one-​­way redistribution of goods that sets it apart from other groups. Perhaps this factor could be called “­Mechanisms of a­ nti-​ ­consumption” and could enhance Iyer and Muncy’s typology by highlighting the intersections of the two primary mechanisms of a­ nti-​­consumption, local and global, with the two existing vectors, purpose and object. BNG is an example of engaging in the local mechanisms but global mechanisms would be avoiding products with unsafe or unethical production or distribution practices. It would seem that local exchanges would be more clustered around specific objects with both societal and personal concerns and less likely to be connected to “­global impact” a­ nti-​­consumption motivations. However, as one reviewer astutely pointed out, adjacent movements such as the “­g reen new deal” support local consumption and production shifts with the motivation being the desire to impact climate change globally. Because the exchange of goods is a decidedly physical experience, it is critical to incorporate the corporeality of these frameworks of a­ nti-​­consumers. This distinction seems to support the presence of a third vector because it supports that consumers may engage in local or global mechanisms with different purposes or intents in mind. My analysis of the growth of BNP during the pandemic should provide scholars with a launching pad for future and more robust research about the role ­hyper-​­local sharing economies play in the overall global consumption system. My analysis leaves more questions than answers. By the end of 2020, over 200,000 articles had been published about the pandemic during the pandemic (­Else, 2020). It is important, to try to take what we observed, discovered, learned, thought, and felt, and try to make sense of it from our own academic prisms. This chapter takes the first swing at the effect the pandemic had on one form of ­anti-​­consumption; I sincerely hope it will not be the last. ­Post-​­script: since this article was written, no less than 15 news articles have emerged that have substantiated some of the trends that were first discussed here. The New York Post described it as: “­an initiative…has since swept the nation,” and The Star headline read, “­W hat supply chain mess? For Buy Nothing devotees, it’s not a problem.” Indeed, one of the most politically conservative newspapers in the USA, the Wall Street Journal, declared BNP as an “­antidote to inflation” and claim that over two million people joined just during the pandemic in order to “­reduce waste, connect with neighbors and trim some spending as consumer prices rise sharply.”

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New strategies to avoid the marketplace  81 Ahluwalia, Tanya L. Chartrand, and Rebecca K. Ratner, Duluth, MN: Association for Consumer Research, pp. 66–67. Baggs, Michael (­2019). “­Gillette faces backlash and boycott over #MeToo advert,” BBC News online, January 15, accessed September 23, 2021 at https://­w ww.bbc. com/­news/­­newsbeat- ​­46874617 Bardhi, F., & G. M. Eckhardt (­2012). “­­Access-​­based consumption: The case of car sharing.” Journal of Consumer Research, 39(­4), ­881–​­898. ­Bargain-​­Darrigues, Gaelle (­2 021). “­P ractices of thrift among high cultural capital consumers: When economic status gets in the way of ethics,” Working Paper ASA. Benton Jr, R. (­2015). “­Reduce, reuse, recycle… and refuse.” Journal of Macromarketing, 35(­1), ­111–​­122. Covid Hardship Watch (­2021). Published by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, accessed July 28, 2021 at https://­w ww.cbpp.org/­research/­­poverty-­​­­a nd-​ ­i nequality/­­t racking-­​­­the-­​­­covid-­​­­19-­​­­recessions-­​­­effects-­​­­on-­​­­food-­​­­housing-​­a nd De ­Chabert-​­Rios, J., & C. S. Deale (­2018). “­Taking the local food movement one ­ yper-​­local restaurants.” Tourism and step further: An exploratory case study of h Hospitality Research, 18(­3), ­388–​­399. Dobscha, Susan (­1995). “­Women and the natural world and their marketplace activities,” Doctoral Dissertation, published May 2nd, Virginia Tech Press. Dobscha, S., McDonagh, P., & Prothero, A. (2020). “(Re) thinking distribution strategy: Principles from sustainability.” In Marketing Management. Routledge, pp. 443–456. Dobush, Grace (­2018). “­How a #MeToo scandal led to calls for a boycott of topshop,” Fortune magazine online, October 26, accessed on September 23rd, 2021 at https://­fortune.com/­2018/­10/­26/­­metoo-­​­­scandal-­​­­philip-­​­­g reen-​­topshop/ Dossche, Maarten, Georgi Krustev, & Stylianos Zlatanos (­2021). “­­Covid-​­19 and the increase in household savings: An update,” Economic Bulletin, Issue 5, May, a­ ccessed September 24, 2021 at https://­w ww.ecb.europa.eu/­pub/­­economic-​­bulletin/­html/ ­eb202105.en.html Else, Holly (­2020). “­How a torrent of COVID science changed research p­ ublishing—​ ­in seven charts,” Nature, December 17. Europe should unlock excess savings from C 19 response” (­ 2020). “­ Euler ­ ovid-​­ “­ Hermes Newsletter”, April 22, accessed on September 24, 2021 at https://­w ww. eulerhermes.com/­en_global/­­news-​­i nsights/­­economic-​­i nsights/­­Europe- ­​­­should-­​ ­­unlock-­​­­excess-­​­­savings-­​­­f rom-­​­­covid19-​­response.html Gailey, Alex (­2021). “­How has the Pandemic Impacted U.S. Savings Rates?” NextAdvisor Newsletter, Time Magazine, August 30, accessed September 24, 2021 at https://­t ime.com/­nextadvisor/­banking/­savings/­­us-­​­­saving-­​­­rate-​­soaring/ Gerretson, Isabelle (­2021). “­The State of the Climate in 2021,” BBC Future, accessed February 22, 2021 at https://­w ww.bbc.com/­f uture/­a rticle/­­20210108-­​­­where-­​­­we­​­­a re-­​­­on-­​­­climate-­​­­change-­​­­i n-­​­­f ive-​­charts Giradharadas, Anand (­2021). “­Plague and renaissance,” The.Ink, May 29, accessed 8/­2/­2021 at https://­the.ink/­p/­­a fter-­​­­the-​­plague Guillard, V.,  & C. Del Bucchia (­2012). “­W hen online recycling enables givers to escape the tensions of the gift economy.” In Research in consumer behavior. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Iyer, Rajesh, & James A. Muncy (­2009). “­Purpose and object of a­ nti-​­consumption.” Journal of Business Research 62(2), ­160–​­168.

82  Susan Dobscha ­Kemp-​­Benedict, E. J., S. Bharwani, & M. D. Fischer (­2010). “­Using matching methods to link social and physical analyses for sustainability planning.” Ecology and Society, 15(­3). Kowitt, Beth (­2021). “­How the pandemic fueled the rise of the ‘­Buy Nothing’ economy,” Fortune magazine, July 30, accessed on September 23, 2021 at https://­fortune. com/­2 021/­07/­3 0/­­buy-­​­­nothing-­​­­f acebook- ­​­­g roup-­​­­pandemic- ­​­­g ift- ­​­­economy-­​­­f ree-​ ­stuff/ Makri, K., B.B. Schlegelmilch, R. Mai, & K. Dinhof (­2020). “­W hat we know about anticonsumption: an attempt to nail jelly to the wall.” Psychology and Marketing, 37(­2), ­177–​­215. Marcoux, J­ean-​­Sébastien (­2009, December). “­Escaping the gift economy.” Journal of Consumer Research, 36(­4), ­671–​­685. Martin, Diane M., & John W. Schouten (­2014). “­­Consumption-​­driven market emergence.” Journal of Consumer Research, 40(­5), ­855– ​­870. Onozaka, Y., G. Nurse, & D. T. McFadden (­2010). “­Local food consumers: How motivations and perceptions translate to buying behavior.” Choices, 25(­1), 1­ –​­6. Peters, Sara A. (­2020). “­Platform and place: The digitization of gift economies.” Masters’ Thesis, Virginia Commonwealth University. ­Peterson-​­Withorn, Chase (­2021). “­How much money America’s billionaires have made during the c­ ovid-​­19 pandemic,” Forbes, April 30, accessed on July 28, 2021 at https://­w ww.forbes.com/­sites/­chasewithorn/­2 021/­04/­30/­­a merican-­​­­billionaires-­​ ­­have-­​­­gotten-­​­­12-­​­­t rillion-­​­­r icher- ­​­­during-­​­­the-​­pandemic/?sh=70198aff557e Prothero, Andrea, & Susan Dobscha (­2021). ““­One, two, three, four, what are we crisis war messaging metaphors using fighting for?”: Deconstructing c­limate-​­ ecofeminism.” In Routledge companion to marketing and feminism. London: Routledge (­forthcoming). Pyyhtinen, Olli (­2014). The gift and its paradoxes: Beyond Mauss. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ­Reyes-​­Menendez, A., J. R. Saura, & F. Filipe (­2020). “­Marketing challenges in the# MeToo era: Gaining business insights using an exploratory sentiment analysis.” Heliyon, 6(­3), e03626. Roux, D., & Guiot, D. (2020). “Second-hand markets: Alternative forms of acquiring, disposing of, and recirculating consumer goods.” In Marketing Management. Routledge, pp. 388–407. Thompson, James, Christopher Galantino, & Christina Weiler (2017). (no title), retrieved from: https://sweepstandard.org/no-end-in-sight-to-us-landfill-cost-increases-pacific-region-to-experience-highest-growth/ ­Vorobjovas-​­Pinta, Oskaras,  & Isaac Jonathan ­Dalla-​­Fontana (­2019). “­The strange case of dating apps at a gay resort: H ­ yper-​­local and ­v irtual-​­physical leisure.” Tourism Review, November 4, pp. 1070–1080. Wilson, Anne, Ashley Whillans, & Tobias Schlager (­2022). “­Rejections make the heart grow fonder: The benefits of articulating risks when declining social invitations.” Journal of the Association of Consumer Research, 7(­1). Witkowski, T. H. (2021). “Broadening anti-consumption research: A history of right-wing prohibitions, boycotts, and resistance to sustainability.” Journal of Macromarketing, 41(4), 610–625. Wolfe, Lahle (­2019). “­Learn about hyperlocal marketing,” The Balance: Small Business, January 21, last accessed at: https://­w ww.thebalancesmb.com/­­hyperlocal­​­­m arketing-­​­­it-­​­­s-­​­­here-­​­­to-­​­­stay-­​­­a s-­​­­i n-­​­­forever-​­3515517 Zavestoski, S. (­2002). The ­social–​­psychological bases of anticonsumption attitudes. Psychology & Marketing, 19(­2), ­149–​­165.

5

Anti-​­Consumers, ­Pro-​ C ­ onsumers, and Two Social Paradigms of Consumption James A. Muncy and Rajesh Iyer

­ nti-​­consumption has received substantial research attention for almost two A decades. There seems to be some evidence that, across both the macro and micro dimensions, ­anti-​­consumption is becoming an emerging social paradigm (­ESP) of consumption as an alternative of the dominant social paradigm (­DSP) which is ­pro-​­consumption. The ­pro-​­consumption DSP could be described as “­make more, buy more, consume more.” Within that paradigm, primarily for macroeconomic reasons, producing more is seen as a positive social outcome. Greater production requires expanded sales and thus greater purchasing by consumers. Obviously, that results in greater consumption. Much of the justification for greater consumption is that there are certain benefits to certain segments of society that accompany macroeconomic growth. It is in contrast to this p­ ro-​­consumption DSP that an ­anti-​­consumption ESP has arisen. This ­anti-​­consumption ESP could be described as “­consume less, buy less, produce less.” A huge driver of this ESP is environmental issues at the macro level and quality of life concerns at the m ­ icro-​­level (­K ilbourne, McDonagh, & ­Prothero, 1997). There are many social, economic, political, environmental, ethical, practical, and philosophical differences between the DSP and the ESP. They are both complex and far reaching. That is what makes them paradigms. To study them in their totality has proven unmanageable (­Borland & Lindgreen, 2013; Catton & Dunlap, 1980; Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones, 2000). However, there are aspects that can be studied. In the current chapter, we will look at a program of research in which we have studied the contrasting consumption philosophies of these two paradigms and their manifestations at both the personal and societal levels. These ref lect people’s attitudes toward consumption.

Two Paradigms and Consumption The concept of a DSP was introduced by Pirages and Ehrlich (­1974). They were writing in the time period following Thomas Kuhn’s (­1962) publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Thus, they did not just view the ideas that emerged from Adam Smith, John Locke, and Francis Bacon as a set of

DOI: 10.4324/9780367821586-7

84  James A. Muncy and Rajesh Iyer

theses to be debated. The idea of the DSP became a term for a set of ideas that bind society to certain patterns of thinking and behaving even while most are not aware that the ideas exist. In that sense, society was paradigm bound. And society had an inability to reconcile this DSP with one that demands lower consumption (­i.e., incommensurability of paradigms). Though other social paradigms undoubtedly exist, the phrase “­DSP” became widely associated with issues of sustainability (­for many years, even more so than the word “­sustainable”). Pirages and Ehrlich (­1974) presented the DSP broadly as a set of behavioral patterns (­norms and habits) and ideological commitments (­beliefs and values) that are most commonly held in a culture and perpetuated through social institutions of the society. They presented it as being distinct from what any given individual in the society thinks or does, but it forms many of the expectations for those born into the society. This DSP and the effects that it has on the people and the environment were the bases of their very strong critique of most of the institutions, customs, practices, and outputs of western societies. They argued that humans are causing great societal and ecological harm because of this DSP. Pirages and Ehrlich foresaw ­broad-​­ranging catastrophic consequences that would result from the DSP and proposed ­broad-​­ranging changes that were needed to move societies away from this DSP. In the years since Pirages and Ehrlich’s introduction of the DSP, many have argued that a broad range of overconsumption problems can be traced to the DSP (­Casey, Lichrou, & O’Malley, 2017; Gorge, Herbert, ­Özçağlar-​ ­Toulouse, & Robert, 2015; Kilbourne, Beckmann, Lewis, & van Dam, 2001; Kilbourne & Carlson, 2008; Kilbourne, McDonagh, & Prothero, 1997). They have argued that a traditional micromarketing approach which focuses on changing people’s buying habits and decision criteria would not be effective to create sustainable consumption, forward a more economically just world, or combat a tyranny arising from ­ever-​­increasing needs and expectations. They argue that simply encouraging a materialistic society to choose differently will not create the ­post-​­materialistic world they advocate. If a change is to occur, it must come through a macromarketing focus on moving consumers from embracing the DSP to the adoption of an ESP that would deemphasize consumption leading to ­ever-​­expanding wants. This paradigm shift (?) is not an easy task. There is a long tradition of the DSP which can be traced to three icons of Western t­ hought—​­Francis Bacon, John Loke, and Adam Smith. Along with their disciples, they created an intellectual culture in the west that embraced individual choice, dominion over nature, and the rights of individuals to pursue their own interests wherever they may lead (­K ilbourne & Carlson, 2008). Note that these were not failed ideologies when judged against their own goals and aspirations. The economics of ­self-​­interest as proposed by Adam Smith was able to bring an abundant material prosperity never seen before in the history of the world. The pragmatic approach to the science of Francis Bacon catapulted the west into innovations and technological advances at a rate unseen before in the history

Social Paradigms of Consumption  85

of mankind. And the highly individualistic approach of John Loke has turned collectivism into individualism. So, as pointed out by Kilbourne, Beckmann, and Thelen (­2002), judged on its own criteria, the DSP has been highly successful in achieving what those embracing the DSP w ­ anted—​­individualism, wealth, and dominance over nature. There is a long history of segments of western society eschewing the materialism and perceived overconsumption the DSP perpetuates (­­Craig-​­Lees & Hill, 2002, 2006; Gorge, Herbert, Ö ­ zçağlar-​­Toulouse,  & Robert, 2015). However, such efforts always seemed to nibble around the edges of the DSP and never attack it directly. Had the DSP failed to deliver on its promises, it would have been easy to replace. Attacking the DSP on efficacy grounds seems futile. The classic right ladder/­w rong building analogy seems appropriate here. Criticizing the DSP as being ineffective is like maligning a ladder that works just fine. It is only in the decades since Pirages and Ehrlich introduced the DSP that one could conceivably see an ESP antithesis to the ­pro-​ ­consumption components of the DSP. Instead of saying the ladder does not work, the proponents of this new ESP are saying that it is leaning against the wrong building. In fact, they argue that the building that the DSP ladder is leaning against is a raging inferno and peril awaits those who use such a w ­ ell-​ ­functioning ladder to enter into it. the DSP It is in this context that we see two paradigms in c­onf lict—​­ which is inherently ­pro-​­consumption and the ESP that is inherently ­anti-​ ­consumption. We have found this to be an extremely interesting time to study ­anti-​­consumption and be involved with a group of scholars who are systematically studying a­ nti-​­consumption from many different perspectives and doing so within widely varying research traditions. In many ways, it is reminiscent of the early years of consumer research when various methodological and theoretical traditions peacefully coexisted creating an incredibly stimulating and rich intellectual climate. That leads us to the current chapter. We are two traditional n ­ umber-​­crunching empirical researchers. Over the past 15 years, we have conducted numerous studies in which we have used mainstream survey techniques and analyses to compare people who would be considered p­ ro-​­consumers (­consistent with the DSP) to those who would be considered a­ nti-​­consumers (­consistent with the ESP). Some of these studies have been published. Some of them are in preparation for publication. And, realistically speaking, some of them may never be published. Together, we believe that they provide an interesting glimpse into some of the ways those adopting the ESP of a­ nti-​­consumption differ from those who embrace the p­ ro-​­consumption DSP. We present them here with minimal discussion of the methodological nuances.

The Four Attitudes of Consumption ­ igure 5.1 presents a matrix that is useful in helping understand our work on F these paradigms of consumption. The dimension that is core to the difference

86  James A. Muncy and Rajesh Iyer Valence

Individual

Against Consumption

For Consumption

Micro Anti-Consumption

Micro Pro-Consumption

Macro Anti-Consumption

Macro Pro-Consumption

Focus

Society

­Figure 5.1  Four Attitudes toward Consumption

between the two paradigms discussed in F ­ igure 5.1 relates to people’s attitudes toward consumption. In this figure, we label this dimension valence consistent with its use of psychological research on affect. Frijda (­1986) defines valence as the intrinsic attractiveness (­goodness) or averseness (­badness) of an event, object, or situation. A ­ nti-​­consumers are against consumption and thus ref lect a negative valence regarding consumption. In contrast, p­ ro-​ ­consumers would have a positive valence toward consumption. Though these are at opposite ends of this continuum, we do not regard them as two sides of the same construct. We always remember the point made by Chatzidakis and Lee (­2013) that being against consumption is not the opposite of being for consumption and that reasons against are not the opposite of reasons for. Though one would expect a negative correlation between ­anti-​­consumption and ­pro-​­consumption, which is what we have found, they are distinct from one another. Returning to the two paradigms, one does not need to ignore the positive benefits of increasing world living standards brought about by the DSP to also comprehend the ESP’s concern about the catastrophic consequences that come with e­ ver-​­increasing consumption. Thus, we have always measured ­pro-​­consumption and a­ nti-​­consumption as separate constructs. So, one dimension of our model ref lects the two social ­paradigms—​­the ­pro-​­consumption DSP and the ­anti-​­consumption ESP. The other dimension of our model ref lects the difference between larger societal concerns and personal concerns. We call these macro and micro attitudes. As we will discuss below, early in our research, we discovered that

Social Paradigms of Consumption  87

there was a fundamental difference between people’s desire to make for a better world and their desire to make their own life better. If I consume more or less how will my life be better? That is a micro attitude towards consumption question. If we all consume less or consume more, how will that affect society or the environment? That is a macro attitude towards consumption question. We found from our research that micro attitudes don’t always ref lect macro concerns and so these too are separate dimensions. People’s micro attitude toward consumption may be similar to or different from their macro attitudes toward consumption. Over the past several years, we have sought to empirically explore these four attitudes toward consumption. Our conclusions about them have evolved over time as we gathered and analyze new data on them. What we will discuss now are eight studies we have conducted over the past several years which have all looked at these basic attitudes toward consumption in various ways.

Study 1: Macro versus Micro ­A nti-​­Consumption When we were first drawn to the topic of a­ nti-​­consumption, it was clear that scholars were looking at different aspects of ­anti-​­consumption (­Iyer & Muncy, 2009). Some scholars would focus on general consumption. They looked at how people were against consumption in general and how people opposed overconsumption. Other scholars focused on specific brands or products. We called this distinction the “­objects of a­nti-​­consumption.” There were also differences in what we labeled the “­purpose of ­anti-​­consumption.” Some research focused on how people become against consumption over societal concerns. These concerns relate to how the overall level of consumption or specific brands/­products were harming society. Then other research looked at personal concerns that people have with consumption. These concerns emerge from perceptions of how either their own overall level of consumption or their consumption of specific products/­brands could be bad for them individually. From this, we identified four types of a­ nti-​­consumers: (­1) global impact consumers who had societal concerns for the general level of consumption; (­2) market activists who had societal concerns about specific brands/­products; (­3) simplifiers who had personal concerns about their own level of consumption and (­4) ­anti-​­loyal consumers who had personal concerns about specific brands or products. In our first study, we wanted to see if there was a difference between global impact consumers and simplifiers. Thus, would ­anti-​­consumption out of concern for society be different from a­ nti-​­consumption out of more personal, individualistic concerns. Within a sample of 504 consumers, global impact consumers were quite different than simplifiers (­Iyer & Muncy, 2009). ­Self-​­consciousness did not have a significant impact on whether a consumer was a simplifier, but it did impact whether someone was a global impact consumer. ­Self-​­actualization had a substantially greater impact on global impact consumers than on simplifiers. Assertiveness was significant for simplifiers but not global impact consumers.

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The t­ ake-​­away from this study for us was that there is a difference in what we began calling macro ­ anti-​­ consumption and micro ­anti-​­ consumption. People who are against consumption because of their social concerns are different from those who are against consumption for personal reasons. The first part of our model in ­Figure 5.1 was set by this study. We went on to finish out that model in our next two studies.

Studies 2 and 3: ­A nti-​­Consumers versus P ­ ro-​­Consumers In our next two projects, we conducted two scale development studies (­Iyer and Muncy, 2013). As mentioned earlier, ­Figure 5.1 does not represent a continuum and so we set out to see if we could identify four related but distinct constructs: macro ­anti-​­consumption attitudes, micro ­anti-​­consumption attitudes, macro ­pro-​­consumption attitudes, and micro ­pro-​­consumption attitudes. We started with a large pool of potential items that were drawn from a convenience sample of consumers. They were instructed to express their positive and negative attitudes on the nature of consumption and its effect on both society and individuals. Based on these responses, we developed a large number of potential scale items for the four constructs of interest. In Study 2, we surveyed 566 consumers, collecting a large set of items on the variables of interest and measuring variables which might be antecedents of these constructs (­­self-​­consciousness, ­self-​­actualization, materialism, and dispositional optimism). Through exploratory factor analysis, we culled the items into four potential scales measuring macro and micro a­ nti-​­consumption and ­pro-​ ­consumption. Then, confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the four con­ igure 5.1 were indeed distinct and our scales measuring structs of interest in F them possessed adequate measurement qualities and nomological validity. Since the confirmatory factor analysis was done on the same dataset used to identify scale items, it was necessary that we conduct a subsequent analysis based on an independent sample. Thus, in Study 3, we surveyed 771 subjects, presenting them with the four scales we developed macro and micro ­anti-​­consumption and p­ ro-​­consumption. We also collected data on what would likely be the consequences of ­anti-​­consumption and/­or ­pro-​­consumption (­frugality, compulsive spending, prestige sensitivity, value consciousness, price consciousness, and coupon proneness). Through structural equation modeling, we found that our measures of the four constructs in F ­ igure 5.1 were distinct and that our scales measuring them possessed adequate measurement properties. One thing we found interesting was the number of respondents who were “­off diagonal.” That is, a surprising number of consumers were macro p­ ro-​ ­consumers but micro ­anti-​­consumers (­over 20%). These would be consumers who believe that expanding consumption is good for society but considered their own lives better if they consumed less. Similarly, a smaller but noticeable number of consumers were macro ­anti-​­consumers but micro ­pro-​­consumers (­over 15%). These would be consumers who think society is consuming too much but who would like to consume more themselves. This pattern has

Social Paradigms of Consumption  89

continued in our subsequent studies in that consumers’ perspective on their own consumption often does not match what they think is best for society.

Study 4: Materialism and ­Pro-​­Consumption With the introduction of the construct of ­pro-​­consumption, we were concerned that we may be simply rebranding the construct of materialism. Thus, we collected data from 711 consumers where we measured attitudes toward consumption and also administered three popular scales measuring materialism. In this currently unpublished study, we did establish discriminant validity between materialism and ­pro-​­consumption, thus convincing us that ­pro-​­consumption was not simply a reconstruction of materialism.

Study 5: Consumption Attitudes and Consumer ­Well-​­being Having identified four distinct concepts and having developed adequate scales to measure them, we then began studying the differences between these four attitudes of consumption. The first topic we explored was whether consumption attitudes would affect people’s subjective perceptions of their quality of life (­Iyer & Muncy, 2016b). The DSP seems to imply that the key to “­the good life” was to acquire more and enjoy greater wealth. On the other hand, the ESP does not see the “­good” in this construal of “­the good life.” Those adopting the ESP have advocated that overconsumption is harmful to both the individual’s quality of life and the environment. So, we sought to see which approach to consumption made one’s perception of his or her life better. Would being an ­anti-​­consumer or being a p­ ro-​­consumer make one’s life seem better or worse? We measured our four attitudes toward consumption as our independent variables. Our dependent variables were various measures of affective life assessment, ­well-​­being, and life satisfaction. For micro attitudes, the results were positive for both ­pro-​­consumers and ­anti-​­consumers. They both experienced a more positive affective assessment ­ ell-​­being, and more life satisfaction. Either eschewing of their lives, greater w personal consumption or embracing one’s own consumption yielded positive results in one’s subjective perceptions of the quality of their life. It was those who neither embraced nor eschewed personal consumption that had the lowest subjective assessments of their own ­well-​­being. If people wanted to be happier with one’s life, micro ­anti-​­consumption or micro ­pro-​­consumption seemed to be able to get them there. The opposite was the case for macro attitudes toward consumption. Holding stronger macro a­ nti-​­consumption attitudes and holding stronger macro p­ ro-​ ­consumption attitudes were associated with lower assessments of the quality of one’s life. If one wants to improve their own feeling of ­well-​­being, it appears to be better to neither embrace the idea that society needs to consume more nor the idea that it needs to consume less. Not being concerned with either the

90  James A. Muncy and Rajesh Iyer

positive or negative effects of our consumption to society or the planet seems to be a way to have a greater subjective feeling about the quality of one’s life. Since both macro and micro as well as ­ anti-​­ consumption and ­ pro-​ ­consumption attitudes seem to be important in determining people’s perceived quality of life, we were encouraged. The constructs we were studying were not just identifiable and measurable. They also appeared to be of substantive importance. So, we continued to explore other theoretical relationships with the four variables in F ­ igure 5.1.

Study 6: Macro Attitudes and Environmental Activism In the classic models of consumer behavior, consumers were seen as being moved to action through evaluating courses of action relative to a specific goal (­see, for example, Engel, Kollat, & Blackwell, 1968). However, over time, other inf luence factors have increased in significance in our understanding of the consumer (­Kassarjian, 1978). Consumers seem to make their decisions on ostensible factors such as the product’s ability to help consumers reach a particular goal and on less obvious social, cultural, and personal factors. The attitude toward consumption variables seems to operate, not as micro g­ oal-​­based decision criteria, but rather in a less ostensible realm of the consumer’s worldview. We wanted to conduct a study where we could compare classic ­goal-​­based criteria in d­ ecision-​­making with the inf luence of the four attitudes toward consumption. We chose the area of environmental attitudes, intentions, and behavior. In our study, we measured 528 consumers’ responses to environmental issues (­Iyer & Muncy, 2016a). P ­ ro-​­environmental policies stem from environmental concerns. Thus, in developing environmental policies, concern for the environment is paramount. Since environmental protection is the sine qua non of environmental policy, one might expect that concern for the environment is what drives the environmental behavior of citizens and consumers. However, a vast amount of research has found such not to be the case. The environmental concern seems to explain less than 10% of the variance in specific ­environment-​­related behaviors (­Bamberg, 2003; Eckes & Six, 1994; Hines, Hungerford, & Tomera, 1987). Following the typical models of consumer behavior that focus on attitudes, behavioral intentions, and action, we chose to look at our endogenous variables ­pro-​­environmental attitudes, ­pro-​­environmental political action, and ­pro-​ ­environment behavior (­Cordano, Welcomer, & Scherer, 2003). We called these grouped together “­environmental response.” For our exogenous variables, we collected data on the four attitudes toward consumption in F ­ igure 5.1. For competing models, we also collected exogenous variables of environmental concern (­Dunlap et  al., 2000) and awareness of environmental consequences (­Dietz, Stern, & Guagnano, 1998). We called these together “­environmental concern.” We tested five different models where environmental response variables were the endogenous variables. In one model, only the environmental concern variables were the exogenous variables. In another model, the attitudes toward

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consumption variables were the exogenous variables. We tested a model where the environmental concern variables and the attitude toward consumption variables were both exogenous variables. Then we tested attitudes toward consumption as a mediator and as a moderator between environmental concern and environmental response. The model that best explained our respondents’ environmental responses was the one with only the attitudes toward consumption as the exogenous variables. What we found was that the four variables in ­Figure 5.1 by themselves do a better job of explaining environmental response than any model that includes concern for the environment. People’s attitudes, intentions, and behaviors were being driven in our data by their attitudes toward consumption and not their concern for the problem that those attitudes, intentions, and behaviors were meant to solve. The strongest drivers here were those of micro a­ nti-​ ­consumption and macro ­anti-​­consumption. Here again, we found attitudes toward ­anti-​­consumption as being of substantive importance.

Study 7: Optimism, Pessimism, and Consumption Attitudes In study 7, we moved from looking at the consequences of attitudes toward consumption to exploring the antecedents. Much of the debate between those advocating the DSP and the ESP centers around the l­ong-​­term permanent damage that overconsumption is having on society and the world. Those defending the DSP often acknowledge the problems its critics say the paradigm is creating but they promote a “­cornucopian” view that, whatever problems society creates for itself, it will eventually solve. In contrast, those adopting the ESP perspective show a concern that the problems society is creating for itself are becoming too large to be solved. So, the two paradigms seem to have contrasting worldviews at their c­ore—​­one cornucopian and one catastrophic (­see, for example, the classic debate between biologist Paul Ehrlich and economist Julian Simon; Kiel, Matheson, & Golembiewski, 2010; Lawn, 2010). Thus, we surveyed 291 consumers to see if these two views which we labeled “­social optimism” (­cornucopian) and “­social pessimist” (­catastrophic) would impact people’s attitude towards consumption (­Muncy & Iyer, 2020). We d­ eveloped measures of social optimism and social pessimism. To make sure we were not just tapping into more general forms of optimism and pessimism, we also measured dispositional optimism, concern for future consequences, and various forms of growth ­m indsets—​­all of which had small or no effect on the four attitudes toward consumption. In this study, social pessimism had a very strong impact on macro ­ anti-​ ­consumption. Believing that our larger societal problems are becoming too large to solve seems to be a substantial driver of people’s belief that we should consume less in general. There were smaller effects of social optimism on macro ­pro-​­consumption and macro ­anti-​­consumption. People who thought society can solve the problems that are emerging tended to have more of a positive attitude

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toward ­society-​­wide consumption and be less against s­ociety-​­wide consumption. The one surprising finding was when we looked at micro ­pro-​­consumption. As expected, social optimists tended to think their own personal consumption was good. However, social pessimists also tended to be ­micro-­​­­pro-​­consumers. Though social pessimists think society as a whole should consume less, they are positive about themselves consuming more. One possible explanation is that a number of social pessimists hold fatalistic attitudes of “­eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.” By their nature, social pessimists believe the negative consequences are inevitable and so there is likely a fatalistic acquiescence to whatever enjoyment can be gained from ­pro-​­consumption. Finally, micro ­anti-​­consumption was not affected by either social optimism or social pessimism.

Study 8: Drivers of Micro ­A nti-​­Consumption In study 7, we wanted to focus on the ethical reasons for ­anti-​­consumption. So we conducted a study where we asked 292 consumers to tell us why they would not buy a specific product, brand, or service (­Muncy & Iyer, 2021). However, we wanted to steer them away from giving us reasons for brand hate based on bad experiences and toward a­ nti-​­consumption based on ideological grounds. So, we asked them to give us a single brand, product, service, etc. that they would not purchase for ethical reasons. We also asked them to give us the reason that they would avoid such a brand. We used multiple coders to reduce our data to 12 categories for the objects of micro ­anti-​­consumption and 21 categories for the reasons for ethical ­anti-​­consumption. The most common object of micro a­ nti-​­consumption for ethical reasons is the general product category of drugs. This is followed by targeting some specific company or brand. Then comes the product category of Tobacco. Then came a category that included any product, brand, manufacturing process, etc. that might cause harm to animals. When we looked at the reasons for a­ nti-​­consumption on ethical grounds, harm was the most common reason given. Specifically, the three largest categories of reasons given for ethical ­anti-​­consumption were harms people, harms health, and harms animals. The most surprising finding related to how seldom harm to the environment was given as a reason for ethical ­anti-​­consumption. It was tied for 13th in our list of 21 reasons with just 29 mentions out of the 854 separate reasons given (­note that a given object of ethical a­ nti-​­consumption could have multiple reasons associated with it). Thus, only around 3% of the ethical concerns that lead to ethical ­anti-​­consumption in our study related to the environment. Looking at the results indicates that there are both macro concerns and micro concerns that could lead to ­ethical-​­based ­anti-​­consumption.

Discussion In the almost 50 years since Pirages and Ehrlich (­1974) introduced the concept of a DSP, many have blamed a plethora of social problems on that DSP and proposed that we should adopt another social paradigm to replace it. Indeed,

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there is evidence that an alternative social paradigm is emerging (­the ESP). Many have said that the consumers in this ESP need to be different from those in the DSP. They hold that we should not embrace the ­pro-​­consumption ideology that dominates western culture and is expanding rapidly throughout other parts of the world. They argue that we instead should see the harm that excessive consumption can cause and be against such overconsumption as we would anything else that has the potential to have a catastrophic effect on our world. There is also a strong theme among those advocating the ESP that individuals and not just our society would be better off for embracing a simpler life with less consumption. Despite the pervasive ­consumption-​­based calls to abandon the DSP and adopt the ESP, very little empirical research has been done to look specifically at the differences between the c­ onsumption-​­related thoughts and behaviors of those who trend toward DSP and those who trend away from it and toward the ESP. For almost 15 years, we have engaged in a stream of research that has identified, measured, and explored the various consumption attitudes that might be contrasted in these two social paradigms. We have empirically identified the four basic consumption attitudes: macro ­anti-​­consumption, macro ­pro-​ ­consumption, micro a­ nti-​­consumption, and micro ­pro-​­consumption. We have begun to explore some of the antecedents and consequences of these attitudes. And though we have been studying this for almost 15 years, we still feel like there is so much to learn from empirically researching these consumption attitudes. We will use the remainder of this paper to look at some of the tentative conclusions we can draw from our stream of research and look forward to the research that might be beneficial in the future. If indeed, there is a DSP and an ESP that is challenging it, and if the battle ground where these two paradigms meet is the marketplace, then more research is needed that will explore the four types of consumers presented in ­Figure 5.1. Measuring Consumption Attitudes Perhaps the most important thing that we have contributed from our research is four scales that measure these four types of consumers. We did so through four scales using multiple ­seven-​­point Likert items (­see Appendix). However, our measures are not static. They have evolved over time as we have learned along the way. The single biggest mistake we have made across these years was pointed out to us by a reviewer. Our early measures of micro ­anti-​­consumption included two items that were based on recycling. This reviewer pointed out that recycling is not against consumption. Recycling is necessitated by both consumption and ­re-​­consumption. It may be ­anti-​­disposal, but it is not ­anti-​ ­consumption. In order to recycle, you must first consume. Then you take the byproduct of your consumption and make it available for someone else to consume. Neither of those acts is against consumption. We immediately realized that the reviewer was right. We threw out those two items and replaced them with others that might indeed be more consistent with the concept of micro ­anti-​­consumption. What we now have is a ­four-​­part ­multi-​­item scale to

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measure these four attitudes toward consumption that can be used to further our understanding of macro versus micro consumption attitudes and ­pro-​­ versus ­anti-​­consumption attitudes. We have placed the items for this scale in the Appendix at the end of this chapter. Our experience has been that we do not need to always use every item in these scales to adequately capture these constructs. If we needed to shorten these scales in order to avoid respondent fatigue or because certain items may ­cross-​­load with other variables of interest, we have been able to adjust them accordingly. Exactly which items to use should take into consideration the length of the survey administered and what other constructs are being measured. After administering these scales in various forms to several thousand respondents, we have found them to be robust even when adjusted to fit the needs of a particular study. Helping the Consumer Feel Better about Life The one thing that a­ nti-​­consumers and p­ ro-​­consumers have in common is that they both have a higher feeling of subjective ­well-​­being. If a person’s one goal in life is to feel better, then clearly it would be better to embrace or eschew consumption but not to be indifferent toward it. However, it is unlikely that this is people’s main goal in life and therefore the reason they adopt their consumption attitudes. People will likely become ­anti-​­or ­pro-​­consumers because of an ideological commitment to it, not simply because it makes them feel better. Still, our findings do add an interesting twist to the ­age-​­old debate as to whether more money and material possessions will make a person better off. People having a reason for their quest and not just thoughtlessly pursuing or eschewing consumption seems to bring a greater feeling of ­well-​­being. In the battle between the DSP and the ESP, this finding has interesting implications. As we know from the vast research on motivated reasoning, it is easier to change someone’s view on a matter if there is a personally gratifying reason for them to do so. There clearly seems to be an affective advantage for fully embracing the ESP if one is only somewhat embracing or on the verge of giving up on the DSP. Moving someone from being a high ­pro-​­consumer to being indifferent about consumption may not be more difficult than moving someone from being indifferent about consumption to becoming against consumption. In the former case, the person moves from a feeling of higher perceived ­well-​­being (­­pro-​­consumption) to a state of lower ­well-​­being. In the latter case, the person moves from a state of lower w ­ ell-​­being to a state of higher perceived w ­ ell-​­being (­­anti-​­consumption). This is also particularly challenging in emerging/­developing economies where consumers are aspiring to, and often achieving, higher levels of consumption. Social Optimism and Social Pessimism Paradigms do not simply impact what a person thinks. They limit what one is capable of thinking. That is what Kuhn (­1962) meant when he said that

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scientific theories were paradigm bound. Those holding one scientific paradigm cannot simply adopt any scientific theory. They must do so within the paradigm that is commensurable with that theory. They cannot adopt a theory from a paradigm that is incommensurable with their own paradigm. If the DSP and ESP are actually “­paradigms,” then one would expect that there would be ideological commitments inherent in these paradigms that would make it hard to accept the other paradigm. Perhaps social optimism and social pessimism are just such ideological commitments. The DSP and ESP seem to be s­ocietal-​­level theories and they seem to be positing different, incommensurable “­goods” for society. The DSP advocates for individualism, economic expansion, and greater “­prosperity” as a way to ensure that society will solve all of its problems. It seems difficult to see how a person who thinks that those very things are moving us toward catastrophic consequences could embrace the DSP’s ­pro-​­consumption attitude. Similarly, the ESP posits that ­ever-​­increasing production and consumption will lead to a dire future that cannot be solved unless the trajectory of such production and consumption is changed. It is hard to see how a person embracing these ideas could lead a person to adopt p­ ro-​­consumption attitudes unless it arises from pragmatism or pessimism. According to Kuhn (­1962), incommensurable paradigms in science do not peacefully coexist. An old paradigm is only thrown out when a new (­usually younger) breed of scientists emerges and becomes the gatekeepers of scientific knowledge. The DSP may only remain “­dominant” as long as younger consumers do not see the damage that those advocating the ESP say is happening. From the ESP perspective, the bubble of social optimism may need to burst before the DSP will fall and be replaced by a paradigm that acknowledges that economic expansion cannot continue to increase indefinitely. On the other hand, as long as the DSP can appear to solve the problems that arise, then it is safe from being supplanted by the ESP. The battleground between the DSP and the ESP may not be over greater versus lesser consumption but rather over social optimism versus social pessimism which creates p­ ro-​­and a­ nti-​­consumers. The Macro/­Micro Disconnect Perhaps the most striking observation we have seen over these past several years of research is what could be called the macro/­micro disconnect. As we have repeatedly found, macro and micro attitudes toward consumption do not seem to emerge from one another. People seem to be highly influenced by environmental issues when developing macro consumption attitudes. However, environmental issues were barely mentioned when people were asked about what products they would not buy and why for ethical reasons. Our research uncovered many instances where people were macro a­ nti-​­consumers and micro ­pro-​­consumers. When consumption attitudes are discussed in our consumer behavior class on campus, many students state that they never even made the connection between their concern about the harmful effects of overconsumption at

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the societal level and their own desires to graduate and move on to bigger and better material things. Miller (­2001) argues that even those consumer researchers who are the strongest advocates for the DSP may at times have a disconnect between their own macro and micro consumption beliefs. There are also many instances where people adopt a simpler lifestyle, not because of an ideological commitment to how reducing consumption benefits society, but rather because they simply get tired of having so much stuff. They get tired of the things they own, but they still embrace the DSP. The assumption should not be that anyone who enjoys a simpler lifestyle is embracing the ESP. Sam Walton became the wealthiest man in the world by building the Wal Mart ­corporation—​­an institution that many advocating the ESP see as a shrine to over consumption. Despite his grand “­success” as assessed within the DSP, his lifestyle was actually quite modest. He appeared to embrace the DSP but he did not want excess personal consumption to get in the way of his success in that paradigm. Ironically, from a DSP perspective, his customers were able to expand their consumption because of his frugality in practice. They were able to buy things for less thus enabling them to buy more things.

Conclusion Every consumer behavior textbook has a chapter or section on consumer values and how they impact people’s consumption choices. We would argue that the most basic consumer value is the value consumers place on being, or not being, a consumer. Thus, we believe that one of the most powerful unseen forces guiding consumers is their macro and micro p­ ro-​­and a­ nti-​­consumption attitudes. We see the four attitudes we have presented in this chapter as latent constructs. Consumers may not even be aware that they exist in their minds. But when we measure them and relate them to other substantive constructs, relationships emerge. Understanding the four attitudes toward consumption appears to have great promise in helping us understand ­anti-​­consumption. But it also has great promise for helping us understand consumer behavior in general.

Appendix Scales Measuring the Four Attitudes toward Consumption Macro ­Anti-​­Consumption If we all consumed less, the world would be a better place. We must all do our part to conserve. People shouldn’t buy so many things that they don’t need.

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We should be more interested in saving the earth than growing the economy. It would benefit future generations if people today would quit consuming so much. Micro ­Anti-​­Consumption I am careful not to buy more things than I really need. I love living a life free from the clutter of too many material things. If I don’t need it, I don’t buy it. I really don’t need very much stuff to enjoy life. Whatever you own soon begins to own you. I avoid having too many things that will just clutter up my life. I do not like to spend, shop, and buy. I like a simpler life, not one filled with material things. The fewer things I own, the better I feel. Macro ­Pro-​­Consumption Consumer spending helps us all by keeping the economy growing. Advertising is good to the extent that it keeps people spending their money. A growing economy is good for all of us. The economy suffers when people stop spending their money. When I spend my money, it helps others and not just me. Micro ­Pro-​­Consumption I would love to be able to buy some very expensive jewelry. I love to shop. It seems like the more expensive something is, the more I want it. When I buy nice things, it usually makes me feel good about myself. Some people are spenders and some people are savers. I am a spender. If life were a cruise, I would want to sail ­f irst-​­class. Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Note: All scale items are measured on a ­seven-​­point Likert scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

References Bamberg, S. (­2003). How Does Environmental Concern Inf luence Specific Environmentally Related Behaviors? A New Answer to an Old Question. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 23(­1), ­21–​­32. Borland, H., & Lindgreen, A. (­2013). Sustainability, Epistemology, Ecocentric Business, and Marketing Strategy: Ideology, Reality, and Vision. Journal of Business Ethics, 117, ­173–​­187.

98  James A. Muncy and Rajesh Iyer Casey, K., Lichrou, M., & O’Malley, L. (­2017). Unveiling Everyday Ref lexivity Tactics in a Sustainable Community. Journal of Macromarketing, 37(­3), ­227–​­239. Catton, W. R.,  & Dunlap, R. E. (­1980). A New Ecological Paradigm for ­Post-​ ­Exuberant Sociology. American Behavioral Scientist, 24(­1), ­15–​­47. Chatzidakis, A., & Lee, M. S. W. (­2013). A ­ nti-​­Consumption as the Study of Reasons Against. Journal of Macromarketing, 33(­3), ­190–​­203. Cordano, M., Welcomer, S. A.,  & Scherer, R. F. (­2003). An Analysis of the Predictive Validity of the New Ecological Paradigm Scale. Journal of Environmental Education, 34(­3), ­22–​­28. ­Craig-​­Lees, M., & Hill, C. (­2002). Understanding Voluntary Simplifiers. Psychology and Marketing, 19(­2), ­187–​­210. ­ nti-​­Consumption: Concept Clarification and ­Craig-​­Lees, M., & Hill, C. (­2006). A Changing Consumption Behaviour. Proceedings of the 2006 International Centre for ­Anti-​­Consumption Research (­ICAR) Symposium, ­20–​­21. Dietz, T., Stern, P. C.,  & Guagnano, G. A. (­1998). Social Structural and Social Psychological Bases of Environmental Concern. Environment and Behavior, 30(­4), ­450–​­471. Dunlap, R. E., Van Liere, K. D., Mertig, A. G., & Jones, R. E. (­2000). New Trends in Measuring Environmental Attitudes: Measuring Endorsement of the New Ecological Paradigm: A Revised Nep Scale. Journal of Social Issues, 56(­3), ­425–​­442. Eckes, T., & Six, B. (­1994). Fakten und Fiktionen in der E ­ instellungs-­​­­Verhaltens-​ F ­ orschung: Eine M ­ eta-​­A nalyse. Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie, 25(­4), ­253–​­271. Engel, J. F., Kollat, D. T., & Blackwell, R. D. (­1968). Consumer Behavior. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Frijda, N. H. (­1986). The Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gorge, H., Herbert, M., Ö ­ zçağlar-​­Toulouse, N., & Robert, I. (­2015). What Do We Really Need? Questioning Consumption through Sufficiency. Journal of Macromarketing, 35(­1), ­11–​­22. Hines, J. M., Hungerford, H. R., & Tomera, A. N. (­1987). Analysis and Synthesis of Research on Environmental Behavior: A Meta Analysis. Journal of Environmental Education, 18(­2), 1­ –​­8. Iyer, R., & Muncy, J. A. (­2009). Purpose and Object of ­A nti-​­Consumption. Journal of Business Research, 62(­2), ­160–​­168. Iyer, R., & Muncy, J. A. (­2013). Measuring the Full Breadth of Consumer’s Attitudes towards Consumption. European Advances in Consumer Research, 10, 341. Iyer, R., & Muncy, J. A. (­2016a). ­A nti-​­Consumption: Is This the Solution for Environmental Concern? Proceedings of the 2016 International Centre for A ­ nti-​­Consumption Research (­ICAR) Symposium, ­94–​­98. Iyer, R.,  & Muncy, J. A. (­2016b). Attitude toward Consumption and Subjective ­Well-​­Being. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 50(­1), ­48–​­67. Kassarjian, H. H. (­1978). Presidential Address, 1977: Anthropomorphism and Parsimony. Advances in Consumer Research, 5, ­x iii–​­x iv. Kiel, K., Matheson, V., & Golembiewski, K. (­2010). Luck or Skill? An Examination of the ­Ehrlich–​­Simon Bet. Ecological Economics, 69(­7), ­1365–​­1367. Kilbourne, W. E., Beckmann, S. C., Lewis, A., & van Dam, Y. (­2001). A Multinational Examination of the Role of the Dominant Social Paradigm in Environmental Attitudes of University Students. Environment and Behavior, 33(­2), ­209–​­228. Kilbourne, W. E., Beckmann, S. C., & Thelen, E. (­2002). The Role of the Dominant Social Paradigm in Environmental Attitudes: A Multinational Examination. Journal of Business Research, 55(­3), ­193–​­204.

Social Paradigms of Consumption  99 Kilbourne, W. E., & Carlson, L. (­2008). The Dominant Social Paradigm, Consumption, and Environmental Attitudes: Can Macromarketing Education Help? Journal of Macromarketing, 28(­2), ­106–​­121. Kilbourne, W. E., McDonagh, P., & Prothero, A. (­1997). Sustainable Consumption and the Quality of Life: A Macromarketing Challenge to the Dominant Social Paradigm. Journal of Macromarketing, 17(­1), ­4 –​­24. Kuhn, T. S, (­1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lawn, P. (­2010). On the ­Ehrlich–​­Simon Bet: Both Were Unskilled and Simon Was Lucky. Ecological Economics, 69(­11), ­2045–​­2046. Miller, D. (­2001). The Poverty of Morality. Journal of Consumer Culture, 1(­2), 2­ 25–​­243. Muncy, J. A., & Iyer, R. (­2020). The Impact of the Implicit Theories of Social Optimism and Social Pessimism on Macro Attitudes towards Consumption. Psychology & Marketing, 37(­2), 2­ 16–​­231. Muncy, J. A., & Iyer, R. (­2021). ­A nti-​­Consumer Ethics: What Consumers Will Not Do for Ethical Reasons. Strategic Change, forthcoming. Pirages, D. C., & Ehrlich, P. R. (­1974). Ark II: Social Response to Environmental Imperatives. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company.

Part 2

Why Is ­Anti-​Consumption Important?

6 ­Anti-​­Consumption and Our Current Crisis of Care Andreas Chatzidakis

We are in the midst of an unprecedented global “­crisis of care”, for both people and the planet. This chapter examines the potential role played by (­anti)­consumerism across different scales or pillars of care provision: households, communities, states and markets. Ultimately, it argues that the increasing commoditisation of care across these scales is beset with problematic logics and contradictions that offer little for providing any way out of this crisis. A ­ nti-​ ­consumerist activists and researchers are urged to take note and work towards a more “­­anti-​­consumerist” and “­citizenly” model of care provision.

Introduction ­ nti-​­consumption has emerged, primarily in the global North, as a set of A reasons that “­are against consumption” (­Chatzidakis and Lee, 2013, ­p. 190) and which express “­resistance to, distaste of, or even resentment or rejection” (­Zavestoski, 2002, p­ . 121) of both specific practices (­e.g. boycotting, avoiding animal products, downshifting) and the overall ideology of consumerism. In societies marked by o ­ ver-​­production and ­hyper-​­consumption, while totally disregarding their negative implications for both people and the planet, it is reassuring to see that more and more consumers choose to do things differently; not least by degrowing and downshifting (­e.g. Alexander and Ussher, 2012; Shaw and Newholm, 2002), decelerating (­Husemann and Eckhardt, 2019), participating in alternative economies (­e.g. Chatzidakis, Maclaran and Bradshaw, 2012; Chatzidakis, Maclaran and Varman, 2021) and embracing various forms of a­ ccess-​­based (­e.g. Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2012), sharing and collaborative consumption (­Belk, 2010, 2014). My aim in this chapter is to delineate further directions for both a­nti-​ ­consumption research and activism, by r­e-​­imagining and repositioning a range of a­ nti-​­consumerist logics and practices within the context of our current crisis of care. Indeed, current consumer research has little to say about the ways in which care for both human and nonhuman forms of life is itself largely created and sustained as a m ­ arket-​­based consumption system. Ultimately, I argue for a more f­ar-​­reaching and expansive critique of consumerism (­e.g. Gabriel and Lang, 2008) and possessive individualism (­Graeber,

DOI: 10.4324/9780367821586-9

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2010), one that recognises the multiple ways in which the subjectivity of the consumer enables logics and practices of carelessness across most pillars of care provision. Any form of resistance to or critique of our current consumer society has to go beyond the individual (­and even collective) choices and lifestyles to address the multiple ways in which consumerism is implicated in the enactment of specific forms of care provision (­e.g. m ­ arket-​­mediated ones) at the expense of others (­e.g. state or c­ ommunity-​­mediated). I conclude the chapter by envisaging a more expansive a­nti-​­consumerist agenda that will encompass questions of care giving and receiving.

The Current Crisis of Care We live in an unprecedented, global “­crisis of care” with multiple societal, environmental and public health facets, all highlighted and intensified by ­COVID-​­19. This crisis has been exponentially growing across all our social institutions for quite some time, spanning different scales, from the home to the local, the national and the global. For instance, the 2021 report by UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a clear warning: unless there are immediate, ­large-​­scale reductions in CO2 emissions, limiting global warming to 1.5C (­or even 2C) will be beyond reach, paving the way for irreversible and utterly catastrophic consequences. Also ongoing is the s­o-​­called “­refugee crisis”, not least because of its inextricable links with the climate crisis. Both of these are further accentuated by the rise of authoritarian governments across the globe (­e.g. Arruzza, Bhattacharya and Fraser, 2019; Fraser, 2016a, 2016b) and their related inability to ­co-​­ordinate and collaborate in the advent of ­COVID-​­19. As Noam Chomsky has recently remarked (­Chomsky and ­Pollin, 2020), never before has humanity been so close to eradicating all forms of organised human life for reasons that are well within its reach. As Nancy Fraser (­2016a, 2016b) notes, our current capacities to care are increasingly squeezed from all directions and in all stages of our (­caring) lives: from caring for one’s children or older parents to maintaining households and broader communities. Nevertheless, she illustrates that our current care crisis has been endemic to all stages of any capitalist economic system, arising from a ­deep-​­seated contradiction: i.e. capitalism’s reliance on the sustenance of human and nonhuman forms of life on the one hand and its tendency to destabilise the very life world it depends upon in its quest for unlimited accumulation. Indeed, the history of capitalism is beset with attempts to address this fundamental contradiction by, e.g. gendering and invisibilising care work, racialising it and outsourcing it to cheaper migrant workers, or commodifying and automating it through the use of information and assistive technologies (­Dowling, 2020). However, such reorganisations or “­care fixes” are always temporary and exhaustible as they simply move forward rather than radically address capitalism’s internal contradiction (­ibid.). Accordingly, The Care Collective (­2020) cautions that any attempt to overcome our current m ­ ultiple– ​­societal, environmental and public h ­ ealth – ​­crises has to insist on foregrounding care at every scale of

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our daily lives: from the home to our communities to our markets, states and the world at large.

Consuming Care There is a f lipside to our current crises of care. That is a burgeoning industry that promises to address an ­ever-​­more expansive set of care needs via the ­marketplace – ​­for those that can afford it. Take, e.g. www.care.com, a ­one-​­stop shop for individual care needs, part and parcel of a thriving and increasingly dominant gig economy. Therein, one can find “­trusted caregivers” for anything from childcare to housekeeping and special needs. Very much like Uber or Lyft, the complex task of care p­ rovision – ​­often entailing highly subjective and intricate qualities such as emotional investment, attentive listening, mutuality, endurance, ­patience – ​­is ultimately reduced to market metrics, a vague but quantified score of “­customer satisfaction”. Meanwhile, the ­ self-​­ care and wellness industries, now represent m ­ ulti-​ ­billion, ­ever-​­growing and extremely lucrative economic sectors.1 This is in tandem with consumer responsibilisation (­e.g. Eckhardt and Dobscha, 2019), the idea that all quests in one’s life can be best served by the market, guided by the values of independence and free choice. Conspicuous by its absence is any recognition of our human interdependence and shared vulnerability, the idea that we are hardly ever individually responsible neither for our successes nor for our failures (­e.g. The Care Collective, 2020). An archetypal example is Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert’s famous 2006 novel and film adaptation (­starring Julia Roberts). Disgruntled by an unsuccessful marriage and a vacuous ­lifestyle – ​­the star embarks on a journey around the world, aiming for ultimate ­self-​­discovery. In doing so, a life of superficial, highly materialistic consumption (­e.g. a comfortable home, luxury clothes, etc.) is progressively replaced by “­spiritual” consumption: international travelling, gourmet eating, expensive spiritual services and wellness products. This ­consumption-​­based shortcut to empowerment (­Williams, 2014) is at the heart of how the model of the responsibilised, s­elf-​­caring consumer works: we are all responsible for our happiness, success, fulfilment, etc., and we have the power to achieve them through sensible consumption choices. However, the commoditisation of our daily caring lives stretches beyond such pronounced examples to include a myriad of other, somewhat more banal contexts. From buying ­take-​­away food as opposed to collectively making a family meal to paying nannies for one’s ­childcare – and ​­ assisted living services for one’s elderly parents as opposed to finding new ways of directly bonding through caring for one another. Indeed, nearly all caring activities that were traditionally performed by families, communities and the resources provided by states are now increasingly outsourced and packaged for sale in the marketplace. This also applies to care for more distant others, by for instance, buying Fair Trade and other green and ethical products. Such forms of consumption (­and ­anti-​­consumption) also say something about the way we

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connect with and care for others. There is a difference between feeling good in the supermarket by buying some (­fetishized) ethical products as opposed to directly connecting and communicating with their makers (­e.g. Chatzidakis et al., 2012; although the one does not exclude the other). The marketisation and commodification of care are therefore not restricted to “­­hands-​­on” care, or what Joan Tronto (­2013) identifies as “­caring for”, the physical aspects of the care g­ iver–​­receiver relationship. It also includes Tronto’s (­2013) notions of “­caring about”, our broader emotional investment in and concern about ­others – e.g. ​­ the aforementioned example of Fair Trade ­consumption – and ​­ even “­caring with”, the ways in which we mobilise collectively and democratically in order to transform our world. The latter is evident in the ongoing privatisation of our public things and infrastructures such as education, healthcare, but also community libraries, nurseries and public parks (­Honig, 2017). It is also evident in the subtler forms of consumerising more traditional forms of civic participation. For example, Spain’s Podemos leftist party published its electoral programme as an ­IKEA-​­style catalogue, hoping that this way it will be read by its younger voters.2 The rest of the chapter thus builds on the observation that markets and consumption are interpenetrating key pillars of care provision in far more expansive terms. Care is understood capaciously, insisting on acknowledging the interconnections between more intimate, h ­ ands-​­on care contexts and the more mediated and indirect forms of care that we give and receive in our everyday lives. Such understanding is in line with Fisher and Tronto’s (­1990, ­p. 40), the definition of care as “…as a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘­world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible”. More broadly still, it echoes a view of care as “­our individual and common ability to provide the political, social, material and emotional conditions that allow for the vast majority of people and living creatures on this planet to ­thrive – ​­along with the planet itself ” (­The Care Collective, 2020, ­p. 6).

Different Shades and Scales of Commoditised Care If one is to accept that commoditised care has to be understood in its entirety and m ­ ulti-​­faceted complexity, so do potential forms of (­­anti-​­consumerist?) resistance. Put differently, we have to first unpack the multiple ways in which the forces of commoditisation and marketisation have squeezed or undermined our caring capacities across different scales of everyday life. Our constitution as consumers, as opposed to, e.g. the ­pre-​­modern “­faithful” or the early modern “­citizen” of the West (­e.g. Firat and Dholakia, 2017), has fundamental implications not only in terms of our sense of personhood and place in the world, but also the ideas and practices of care that we naturalise. For instance, ideas around our personal “­worthiness” and m ­ arket-​­mediated “­treats”, notions that otherwise “­underpaid” care workers enjoy what they do because it is rewarding in ­non-​­monetary ways, that commodities (­versus time, emotional attentiveness, etc.) are a better way of expressing our care or gratitude, or that

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donating money is enough when it comes to more vulnerable others, etc., comprise what Dowling (­2020) describes as ideologies of caring: the ­taken-­​ ­­for-​­granted assumptions that underpin the nature and scope of the care that we receive and give. How do we increase understanding of the central role of markets and consumerism in enabling certain logics and practices of care and undermining others? It is rather surprising that despite the “­turn to care” across disciplines (­e.g. Striphas, 2019), marketing and consumer researchers have yet to come up with a more expansive understanding of care and its relationship with ­anti-​ ­consumerism. Of course, that much (­if not most) consumption is implicitly or explicitly an expression of caring for others has been already well documented (­e.g. Miller, 2012; Warde, 1997). Recent studies have also foregrounded the “­ethics of care” as an alternative to dominant rationalist (­seen as masculine) models for understanding everyday consumer morality (­e.g. Heath et al. 2016; Shaw, McMaster and Newholm, 2016). However, care as a keyword and as a political imperative has a much richer genealogy. It has been, for instance, historically gendered, with women carrying disproportionate caring responsibilities (­e.g. Fraser, 2016a). In western modernity, these have been sustained through structural separations of sites of production and sites of social reproduction and consumption (­e.g. Lewis, 2016); with the lack of appropriate vocabularies that cultivate care (­e.g. Tronto, 2013); with the lack of resources and infrastructures in our communities (­e.g. Stronge et al., 2019), with the retraction of the welfare state from domains that ensured a certain level of ­top-​­down care and social solidarity (­e.g. Honig, 2017). Commonplace understandings of consumers as primarily ­other-​­or ­self-​ ­focused (­e.g. Devinney, Auger and Eckhardt, 2010), altruistic or morally defensive (­e.g. Chatzidakis, Hibbert and Smith, 2007) and indeed consumerist or a­nti-​­consumerist, do not take us far enough in terms of explaining the complex and ­multi-​­faceted intersection of markets and consumerism with care and caring. In order to advance a more holistic understanding, I focus on some key domains of care provision: households, communities, markets and states. These largely correspond to Razavi’s (­2007) “­care diamond”, a simple metaphor used in the field of care economics to analyse how care is distributed across four pillars; and on key scales of everyday care, as outlined by The Care Collective (­2020). My aim is to brief ly illustrate how consumerism deeply affects the nature and scope of care logics and practices within each of them; and by implication, how a­ nti-​­consumerism can represent a more progressive way forward. Households This is the domain in which the intersection of consumption with care and caring has been most acknowledged. For anthropologists like Danny Miller (­2012), most consumption is done with others in mind and indeed primarily significant others, i.e. family members. This understanding is echoed in

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various consumer studies (­ e.g. O’Malley and Prothero, 2006; Cappellini, Marshall and Parsons, 2016) identifying different roles and challenges, but also the central role of markets and consumption in maintaining a sense of familial care and identity and even in contributing to women’s emancipation (­Scott, 2000). The consumer literature also acknowledges some darker sides: that most such consumption is disproportionately placed on the shoulders of “­juggling mothers” (­Thompsons, 1996) for various historical and structural reasons that have ensured caring (­and indeed consumption) remains a feminine activity (Fischer and Bristor, 2004); that marketing and consumption, as a system of communicative signs and symbols, reproduces heteronormative ideals of family and kinship (­e.g. Arend, 2016), ultimately limiting the realm of the possible when it comes to who “­counts as family” or worthy of our most intimate care and devotion (­e.g. The Care Collective, 2020). The ­hegemonic – ​­at least within the s­ o-​­called Western ­world – ​­model of familial consumption is mediating and reproducing further ideologies of caring that have important limitations. For instance, according to Lareau (­2000), its underlying logic is that of “­concerted cultivation”, i.e. that parents should do all that they can to enhance their children’s social, cultural and economic capital. This is echoed in popular notions of an intensive helicopter or snowplough parenting, with middle and upwardly mobile families striving to outcompete each other, closely supervising their children and ensuring they make the right choices and investments in life from a very young age. In other words, the underlying familial subjectivity remains that of consumerism and competitive ­ iddle-​­class families have little time or abilindividualism. Accordingly, such m ity to care for l­ess-​­resourced families. More strikingly still, they are blinded to, or are simply complicit in the reproduction of “­care chains” (­Hochschild, 2015) that sustain intersectional injustices, i.e. the outsourcing of household labour to migrant women who in turn have to send the money they earn back to their own families. Equally, they tend to be oblivious to the hidden histories and social relations underlying the production chains of all commodities that enter the field of household caregiving, from interpersonal gifts to ingredients of the food they prepare or consume in the marketplace. Communities To be sure, many consumers do extend their care for other consumers beyond their family members. They often form brand communities (­Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001), subcultures of consumption (­Schouten and McAlexander, 1995) or “­tribes” (­e.g. Cova, Kozinets and Shankar, 2007; Cova and White, 2010) that sustain a certain extent of sociality and help them cultivate ties on the basis of shared interests in brands, products, leisure activities and consumption practices. Sometimes they also mobilise themselves against powerful actors to reclaim a sense of agency and control over their environment (­e.g. ­anti-​­Starbucks communities; Thompson and Arsel, 2004). Not surprisingly then, some have suggested (­e.g. Streeck, 2012) that commercialisation has

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created opportunities and apparently quite attractive ones, for a new type of what Simmel called Vergesellschaftung or “­sociation” – ​­i.e. a way for individuals to link up to others and thereby help define their place in the world. Yet the idea of m ­ arket-​­mediated communities or communities of consumption is in many ways inadequate. To begin with, such communities are more often than not ephemeral, loosely connected and rather superficial. Steve Miles (­2010), for instance, talks of “­complicit communality”, referring to the observation that we as consumers are complicit in partly reviving a bygone community ethos in commoditised spaces that we know are not communal enough. That is, we are habituated into the comforts and pleasures offered by consumer culture even while being aware of their elusive nature. We avoid, for instance, fighting for the social and community infrastructures that are really needed for radically enlarging our commons and making them more genuinely caring: from community libraries and libraries of things to shared urban spaces, parks, local arts centres, as well as for more democratic ways of local governance (­e.g. radical municipalism; The Care Collective, 2020). Importantly, such communities also stubbornly remain organised around common (­consumer) identities and interests. In doing so, they run the risk of building upon logics of individualism rather than collectivism: consumers continue to exist within them as individuals not as part of collectives that can be (­and do) bigger than the sum of their parts (­Gilbert, 2013). Their underlying ideologies of care foreground notions of proximity and sameness. Conspicuously absent are more radical ways of caring for one another that extend across difference and beyond the market. A good example here would be the various welcome centres that were formed in response to the European refugee crisis. City Plaza, for instance, was a hotel in the centre of Athens, Greece, that was squatted between April 2016 and July 2019. It became home to a shifting mix of about 400, mostly Syrian refugees (­but also Eritreans, Ghanaians, Iranians, Somalis) and many European “­solidarians”. As a community project, it proceeded through collective cooking initiatives, shared cleaning and maintenance rotas, participation in gifting and solidarity bazaars. Such practices had in common was their embrace of ­anti-​­and ­non-​­market values of collaboration, sharing, mutuality and ­co-​­production; and ideologies of care that stretched beyond individualism and notions of “­people like us”. Markets Markets have always mediated some forms of care and caregiving. Indeed, interest in the impact of markets on our capacities to give and receive care is hardly new. According to Plato, if we are to accept that “­no two people are born exactly alike” (­Plato, 1968, ­p. 55; cited in Shaw, 1995) and thus have different skills and needs, then one has to make a case for the division of labour, so that everyone’s needs are satisfied in the most efficient manner possible. It follows that producers of goods are separated from users of goods and “­obviously, they must buy and sell” (­ibid, p­ . 68). Thus “­having a marketplace, [there will

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be] a currency to serve as a token for purposes of exchange” (­ibid, p­ . 58). Further, Plato, Aristotle and various others (­Shaw, 1995) were well aware of the social repercussions and dangers entailed in using money, markets and m ­ oney-​ ­making as an end in itself, rather than the means to “…a good life”, as Aristotle would have it (­A ristotle, 1962, p­ . 19). However, over the last few decades, we have been witnessing the ubiquitous presence of “­the market”, understood here as an institution and a fetishized principle that guides all interactions under capitalism, as opposed to the plurality of our actual material and immaterial locations of exchange (­e.g. Neveling, 2020). The “­market as god” ideology (­Frank, 2001; Skeggs, 2014) naturalises the prioritisation of private economic gains as the ultimate purpose of any social relationship and activity. However vulnerable or dependent the recipient of care may be, and however complex and shifting their needs, the archetypal relationship with the care provider must be fully reducible to market value. Although some economists (­and marketers) argue that the model of commoditised care can be successful, even desirable under some c­ ircumstances –​ ­for instance when it comes to impersonal, standardised tasks (­e.g. cleaning) or ­technology-​­mediated care (­e.g. health screening devices) – ​­such a model is, on the whole, fundamentally inadequate. First, there are only a few forms of care work that do not require personal engagement and affective devotion. Care is therefore not quite like any other commodity. More often than not, it is “­sticky” for both carers and those cared for (­Tronto, 2013). Standard economic assumptions about perfect competition and rules of supply and demand do not apply as both “­seller” and “­buyer” information and choices are highly restricted. As the economist Nancy Folbre (­2012) puts it, we should be thinking of “­invisible hearts”, not “­invisible hands” (­a reference to Adam Smith) when it comes to explaining what keeps our economies af loat. Carers (­commonly women) provide most of the unpaid and underpaid work that maintains our everyday lives, yet they still remain invisible in hegemonic accounts of markets. Second, markets can only allocate care responsibilities and services on the basis of purchasing power. The moneyed class is always the winner. Losers are all those that have limited, if any, access to markets, all the more so if they also have limited access to care services beyond them. Further, the ­market-​ ­mediated distribution of care services not only ref lects but also exacerbates previous income inequalities and care deficits. Those with high income will be able to fulfil a range of care needs, from h ­ igh-​­quality education to housing, enabling a virtuous circle of investment in their human capital. Even having time to meaningfully care for one’s significant others has become a market conspicuous consumption” as Elizabeth ­ Currid-​ luxury, a new type of “­ ­Halkett (­2017) argues in The Sum of Small Things. Marketising care directly leads to increased care deficits and uncaring societies. Third, market norms are notorious for “­crowding out” and corrupting n ­ on-​ ­market values as ­Harvard-​­based philosopher Mike Sandel puts it (­2012) in What Money Cannot ­Buy – ​­The Moral Limits of Markets. Of course, concerns about the morally corrupt (­and corrupting) nature of markets were expressed

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long before ­him – as ​­ mentioned ­above – with ​­ many philosophers and social commentators speaking of the social repercussions entailed in using money, markets and ­money-​­making as an end in itself, rather than the means to the good and caring life. Put differently, valuing and paying more for care is not the same as marketising care. The latter implies subordinating the inherently moral and cultural value of care and caring to an abstract notion of market value. It is part of an ongoing transition from a market economy to a market society, one that foregrounds the s­ elf-​­interested and u ­ tility-​­maximising consumer in every sphere of our (­caring) lives. Further, the current markets that we have are not only inadequate for extending to traditional nonmarket realms of care, but they are also uncaring by design. Indeed, most forms of direct care w ­ ork – paid, ​­ unpaid or ­marketised – presuppose ​­ the exchange of various products and services, such as preparing and serving meals, or buying school and medical supplies. From this perspective, as Holly Lewis (­2016); puts it (­and many others before her) in The Politics of Everybody, Each of us…has a network of invisible caretakers scattered across the globe, fulfilling tasks once performed within the community. People we don’t know stitch together our underwear, mine the metals used to make the machines that make our bicycles and pots, harvest our grain, grind the sand to make our drinking glasses. Sometimes our invisible caretakers live in town: lifting boxes from pallets, grading our term papers, preparing food in the backs of restaurants, cleaning our shit off public toilets. (­­p. 10) Invisible, undervalued, exploited care labour is ­everywhere – ​­from the global care chains of our domestic workers to the hidden carers who meticulously produce and circulate our commodities. In this sense, working towards a more caring world needs to involve the denaturalisation of both the ­market – ​­myths and ­taken-­​­­for-​­g ranted ideas about the central role and inevitability of capitalist modes of production and e­ xchange –​ ­and of the consumer, as having a necessarily monolithic subjectivity that can only find gratification, and indeed care, via the market. States Logics of marketisation and commoditisation have reached record scope and scale. They interpenetrate realms that until recently have been viewed as typically civic, with national and local governmental bodies ensuring their fair and equitable provision across the population. Indeed, most of our collective care ­infrastructures – ​­what Manuel Castells (­1977) describes as items of “­collective consumption” – ​­are increasingly privatised, including our access to healthcare, education, childcare, elderly care and housing. As have been our various public things or local commons, such as public parks, libraries, council services and utilities.

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The implications for the amount and type of care or welfare we receive from whatever is left of the state are very far reaching. Firstly, as various scholars have illustrated, rather than encouraging efficiencies through competition, freedom of choice and so on, the marketisation of public services commonly results in deteriorating their quality whilst also making them more expensive and undermining their ­long-​­term sustainability. For instance, within the context of UK care homes, Amy Horton (­2019) illustrates how decades of financialisation and privatisation have resulted in dramatic staff shortages, poverty, illness and numerous care home bankruptcies, firmly diverting resources away from care givers and receivers and into private investment funds. Similar effects are noted in a remarkably diverse range of contexts, from the marketisation of public transport (­Shaw and Doherty, 2014) to prisons (­e.g. Bondurant, 2013). For many commentators, this is endemic to the neoliberal reconfiguration of the state, facilitating the appropriation of public goods by business actors (­often by first strategically underfunding and degrading them) and the concurrent transformation of citizens into consumers and of care seekers into “­care customers” (­e.g. Farris and Marchetti, 2017). From an (­a nti)­consumerist perspective, therefore, the effects of marketisation extend well beyond the provision of more expensive yet l­ower-​­quality care. More profoundly, marketisation corrupts the very cultural norms and values cherished in our societies. As Michael Sandel (­2012) puts it, the ­crowding-​­out of n ­ on-​­market values ultimately affects our sense of purpose and place in our world. A typical example he cites can be found in attempts to incentivise/­monetise blood giving and which, rather c­ ounter-​­intuitively, often result in fewer donations. Sandel’s explanation is that once a caring act such as giving blood is no longer viewed as innately caring (­in a moral sense), but rather as an i­nstrumental-​­incentivised choice, individuals no longer feel the obligation to give. Likewise, in the context of health care, Mol (­2008) emphatically argues that the “­logic of (­customer) choice” is diametrically opposed to the “­logic of care”. The latter entails qualities, such as attentiveness and adaptability, that cannot be reduced to market metrics. Echoing such observations, sociologists like Beverley Skeggs (­2014) have long emphasised that caring that is offered as a gift beyond exchange relations is of a different form to the relations established to promote and reproduce the logic of capital. Caring offers us a different way of being in the world, relating to others as if they matter, with attentiveness and compassion, beyond exchange. (­­p. 13) Somewhat reassuringly, attempts to subordinate our moral and cultural values to the capitalist notion of market value and of our civic self to the ­utility-​ ­maximising consumer, always remain incomplete: e.g. we still end up caring for various human and nonhuman others without expecting anything in return (­Skeggs, 2014).

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Building on a more psychosocial approach, Honig (­2017) illustrates the profound effect of “­public things” – ​­from hospitals and public squares to public ­phones  – ​­on individual subjectivity. Honig argues that unlike private commodities, and the various joys entailed in fetishized consumption, public things offer something less magical yet extremely profound: a sense of publicness and collectivity which no genuine democracy can afford to do without. When things like schools, playgrounds, etc., are marketised, what we ­lose – ​­rather less ­consciously – ​­is the ability to connect with, and care for others beyond instrumentalism. Within consumer research, an obvious manifestation would be experimental research showing that the only way to make “­consumers” care for public things such as public lakes and parks would be by increasing their sense of “­individual” ownership (­Peck et al., 2020). Contra such assumptions, a caring perspective would encourage a deeper appreciation of our common fate and interdependence, one resulting in embracing our commons and working collectively towards their repair and maintenance. ­ nti-​­Consuming Care? Towards a More “­­Anti-​­Consumerist” and A “­Citizenly” Model of Care Provision But what is to be done? A more ­anti-​­consumption oriented understanding of care provision invites us to (­re)­consider consumerism not only as an ideology that promotes oblivious consumption as the means for advancing individual wellbeing and happiness (­e.g. Gabriel and Lang, 2008) but also as a set of ideas and practices that permeate our everyday relations and fundamentally undermine our capacities to care and be cared for. Such understanding is not incompatible with the more familiar (­and better studied) forms of ­market-​­mediated activism addressed in a­ nti-​­consumption research. It is very much aligned, for instance, with current attempts to envisage more caring and solidary marketplaces such as those of Skoros, an ­anti-​­consumerist collective in Athens where people can come and give, take, or give and take goods and services without the use of money or any norms of reciprocity (­Chatzidakis, Maclaran and Bradshaw, 2012) or equivalent digital platforms such as sharestuff.com and freecycle.org. To a certain extent, it is also aligned with attempts to boycott and buycott the services and products of certain corporations on the basis of evidence of social and environmental care or (­more commonly) carelessness. To some extent, we can ­re-​­interpret all these practices as forms of ­market-​ ­mediated and/­or a­ nti-​­consumerist care activism. However, the perspective advanced herein departs from these examples to consider potential routes of resistance to consumerism beyond the marketplace (­as a location), not least because the market (­as an institution) is everywhere. Put differently, it builds on the observation that ­market-​­mediated relationships and the corresponding foregrounding of the “­consumer” as the default subject position are diffused into every sphere of our daily lives, from our homes and our communities to the ways in which we deal with public goods, commons and the state. As Doreen Massey (­2013, ­p. 11) has put it:

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…this vocabulary of customer, consumer, choice, markets and s­ elf-​­interest moulds both our conception of ourselves and our understanding of and relationship to the world. These ‘­descriptions’ of roles, exchanges and relationships in terms of a presumption that individual choice and ­self-​­interest does and should prevail are in fact not simply descriptions but a powerful means by which new subjectivities are constructed and enforced. In her recent book titled “­A lternative Prosperity”, Kate Soper (­2020, p­p. ­1–​­2) takes this further to describe the market as “­an authoritarian force”: …commanding people to sacrifice or marginalise everything that is not commercially viable; condemning them to long hours of often very boring work to provide stuff that often isn’t really needed; monopolising conceptions of the ‘­good life’; and preparing children for a life of consumption. Although such observations may sound exaggerated for the proponents of free choice and consumer sovereignty, they resonate with a widespread disillusion with the promises of consumer capitalism. Soaring rates of mental illness, increasing social inequalities and a systemic failure to deal with collective crises such as the environmental and pandemic ones, are in themselves measures that consumerism has failed to deliver on its promise of universal happiness and wellbeing for all. Of course, many billions continue to be spent on a retail therapy, and more recently, the thriving wellness and s­ elf-​­care industries; it is highly doubtful that we are left living happier and more fulfilling lifestyles. Lack of care in other domains, such as our homes and/­or communities cannot be addressed via compensatory consumption. My more specific focus on care builds on this observation but adds that consumerism’s more subtle effects in our caring relationships, however proximate or distanced these may be, remain less understood. The foregrounding of consumerist logics and practices in all scales of everyday life continues to have a ­multi-​­faceted and deeply corrosive effect both in our social relationships and on all the infrastructures that sustain us. At the familial level, the commoditisation of care can deprive us of the necessary warmth and bonding that we all n ­ eed – ​­but also (­and for a variety of reasons) the more extraverted, interdependent ethos that is needed to ­co-​­exist with other families regardless of their similarity and distance from ours. Likewise, the mediation of community relations by the market threatens genuinely collectivist logics (­Gilbert, 2013) in so far as such groups coalesce around common interests and (­branded) identities, but fail to work beyond them. Finally, at the level of the state and public goods, decades of ongoing marketisation have proved to be no less than catastrophic. The quality of our collective goods and infrastructures is falling whilst their market price is rising. Worryingly, such a state of affairs is naturalised, at least by those who continue

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to feel privileged and secure enough by being able to resort to ­markets – ​­a consumerist illusion that became only ever more apparent within the advent of ­COVID-​­19. I therefore concur with Tronto (­2013) in asserting that the logic of the m ­ arket – ​­relying on an atomistic and instrumental conception of human n ­ ature – ​­does spread to other realms of life. Given that this is a logic fundamentally opposed to notions of shared vulnerability and interdependence, an ­anti-​­consumerist agenda must also oppose this very spreading. In critiquing the marketisation of key scales or pillars of care provision such as families, communities and states I am not intending to outline a definitive map or framework of what ought to be needed, or desired, or indeed how caring relationships should look like. Rather I am identifying a growing sense of discontent with consumerism and its ­multi-​­faceted role in perpetuating our current crises of care: ­environmental-​­, ­social-​­ and ­health-​­related ones. For instance, the idea that consumerism has played a central role in the current ­COVID-​­19 crisis is indisputable. Retailers capitalised on consumers’ insecurities (­e.g. by overpricing essential goods such as toilet paper), corporations launched numerous “­carewashing” campaigns (­Chatzidakis et al., 2020) and politicians came up with various initiatives and incentives that encouraged people to keep consuming. The UK government, e.g. introduced the “­eat out to help out” scheme, offering discounts to get people out and spending on high streets despite rising infection rates.3 On the other hand, many individuals and communities responded in a far more citizenly manner, forming Mutual Aid groups and caring for all those that were failed by the system regardless of their m ­ arket-​­driven “­respectability” or value. Yet, even after the ­so-​­called second wave of ­COVID-​­19, the exact breadth and depth in which consumption logics have corroded our capacities to care for one another remains less frequently acknowledged. It is clear that we have to resist consumerism not only via better market choices, but also via emphasising more civic logics and sensibilities in our homes, in our local communities and in our relationship(­s) with the state (­The Care Collective, 2020). Put differently, we may continue to use the market as a means of redressing systemic care deficits in some domains (­e.g. in the realm of production and the use of extreme labour exploitation) but we also need to resist the market as an institution that interpenetrates more traditional realms of care provision. We should, for instance, ­anti-​­consume privatised spaces that restrict our opportunities for collective ownership and democratic participation; and be suspicious of marketised alternatives to collective good provisioning (­from public health to education). At the same time, we should demand that our caring capacities are institutionally and infrastructurally supported in appropriate ways (­e.g. Cherrier and Hill, 2018) at each and every level of our daily lives. In sum, we should insist on being treated as citizens and/­or care seekers, not “­care customers”, and that our collective care resources and infrastructures are democratically governed. Hopefully, this chapter represents a first step in elucidating how and why it is time for a more expansive, ­anti-​­consumerist agenda.

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Notes 1 https://­w ww.theguardian.com/­commentisfree/­2 020/­jan/­15/­­a fter- ­​­­t he- ­​­­s leep-­​ ­­economy-­​­­whats-­​­­next-­​­­to-­​­­be-­​­­monetised-​­breathing 2 https://­w ww.theguardian.com/­world/­2 016/­jun/­0 9/­­podemos-­​­­m anifesto-­​­­i kea-­​ ­­catalogue-­​­­f lat-­​­­pack-​­policies 3 https://­t heconversation.com/­­e at- ­​­­out-­​­­t o-­​­­help- ­​­­out- ­​­­c rowded-­​­­restaurants-­​­­m ay-­​ ­­have-­​­­d riven-­​­­u k-­​­­coronavirus-­​­­spike-­​­­new-­​­­f indings-​­145945

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7 Different Sides of the Same Coin Political Ideology and Mask Avoidance or Adoption in the Age of ­COVID-​­19 Charles S. Areni and Hélène Cherrier I­ ntroduction Anti-​­consumption refers to an attitude and expressive behaviors opposing consumption (­Cherrier 2009; Chatzidakis & Lee, 2013). Scholars have demonstrated that a­ nti-​­consumption is equally important to consumers’ shaping of their ideal selves via the consumption of desired products (­Cherrier & Murray, 2007; Hogg, Banister, & Stephenson, 2009; Sussan, Hall, & Meamber, 2012). Consumers reject brands/­products to project a desired self through the expression of distastes and undesired affiliations (­Connolly & Prothero, 2003; Hogg et al., 2009). Scholars also associate ­anti-​­consumption with consumers’ desire to express values opposing p­ ro-​­growth discourses, the fast fashion system, or powerful global corporations (­Cherrier, 2016; Cherrier, Szuba, & ­Özçağlar-​ ­Toulouse, 2012; Thompson & Arsel, 2004; Varman & Belk, 2009). The idea is that consumers oppose brands/­products/­services when marked with symbolic significance that is incongruent with the self and its aspirations and values. The symbolic significance of products including goods, brands, and services unfolds within a culturally constituted world and constantly evolves through interactions between consumers, institutions, and the environment (­A rsel  & Bean, 2013; Giesler  & Veresiu, 2014; McCracken, 1986). For instance, red traffic lights are symbols of danger and stopping by virtue of traffic regulation, convention, law, agreement, and habits. Within consumer culture, institutions such as advertising, fashion systems, and a wide network of media transfer symbolic significance to goods, including their uses in social interactions and placement in the home (­A rsel & Bean, 2013). Literature has established that products such as masks tend to have multiple symbolic associations as they communicate information about the states of the wearer differently depending on the situation and ­socio-​­historical context (­Gosden  & Marshall, 1999; Pollock, 1995). Scholars have shown the use and functions of masks in drama, theater, religion, rituals, and traditions (­Edson, 2005). Masks carry messages to communities and to God during the ritualized dance (­Phillips, 1978) and religious celebrations ( ­Jacquet, 2011). Masks and the acts of wearing masks can help the wearer explore and confirm identity (­Edson, 2005), become social (­A rgenti, 2001), celebrate important DOI: 10.4324/9780367821586-10

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events, or even reach an altered state of consciousness (­Merrill, 2004). Masks also evoke expertise and professionalism and can transform the wearer into a trusted doctor or dentist. As Pollock (­1995, p­ .  584) explains: “­the marks work by concealing or modifying these signs of identity which conventionally display the actor and by presenting new values that, again conventionally, represent the transformed person”. Yet, surgical masks in the age of C ­ OVID-​­19 are different from many other instances of product symbolism because, as a “­new” product imposed during the pandemic, at least in Western cultures, its public meaning has not been fully established or articulated via cultural processes (­Csikszentmihalyi & ­Rochberg-​­Halton, 1981; McCracken, 1986; Richins, 1994). Surgical masks are visible, easy to put on and remove, connected to the individual wearing it, and conceal and modify conventional ways of expressing one’s identity amongst others. Wearing a surgical mask in public in the US is in many ways an unnatural, cultural abnormality that violates many of the meanings, rituals, habits, and values of everyday life, in contrast to countries like China, Singapore, and Japan, where it is more common and accepted to see citizens wearing medical masks in public (­Landoni et al., 2021). Hence, medical masks can have different meanings to the wearer and the various people who encounter the wearer. The aim of this chapter is to explore consumer decisions to avoid products because of their political symbolism. Scholars have demonstrated that political ideologies inf luence consumers’ decisions to reject preventive measures (­Cakanlar, Trudel, & White, 2020). Along these lines, we analyze comments on multiple subreddits discussing the symbolic significance of wearing masks during the C ­ OVID-​­19 pandemic. These online forums reveal that masks do not necessarily remain within the domains of protective functions to their beholders (­Campbell, 2020). We thus ask (­1) how consumers come to understand, interpret, and deal with the legal prescriptions to wear masks and (­2) how masks become imbricated with political ideologies.

Product Meaning Systems and Political Ideology Product Meaning Systems In his seminal work on culture and consumption (­1986), McCracken developed a cultural understanding of the movement of meanings of consumer ­goods –​­ the meaning that … transfers to goods is the meaning of the collectivity. The meaning that personal gestures transfer to goods is the meaning of the collectivity as this meaning has been inf lected by the particular experience of the individual consumer. (­McCracken, 1986, ­p. 79) From his work, product meanings reside in a culturally constituted world and constantly evolve as they transit to goods. McCracken (­1986) identified

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advertising and fashion systems, comprised of private institutions that convey meaning to consumers via rituals. Following McCracken (­1986), mask meanings are embedded in a culturally organized world and emerge and transform through various institutions and rituals. However, with respect to meanings associated with masks in the age of C ­ OVID-​­19, two institutions from the public sector: the medical system and the legal system, play a major role. Under the auspices of different cultural beliefs, normative values, and legal systems, masks can also associate the wearer with perceived dangers, and even criminal behavior and “­barbarism” (­Williamson & Khiabany, 2010, ­p. 87). In the US, masks have been associated with the Ku Klux Klan and its violence and cowardice (­Goldberg, 1996). To protect society against criminals in the US, The N.Y. Penal Law 240.35 (­4), placed in 1845 and revised in 1965, prohibits mask wearing or any face covering the congregation of two persons or more in a public space (­Kahn, 2019). In Europe, masks have also become unpopular and are often associated with Islamists following France’s national ban on f­ull-​­face veils in public in 2011. Scholars working on the veil and identity highlight widespread controversies around the Islamic headscarf, making it a politicized object of “­us and them, the West versus Islam, modernity versus tradition” ( ­Joppke, 2009; Scott, 2007; Williamson & Khiabany, 2010, ­p. 91). Analyzing consecutive mask bans in the US, Kahn (­2019, ­p. 86) concluded: “­There’s just one ­problem—​­the law (­as currently constituted) simply will not let us wear masks”. In the age of ­COVID-​­19, one could argue that mask bans are no longer ­ OVID-​­19 outbreak, the legal system has imposed wearing viable. Since the C surgical masks as mandatory to protect the self, the nation, and the world. Legal systems comprise government bodies, laws, and regulations that determine, and in some cases enforce, policies, protocols, and mandates related to wearing masks. These mandates restrict the autonomy of consumers but are also potentially relevant to the need for health and ­well-​­being, affiliation and competence as citizens can question the efficacy of these policies for protection against contracting C ­ OVID-​­19 and preventing its spread to others (­Flaskerud, 2020). In addition, the medical system contributes multiple narratives related ­ ell-​ to wearing masks with an obvious connection to the need for health and w ­being, but with additional potential ramifications for the need for autonomy, affiliation, and competence as citizens consider the possible t­ rade-​­offs between complying with the latest medical advice and continuing with normal daily and weekly consumption rituals (­Goldstein et al., 2020). Along the legal and medical systems is the fashion system, which contributes to consumers’ symbolic understanding of masks. The fashion system provides “­designer” products, available from multiple online sources, that encourage individual consumers to express themselves via the styles and images they project on their masks (­Thompson & Haytko, 1997), giving consumers some autonomy over how they comply with mask protocols and mandates. However, medical specifications of “­fashion” masks and ­hand-​­made masks are less established, potentially raising concerns about the ultimate safety of

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these options. In addition, the advertising system can shape the symbolism of wearing masks via messages that associate companies and brands with the general notion of “­doing the right thing”. For instance, the Paris catwalk during the 2020 fashion week modeled ­full-​­face covering and masking as fashionable during the ­COVID-​­19 pandemic, a paradoxical move in a country where wearing f­ace-​­covering veils is illegal (­­Leighton-​­Dore, 2020). The contested and conf licting emotions, thoughts, ideas, and actions that masks stimulate come not only from the material quality and nature of the product as visible and removeable but also from the meaning systems at play. Importantly, the symbols and signs provided by these meaning systems are “­motivated”, and unconscious symbolism is often involved. That is, consumers do not merely accept the meanings provided by the fashion, advertising, legal and medical systems, they adjust and adapt these various narratives to their own circumstances. These basic ideas account for how political ideology “­inf lects” the meaning provided by the various systems with respect to wearing masks. Consumers are motivated to assign symbols and signs to masks to reinforce their political views, something increasingly common in the age of identity politics (­K landermans, 2014). This also implies that consumers may hold and express views that involve negotiating tensions between multiple needs. …consumers are conceived of as identity seekers and makers. Consumer identity projects are typically considered to be goal driven … although the aims pursued may often be tacit in nature (­and vaguely understood) and marked by points of conf lict, internal contradictions, ambivalence, and even pathology. (­A rnould & Thompson, 2005, ­p. 871) Hence, the fashion, advertising, legal and medical systems provide multiple narratives regarding the meaning of wearing masks that are potentially relevant to the needs for autonomy, health and w ­ ell-​­being, affiliation, and competence (­Chen et al., 2015; Lundin et al., 2014; Mayer, Faber, & Xu, 2007). Many of these narratives create potential conf licts regarding the pursuit of these needs, with the most obvious being that the decision to wear masks (­and comply with other C ­ OVID-​­19 mandates like social distancing, lockdown orders, etc.) involves t­rade-​­offs between autonomy and health and ­well-​­being. However, as will become apparent in the data presented below, these multiple narratives create other conf licts, and hence the need for additional ­trade-​­offs, in the pursuit of these basic human needs. Political Ideology Political ideology serves as a kind of filter inf lecting which symbolic meanings of masks become manifest and which are ignored or dismissed. Political ideology is also a foundation for negotiating ­t rade-​­offs among multiple needs

Different Sides of the Same Coin  123

and emphasizing some meanings and symbols over others ( ­Jost, 2017a; Oyserman & Schwarz, 2017). Researchers have proposed multiple typologies and classifications of political ideology. For purposes of understanding how political ideology influences the decision to wear a mask during the ­COVID-​­19 pandemic, we identify the distinction between “­individual liberty” and “­collective responsibility”. Similar distinctions have been referred to as “­individual autonomy versus social equality” (­Henry, 2010), “­individualism” versus “­collectivism” (­Cakanlar, Trudel, & White, 2020), and “­conservatism” versus “­liberalism” (­Jost, 2017a, 2017b). Those adopting an individual liberty ideology tend to emphasize the freedom of individuals and are wary of public institutions, private organizations, or groups of citizens who might limit or remove this freedom via laws, policies, and social pressure to conform. As citizens, they are willing to live by a formal system of law and accept informal social contracts, but only if these systems do not overly restrict individual freedoms and s­elf-​­determination. In contrast, the collective responsibility ideology emphasizes how members of society must interact with one another to ensure that society functions properly and that all individuals have access to basic rights and have their basic needs fulfilled. This view places greater importance on the obligations of citizens as members of society rather than the rights of individuals to be ­self-​­determining and to behave as they choose. According to this view, people have basic rights and entitlements, even if those benefits are indirectly provided by other members of society via taxes. In the US, for example, the individual liberty ideology tends to be more associated with the “­conservative” Republican party, whereas the Democrats tend to be associated with the collective responsibility ideology. However, academic research suggests a more nuanced relationship wherein liberals and conservatives share basic moral foundations but differ in terms of their degree of advocacy (­Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009). Consistent with this more nuanced view, as shown in ­Figure 7.1 advocates of both political ideologies express concern about individual freedom and the rights of others in discussing wearing masks during the pandemic. The legal and medical systems in the public domain, and the fashion and advertising systems in the private domain interact with basic human needs for health and ­well-​­being, autonomy, affiliation, and competence to shape the symbolism associated with wearing a mask during the ­COVID-​­19 pandemic. Needs for health and ­well-​­being, autonomy, affiliation, and competence have consistently appeared in classifications of basic human needs in research over multiple decades (­see Chen et al., 2015; Lundin et al., 2014; Mayer et al., 2007), with Maslow (­1943), Murray (­1938), and McClelland (­1965) being perhaps the most notable examples. In addition to the ­meaning-​­creating systems, fashion, marketing, medical and legal, basic human needs are filtered and distorted through two political ideologies that have become increasingly polarizing in American politics over

124  Charles S. Areni and Hélène Cherrier Political Ideology Inflects How Medical Masks Are Associated with Specific Needs Private Systems: Advertising and Fashion Corporate communications tend to emphasize pro-mask, “do the right thing” messages, but local retailers may promote anti-mask sentiment if this measure threatens their business (e.g., restaurants, nightclubs, etc.).

Autonomy

Affiliation

Health and Competence Well-Being

Individual Liberty

Wear a Mask to Protect Self and Others from the Spread of Covid-19

Collective Responsibility

Designer and hand-made masks provide choices and still comply with mandates, but they may provide less protection against the spread of the virus.

Refuse to Wear a Mask to Preserve the Freedoms of Self and Others

Public Systems: Medical and Legal Medical reports assess the value of wearing masks to protect self and others from being infected by the Covid-19 virus. Laws, mandates and protocols require certain behaviors and prohibit others, sometimes promoting wearing masks and other times prohibiting them. Political Ideology Influences How Consumers Make Trade-offs Between Conflicting Needs

­Figure 7.1  How Political Ideologies and Basic Needs Intersect to Inf luence Mask Symbolism and Avoidance

the last two to three ­decades – individual ​­ liberty versus collective responsibility (­Henry, 2010). Political ideology biases or coopts the meaning of the masks such that the same basic needs translate into opposing views about whether to wear them. First, the systems that create product symbolism relevant to wearing masks (­i.e., fashion, advertising, medical, legal) (­McCracken, 1986), provide narratives related to four basic consumer needs (­i.e., autonomy, affiliation, health and ­well-​­being, competence) (­Chen et al., 2015). These meanings are then filtered and interpreted through the collective responsibility and individual liberty ideologies (­Henry, 2010), leading consumers to wear a mask or refuse to wear a mask. Political ideology essentially acts as a filter or lens through which the intersections of product symbolism and consumer needs are viewed and consequently influences which meanings are manifest, and which are latent, ignored, or dismissed. pro-​­ maskers and a­nti-​ Masks can evoke safety and security needs for ­ ­maskers, but these associations can result in different behaviors depending on two opposing political ideologies. For instance, ­pro-​­maskers may view health and ­well-​­being in terms of limiting the spread of ­COVID-​­19, whereas a­ nti-​ ­maskers may be more likely to emphasize the psychological and economic risks associated with preventative mandates. In addition, masks may be related to a single need in multiple ways. For example, masks could evoke the need for health and ­well-​­being in terms of (­a) protecting oneself from contracting ­COVID-​­19, (­b) preventing loved ones from becoming infected, (­c) guarding against the negative psychological and economic consequences of ­COVID-​­19 mandates, (­d) defending oneself from aggression by others with

Different Sides of the Same Coin  125

opposing views, and (­e) guarding against increasingly oppressive government regulations and restrictions.

Method Numerous social media pages and online forums were considered as possible data sources, with the purpose being to find two online c­ ommunities – ​­one that would attract comments by users who refuse to wear masks and another to examine comments by users with positive attitudes toward wearing masks as a point of comparison. Two subreddits ­communities – ​­Lockdown Skepticism and ­COVID-​­19 ­Positive – ​­seemed particularly ­well-​­suited for this purpose. The Lockdown Skepticism subreddit, which had more than 27,000 members, was described as: Examining the empirical basis for mandatory lockdown policies in both the physical and social sciences. We are concerned about the impact of ­COVID-​­19 lockdown / quarantines on our freedoms, human rights, physical and mental health, and economy. We are skeptical of an ongoing lockdown as an effective way to manage the coronavirus pandemic. The reference to being concerned about “­quarantines on our freedoms, human rights, physical and mental health, and economy” seemed particularly indicative of the individual liberty political ideology. The ­COVID-​­19 Positive subreddit had more than 100,000 members and was described as: A place for people who came back positive for COVID19 can share your stories, experiences, answer questions and vent! The focus on people who contracted the virus seemed likely to attract p­ ro-​ ­mask comments. These two online communities served as the source of data for this research. A simple program written in R was used in conjunction with RStudio software to extract user comments from the LockdownSkepticism and Covid19Positive subreddits during the period ­3 –​­19 November 2020. During this period, 3,058 of the 34,881 comments on LockdownSkepticism and 3,568 of the 4,888 comments on Covid19Positive included the word “­mask” or some variant (­i.e., masks, masked). Leximancer was used to generate a sample of 150 comments containing “­mask” from each of the two subreddits, producing a total sample of 300 comments for analysis. One hundred and fifty comments were examined by the authors who first interpreted the meaning of each user comment independently and then met to discuss and compare their understanding of what was being conveyed. They paid specific attention to whether and how a given comment was related to political ideology, product meaning systems, and/­or the needs for autonomy, being, and competence, effectively conducting affiliation, health and w ­ ell-​­

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deductive categorization by identifying comments that map onto a priori concepts (­Spiggle, 1994). After agreeing on broad categories of meaning, the authors then independently examined the next one hundred and fifty comments to confirm the initial interpretations and then met again to compare results and discuss any need to add or delete aspects of the conceptual model. The result of this iterative, ­two-​­stage process was the identification of ideas relevant to the model depicted in ­Figure 7.1. Specific comments conveying these ideas are discussed below, with the subreddit from which it was drawn identified in parentheses.

Results The following sections elaborate on each aspect of the model, first discussing the ­anti-​­maskers, then the ­pro-​­maskers. The ­anti-​­masker narrative is ostensibly about individual agency; the right (­and presumably ability) to control one’s own destiny. Themes of control, autonomy, and individualism run through the comments of ­anti-​­maskers. A closely aligned and often ­co-​ o ­ ccurring theme is doubt or skepticism about the actual danger and risks of ­COVID-​­19. These ­anti-​­maskers seem to be asking “­Is this really necessary? Is the danger really that great?” Yet, masks may symbolize unconscious, or at least not fully recognized, feelings of vulnerability; masks may unconsciously remind a­ nti-​­maskers that they are ultimately at risk and not in control of their own destinies, provoking conscious reactions against wearing masks and dismissal of the threat posed by the virus. The narratives in the ­pro-​­maskers comments are overtly about being selfless, caring about others’ w ­ ell-​­being, and taking the necessary steps to prevent the spread of ­COVID-​­19, particularly to more vulnerable groups. It is all about doing the right thing for all of society even if this involves disruption of “­normal” life and a loss of control or agency. Another frequent theme in the comments of ­pro-​­maskers is generally disparaging, and specifically questioning the intelligence, of ­anti-​­maskers, as epitomized by the subreddit “­Covidiots”. Yet, for these consumers wearing masks may unconsciously symbolize feelings of intellectual superiority, and agency with respect to managing C ­ OVID-​­19 risks; they believe that by refusing to comply with recommending or mandated government policy, ­anti-​­maskers are casting their fates to the proverbial winds. For p­ ro-​­maskers, wearing masks may unconsciously symbolize controlling the situation by taking all the necessary precautions. The ­Anti-​­Maskers ­ nti-​­maskers convey multiple meanings associating wearing masks with the A need for health and ­well-​­being, autonomy, affiliation, and competence; but masks are generally cast as inhibitors of these needs. Wearing masks leads to negative psychological, social, and economic consequences (­i.e., health and w ­ ell-​­being), unnecessarily restricts citizens’ freedom to respond to the ­COVID-​­19 pandemic as befits their personal circumstances (­i.e., autonomy),

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restricts the social interaction necessary for psychological health and societal functioning (­i.e., affiliation), and ref lects a lack of understanding of how governments systematically remove the freedom of citizens (­i.e., competence). ­Anti-​­Mask as an Expression of Autonomy The most obvious intersection between the political ideology, product symbolism systems, and human needs involves masks as inhibitors of autonomy. Wearing masks represents a capitulation to government mandates that restrict individual freedom. Sure I can walk into Walmart without a mask to make a statement, but I can’t just send my kids to school. And no, no amount of protesting or writing my local government will do anything. That’s how corrupt and under the thumb of local leaders some of us are. (­Skepticism) This symbolism is linked to fears of a tyrannical government that will eventually impose undue requirements and constraints on its own citizens. Wearing masks is just the beginning of a government regime that will continue to restrict individual liberty. Wear a mask, stay away from each other, don’t earn, don’t gather, organize or resist. All the people going along with this (­even for now) don’t seem to comprehend where that’s ultimately heading. (­Skepticism) The symbolism of rebellion against government tyranny can be extended to evoke cultural stereotypes. For example, some comments invoke the American maverick archetype to criticize mask mandates (­Smith, 2013). Land of the free, home of the brave’ we Americans tell ourselves. And I used to really believe that, but now it just sounds like a sick joke. (­Skepticism) Better leave the cities filled with conformists and live with those who are rugged and independent and more s­ elf-​­reliant. (­Skepticism) Some comments even cast refusing to wear a mask as an act of bravery. Wearing a mask, by contrast, is a symbol of weakness. If you’re brave enough to drive over the speed limit, you’re brave enough to get rid of the mask for good! (­Skepticism)

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Most parts of the US agree that masks are for sissies. (­Skepticism) The inf luence of political ideology on product symbolism is not unique to the US. British consumers articulate a similar ideological position with respect to not wearing a mask. Civil disobedience is the only way out of this. We are particularly hamstrung in the UK because of our FPTP electoral system. The root cause is there is no political opposition to this. There is no freedom party. (­Skepticism) However, if wearing a mask symbolizes a loss of autonomy to a­ nti-​­maskers, they are implicitly aware of the connection with the need for health and ­well-​­being. Choosing not to wear a mask creates a conf lict between the need for autonomy and the need for health and ­well-​­being, which ­anti-​­maskers resolve, or at least reduce, by discounting the effectiveness of wearing masks (­i.e., “­masks don’t protect shit”), suggesting a latent concern about the negative consequences of their decision. In addition to dismissing them as being ineffective, ­anti-​­maskers ascribe negative outcomes to wearing masks (­i.e., “­complacency”, “­false sense of security”). Masks are only ~75% effective in containing droplets. None of the masks people are using are even rated for this purpose. … So masks don’t protect shit. Masks make people complacent, and that complacency infects people. (­Skepticism) Do people need to be trained in proper usage of masks or are they just providing a false sense of security? (­Skepticism) ­Anti-​­Mask as Rebellion against Conformity In addition to rebellion against government tyranny, masks symbolize conformity, not only to the mandates of the legal system, but also to the behavior of other people who are wearing masks. “­The masks do nothing and are a clear sign of conforming to the soft despotism of opinion. No thanks”. (­Skepticism) It’s possible to be a normal dude. Don’t let all that peer pressure stop you from doing what you know in your heart and mind to be right. (­Skepticism)

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The perceived pressure to conform to wearing masks is also attributed to the advertising system, which provides ­CSR-​­like messages advocating the wearing of masks as “­doing the right thing”. This week I am venting about stupid commercials on TV which have all c­ o-​­opted the covid narrative. There is nothing that is being sold that doesn’t somehow also talk about covid/­lockdown. Pissed off. Like leave me alone already. So hard to tune this stuff out of my head. (­Skepticism) Didn’t make it through the mask ad they wanted to make me watch first. (­Skepticism) Evoking the notion that citizens can impose social sanctions as a form of “­d isciplinary gaze” (­Thompson & Hirschman, 1995), a­ nti-​­maskers report being cajoled by p­ ro-​­maskers, who are referred to as “­doomers”, “­mask bullies”, and “­Covid Karens”), and ask other ­anti-​­maskers to resist this public coercion. The doomers here will harass you at any chance, even leaving your apartment building maskless walking your dog alone in a park. (­Skepticism) It is a clear, visual sign of conformity. … the gestapo whose presence has never been so thick in this city even during times when actual crime might have merited it. So long as you are muzzled, they are happy. (­Skepticism) To be accosted by a COVID Karen whenever I try to go to without a mask. Not even an employee of anywhere; just some busybody who can’t mind her own business. (­Skepticism) ­A nti-​­mask comments ask for active resistance to the implicit, and often explicit, attempts at coercion by ­pro-​­maskers, with some even calling for an aggressive response. We’re going to push back against mask bullies. This will be necessary to avoid enslavement under the watchful eyes of Millennials and their internet toys used for coercion. From the ashes of this pandemic will arise a new battle: the battle for freedom of choice. (­Skepticism) I’m not worried if someone decides to confront me about not wearing a mask, bring it on. (­Skepticism)

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­Anti-​­Mask as Concern about Psychological ­Well-​­being and Society as a Whole The overt concern with individual liberty, and the restriction of autonomy imposed by wearing masks and other ­COVID-​­19 mandates, does not mean that ­anti-​­maskers do not see connections with other basic human needs; but their political ideology leads them to see other threats associated with wearing masks. Some comments explicitly compare the relative threats to safety and security of wearing versus not wearing masks. What is scarier? a) a virus with a 99.8% survival rate, victims on average over 80 years old and with multiple health problems. b) economic and social destruction of the western world, surveillance state. Difficult choice. (­Skepticism) For a­ nti-​­maskers, wearing masks symbolizes the fundamental breakdown of the social interaction necessary for a society to function properly, hence they associate the refusal to wear a mask with the need for affiliation. Some comments even suggest that ­pro-​­maskers are less than genuine when they adopt a “­concern for others” justification for their position. One of the groups most p­ ro-​­lockdown are the ‘­old millennials,’ the 3­ 0-​ ­somethings who are already kind of settled in their lives. Many have partners, houses, jobs very conducive to work from home, but are not yet old enough to have s­chool-​­aged children … The ‘­g reater good’ can be used as a nice slogan to disguise the fact that one ruling class, who sees themselves as ‘­better than’, try to dictate their singular point of view to the masses. (­Skepticism) ­Anti-​­Mask Product Analogies Masks acquire meaning and symbolism by being associated with other products (­McCracken, 1986). Not surprisingly, a­ nti-​­mask consumers use specific product analogies to illustrate their ideological position. For example, one aspect of the tyrannical government argument is the slippery slope principle. If the government can force you to wear masks, they can force you to wear anything. The product analogies used to illustrate this point are often absurd. Imagine being forced to wear nothing but a thong every day; that’s e­ ssentially what forcing a mask is. (­Skepticism)

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Product analogies are also used to discount the efficacy of wearing masks to reduce the risk of infection. Here, an Australian compares the likelihood of being infected by ­COVID-​­19 to being hit on the head by falling debris from one of Sydney’s many construction sites. With the current number of cases in NSW wearing a mask makes as much sense as wearing a hard hat while walking around the city. But if it makes you feel better go ahead and wear it. Just know I’m secretly laughing at you on the inside. (­Skepticism)

­Anti-​­Mask Motives for Customization Political ideology inf luences the meanings consumers choose to attach to the masks. For consumers opposed to wearing masks, homemade masks are a kind of political protest against government tyranny. Technically, they can comply with oppressive mandates while simultaneously mocking the new rules that restrict their personal freedoms. I suggest wearing something offensive instead. Or panties. Make fun of it as hard as you can. (­Skepticism)

The ­Pro-​­Maskers As ref lected in the comments below, ­pro-​­maskers associate wearing masks with the same basic needs as ­anti-­​­­maskers – ​­health and ­well-​­being, autonomy, affiliation, and competence. However, their embrace of collective responsibility as an ideological lens renders wearing masks an enabler of fulfilling these needs. For p­ ro-​­maskers, the most obvious and consistent symbolism of the mask is its connection with the need for health and w ­ ell-​­being, but for p­ ro-​­maskers, this stems from protection against the ­COVID-​­19 virus. Unlike ­anti-​­maskers who challenge many of the narratives provided by the medical system, p­ ro-​ ­maskers largely accept these narratives. Wearing masks lowers the likelihood that the virus will spread. ­Pro-​­Mask as Concern about the Health of Others ­ ro-​­maskers believe that wearing a mask symbolizes superior knowledge and P understanding of the situation. Those who refuse to wear masks cannot comprehend the risks they are taking and are “­belligerently ignorant” for not being aware of the danger.

132  Charles S. Areni and Hélène Cherrier

I just want to scream ‘­You don’t know what you are doing’ when people get close to me at the store. I’m wearing a mask and being super careful even after testing negative at week 8. I just don’t want anyone else to get sick. (­Positive) You are self lessly wearing a mask to protect people you don’t even know. People who are so belligerently ignorant and selfish that they aren’t even trying to protect themselves. (­Positive) The apparent concern for others is compromised by the negative characterization of those who refuse to wear masks. However, many expressions of concern for others were less caustic. I still don a mask when at the stores, even after presumably possessing antibodies. I view it as a sign of respect to staff. (­Positive) Apparel can signify specific political ideologies (­Thompson & Haytko, 1997). Masks appear to do the same thing. Democrats wear masks; Republicans do not. Linked to the distinction between civic responsibility versus individual freedom. Consumers are aware of this association. It’s too bad wearing a mask turned into a political thing! But stupid is as stupid does. (­Positive) We all know who it is, the far right, who still keep refusing to wear masks. (­Positive) Funniest thing is that his (­Governor DeSantis) constituents are the crowd that aren’t wearing masks. (­Positive) Even if others are not doing the right thing, users know they have not contributed to spreading the disease. Is this an example of compensatory symbolism? Masks symbolize “­doing the right thing” but also “­don’t blame me”. Only a quarter of the shoppers wearing masks is not enough. I won’t be the one who spreads it because I didn’t wear a mask though. (­Positive) Wearing a mask symbolizes superior intelligence and knowledge of the medical situation.

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I just don’t get why these inbreds refuse to do the bare minimum by wearing masks, remaining socially distant to a reasonable degree and not spewing conspiracy theories. (­Positive) ­Pro-​­Mask Motives for Customization Unlike ­anti-​­maskers, who discussed handmade, “­protest masks” designed to mock and offend those wearing masks, ­pro-​­maskers referred to fashion or designer masks as ways of negotiating ­trade-​­offs between the needs for health and w ­ ell-​­being, affiliation, and autonomy. Designer masks offer the freedom to express one’s identity while still protecting oneself and others from contracting ­COVID-​­19. In this sense, the fashion system does not prescribe meaning so much as offer consumers a choice as to how they present themselves. ­Hand-​­made masks give back some sense of autonomy and fulfill the need for affiliation. I’m sewing masks from fabrics with funky designs for me and my friends. ­ ro-​­Mask Product Analogies P The frequently observed comparison of masks with seatbelts establishes a precedence for the government mandating the use of a product for public health and safety reasons. Were your rights taken when you were forced to wear a seatbelt on roads?? No?? You’re just complaining at nothing?? Lovely. (­Positive) Yet we have seatbelt laws and you have no problem with that? At least with seatbelts your decision not to wear one really only affects you, yet it’s still illegal to not wear it, whereas with masks your decision to not wear one not only affects your safety but others as well. (­Skepticism) However, other product analogies are made by p­ ro-​­maskers, which often elicit replies from ­anti-​­markers, as in the following exchange where a ­pro-​­masker argues that wearing a mask is not an oppressive restriction of autonomy (­i.e., “­isn’t oppression), to which an ­anti-​­masker replies that citizens should be free to choose which health precautions they adopt rather than having them imposed by the legal system. You don’t know what oppression is. Wearing a helmet on a motorcycle isn’t oppression; wearing a seatbelt isn’t oppression; brushing your teeth isn’t oppression. (­Skepticism)

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Since when is wearing a bike helmet or brushing your teeth required by law, despite solid evidence that it works? (­Skepticism)

Discussion and Conclusion In the context of the C ­ OVID-​­19 pandemic, masks have gained meanings through the interplay of diverse institutions, including legal, medical, and institutions within the fields of advertising and fashion. As ref lected in our data, wearing the mask relates to needs for health and ­well-​­being, autonomy, affiliation, and competence. Consumer research has highlighted the role that political ideology plays in determining consumption behavior (­Crockett & Wallendorf, 2004; Henry, 2010). However, little is known of the role of political ideology in ­anti-​­consumption. ­Table  7.1 summarizes how two largely opposing political i­deologies  –​ ­collective responsibility and individual liberty (­Henry, 2010)  – ​­shape ­pro-​ ­maskers’ and ­anti-​­maskers’ behavior. Political ideology acts as a filter through which the intersections of product symbolism and consumer needs are viewed. The consequence of this is that avoidance is not only important to consumer identity projects (­Cherrier, 2009) but manifests in, interacts with, and unfolds from consumers’ political ideologies. Analyzing ­pro-​­mask comments demonstrates that wearing masks provides a sense of control over the spread of ­COVID-​­10 (­autonomy), reduces the risks of infecting others (­affiliation), reduces the risk of being infected (­health and w ­ ell-​­being), and aligns with the latest medical research and political governance (­competence). If wearing the mask relates to basic human needs for health and ­well-​­being, autonomy, affiliation, and competence, how can we explain consumers ­Table 7.1  S ummary of mask symbolism by political ideology and consumer need Collective Responsibility

Individual Liberty

Masks as Enablers

Masks as Inhibitors

Masks as Enablers

Masks as Inhibitors

Autonomy

Wearing masks provides a sense of control over the spread of the Covid-19 virus

(Pro-maskers tend to discount the value of activities prevented by the wearing of masks)

(Anti-maskers tend to discount the value of wearing masks for providing a sense of control)

Mask mandates restrict the freedom of citizens to make decisions for themselves

Affiliation

Wearing masks reduces the risk of infecting others with Covid-19

(Pro-maskers tend to discount how wearing masks limits the opportunity for social interaction)

(Anti-maskers tend to discount the efficacy of wearing masks to prevent infecting others with Covid-19)

Wearing masks breaks down the social interaction necessary for a functional society

Health and Well-Being

Wearing masks reduces the risk of being infecting with Covid-19 by others

(Pro-maskers tend to discount negative psychological and economic effects of wearing masks)

(Anti-maskers tend to discount the efficacy of wearing masks to prevent being infected by Covid-19)

Wearing masks poses risks to psychological and economic well-being

Competence

Wearing masks is consistent with the latest medical research and government policy.

(Anti-maskers tend to criticize (Pro-maskers tend to criticize anti-maskers for failing to see the pro-maskers for failing to see the threat of government tyranny) threat of contagion)

Wearing masks is an unwitting capitulation to government tyranny that will lead to everincreasing restrictions in the future.

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rejecting wearing the mask? Our analysis explains mask avoidance during the ­COVID-​­19 pandemic in terms of political ideology. Emphasis on individual liberty casts masks as inhibitors rather than enhancers of basic human needs. ­A nti-​­mask comments convey that being required to wear masks provides a false sense of control over the spread of ­COVID-​­10 (­autonomy), compromises the economic circumstances of others (­affiliation), threatens psychological welfare (­health and ­well-​­being), and fails to comprehend the implications of ­ever-​­restrictive government mandates (­competence). Within the context of ­anti-​­maskers, we show that political ideology can be unifying, rationalizing, and legitimizing. For instance, both a­nti-​­maskers and ­pro-​­maskers share the basic motives of wanting to feel safe and secure, but also free to act and in control of the situation; but differences in their political ideologies trigger a divergence in the symbolism of the mask. For ­pro-​­maskers, wearing a mask signals that they are responsible and care about the w ­ ell-​­being of others, but the implicit symbolism also suggests intellectual superiority. ­Anti-​ ­maskers, on the other hand, signal defiance and maintain control over their own decisions. This product symbolism manifests in their comments that wearing a mask restricts their freedom and that masks are of minimal value in reducing the risk of contagion. However, lurking beneath this sentiment may be a latent fear of infection. Wearing masks unconsciously symbolizes this vulnerability; being around others wearing masks implicitly violates their need to feel safe and secure. For p­ ro-​­maskers, the manifest symbolism of wearing masks is safety and security, for themselves and others, hence they tend to emphasize the effectiveness of wearing masks in preventing the spread of the virus. However, ­pro-​­maskers sometimes reveal an underlying belief in the superiority of their knowledge of the medical evidence, which promotes feelings of being more in control of the situation. From this perspective, the basic motives and symbolism surrounding wearing masks for p­ ro-​­and a­ nti-​­maskers are like mirror images of one another, but political ideology distorts the image by inf luencing which motives, and symbols are manifest and which ones are latent.

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8

Anti-​­Consumption in Emerging Markets Pragea Geldoffy Putra and Michael S.W. Lee

Defining Emerging Markets The majority (­81%)­1 of the world lives in developing countries (­United Nations, 2019), known as the “­emerging” market. Emerging markets offer huge market potential with its current 6.3 billion consumers and growing purchase power (­United Nations, 2019).2 Hence, they are a vital growth driver of the world’s economy and will, arguably, continue to inf luence the global economy. Yet emerging markets are u ­ nder-​­represented in most ­anti-​­consumption research. The term “­emerging market” was first used by Antoine van Agtmael, World Bank officer in 1981, to attract foreign investors to ­third-​­world countries believed to have good investment potential (­Cox, 2017). Since then, many scholars, practitioners, and institutions have debated the term “­emerging market.” Overall they agree that the term “­emerging” implies a significant level of risk and return associated with such countries. Emerging markets offer diversification benefits and a higher expected return due to relatively higher rates of economic growth. Ten of the 25 largest consumer markets in the world were emerging markets in 2014 (­Boumphrey, 2015). Such markets offer an enormous variety of different values and cultures, which leads to a tremendous range of consumer preferences and behavior. Moreover, the differences in population distribution, geographical conditions, and each region’s infrastructure mean that there are many criteria for prioritizing emerging markets. Criteria such as political stability, infrastructure and security, government regulation, availability of raw material (­suppliers), labor costs, distributors, current and future competition, and consumer behavior. Arguably, consumer behavior is a critical challenge because of its importance and the difficulty of obtaining such information from emerging markets. With regards to the relevance of this book, it comes as no surprise that understanding of ­anti-​­consumption attitudes and behavior within emerging markets is even scarcer. Insufficient information on local a­ nti-​­consumption attitudes can result in a number of “­international marketing blunders” when entering new markets (­Dalgic & Heijblom, 1996). For example, eBay lost the Chinese market to Taobao (­A libaba Group) in 2003 because it failed to understand the “­g uanxi”

DOI: 10.4324/9780367821586-11

140  Pragea Geldoffy Putra and Michael S.W. Lee

or “­relationship” culture. And in 2011, Dell Peju failed in Indonesia because the word “­peju” means “­sperm” in Indonesian slang. The above examples highlight two issues that this chapter will address. First, emerging markets are risky, and businesses can fail if they do not understand the local market. However, many scholars studying International business in developed markets have already indicated the importance of localization. Second, and more critical to this book, emerging markets are also capable of ­anti-​­consumption attitudes and behavior. They are not always welcoming recipients of Western capitalism/­imperialism, and to enter such markets thinking they should be grateful for Western products from developed nations, would not only be patronizing, but foolish. Thus, this chapter focuses on the ­anti-​­consumption behavior of emerging markets. One important factor of emerging markets is the relatively high proportion of younger people in developing countries. Hence while the focus of the chapter is on ­anti-​­consumption in emerging markets, issues of age are part and parcel of any discussion of emerging markets; such as deference to older family members, as well as a need to understand the general consumption preferences of young consumers who form a relatively larger proportion of the population in emerging markets. This is a phenomenon not explored as fully as the ­anti-​­consumption attitudes and behaviors of older Western consumers. Therefore, rather than asking why emerging markets consume, this chapter asks why they do not consume particular brands or products or services. Additionally, this chapter will examine the difference between emerging markets’ ­anti-​­consumption behavior in contrast to developed countries.

­A nti- ​­Consumption Consumption is an integral factor in today’s society. Consumers lead everything in business operations. Without consumers, there would be no extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal as at present. Thus, consumption is an essential phenomenon for business practitioners and academics. ­A nti-​­consumption complements the understanding of consumption and focuses on the reasons against consumption (­Chatzidakis & Lee, 2013; Iyer & Muncy, 2009; Kozinets et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2009). Therefore, the understanding of consumption is incomplete if it is not seen from both positive and negative perspectives. Understanding of ­anti-​­consumption is beneficial for both business practitioners and academics. For business practitioners, ­anti-​­consumption can help: open up new sources of growth by converting avoider/­rejector consumers into brand users, generate insight for new product development, uncover competitors’ weaknesses, design f lanking strategies to circumvent resistance, establish niche positioning in competition, and shape further critical strategic decisions. For example, the insights into why particular consumers reject a competitor’s products can be utilized to create new products that fulfill the gap, direct pricing decisions, or simply used to make compelling advertising campaigns

Anti-Consumption in Emerging Markets  141

targeting audiences discovered to be avoiding competitor brands. Rather than adding in more criteria, based on what people wish to consume, (­in other words, paying attention to only “­approach” motivations); a­ nti-​­consumption offers insights into things that practitioners can also cut out or merely improve in order to prevent consumers from acting on their “­avoidance” motivations. For academics, ­anti-​­consumption studies provide a balanced perspective on consumption. Balanced knowledge from the two poles of a consumption perspective can provide a more comprehensive understanding of consumers, consumer culture, and society (­Lee et al., 2009). In addition, a­ nti-​­consumption studies offer interesting and viable linkages to ­multi-​­disciplinary areas such as environmental sustainability, community sustainability, consumer reduction, and reduced consumer waste that can improve w ­ ell-​­being. The ­anti-​­consumption literature comprises 81% of studies conducted in developed countries (­see ­Figure  8.1). An extensive search on Scopus using the keywords “­­anti-​­consumption” and “­­anti-​­consumption” resulted in 196 articles. The authors then analyzed the focal country from the articles. Based on the MSCI index, countries such as the US, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and France were coded as Developed countries while countries such as Turkey, Brazil, China, Malaysia, Pakistan, and India were classified as Emerging countries. Countries classified as “­frontier countries” and “­­stand-​­alone countries” in the MSCI index were coded accordingly. And finally, countries that were not listed in the MSCI index were classified as “­Undefined.” F ­ igure 8.1 illustrates that existing literature focuses on Western countries, which dominate the category of developed countries. Given the importance of emerging markets, this chapter will discuss a­ nti-​­consumption behavior in emerging markets.

Anti-consumption Articles in Scopus Accessed on 19 Aug 2020

1%

2%

1%

15%

Developed Countries Emerging Countries Frontier Countries

81%

­Figure 8.1  ­A nti- ​­Consumption Articles in Scopus

Standalone Countries Undefined

142  Pragea Geldoffy Putra and Michael S.W. Lee

Anti-consumption and Seniority Power Distance Anti-consumption and Social Class

Anti-consumption and Cultural Influence Collectivism

Anti-consumption in Emerging Markets

Anti-consumption and Out Groups

Hassle Avoidance Anti-consumption and Age Influence

Health Risk Avoidance

­Figure 8.2  ­A nti-​­Consumption in Emerging Markets

­A nti-​­Consumption in Emerging Markets This section discusses the inf luence of two major factors on ­anti-​­consumption behavior in emerging markets. Namely the inf luence of culture (­e.g., power distance and collectivism) and the inf luence of population age structure. ­Figure 8.2, summarizes the layout of this chapter. Influence of Culture on ­Anti-​­Consumption Cultural values are key to explaining many consumer behavior differences (­Bond & Smith, 1996). Hofstede’s (­2001) cultural framework is perhaps the most widely used concept for comparing countries’ cultural values (­Hofstede Insight Network, n.d.). In his latest study, six categorical dimensions were used to profile 118 listed countries (­power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty of avoidance, ­long-​­term orientation, and indulgence). This section compares the 6­ -​­D model score between emerging and developed countries. Our statistical analysis revealed that emerging markets differ statistically from developed countries in four dimensions, namely: power distance, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and indulgence, while the dimensions of masculinity and ­long-​­term orientation revealed no significant differences.3 However, due to space constraints, this section will only discuss the inf luence of power distance and collectivism. Power Distance and ­Anti-​­Consumption Power distance is the degree to which “­the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally” (­Hofstede Insight

Anti-Consumption in Emerging Markets  143

Network, n.d.). According to Hofstede (­2001), a low score of the power distance index (­PDI) means that a culture values equality of power distribution; conversely, a high PDI score expresses valuing of hierarchical order. Cultures with a high PDI tend to respect autocratic leadership and hierarchy in society and prefer a centralized administration so that the views of those who are in power are known. Consequently, such cultures also value social status. Latin Americans, Arab, Chinese, and most of Asia have high power distance profiles. In contrast, countries with low PDIs view hierarchy as social inequality, favor decentralized administration, friendly and open relationships, democracy, and tend to dislike circumstances where privileges are made available only to higher social classes. Examples of low PDI countries are the US, New Zealand, Austria, Denmark, Israel, and the Scandinavian countries. The power distance dimension of developed countries (­M = 41.09, SD = 18.17, n = 23) was hypothesized to be greater than the power distance of emerging markets (­M = 71, SD = 15.77, n =26). This difference was significant, t(­47) = −6.17, p = 0.00 (­1 tail). The data (Table 8.1) confirm that emerging markets tend to value high power distance more than developed countries. People who value power distance are more accustomed to submitting to other people in positions considered “­superior.” Superiority can be based on lineage, religious status, social class, political position, income, and seniority. ­Table 8.1  Descriptive statistics and 2­ -​­sample t-​­test for power distance dimension difference between developed and developing countries

Mean Standard error Median Mode Standard deviation Sample variance Kurtosis Skewness Range Minimum Maximum Sum Count Mean Variance Observations Pooled variance Hypothesized Mean Difference df t Salt P(­T