Judith Butler on performativity and precarity: exploratory thoughts on gender and violence in India

Abstract

We turn to the philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler for insight into how gender performativity (acting and actions restricted by gender norms) affects identity and thus individual agency. Gender performativity underlies the prevailing conceptualisation of women in India as being lesser. We anticipated that the extreme divide between wealth and poverty and higher and lower castes would affect women’s vulnerability. Yet, while lower class/caste women are undeniably at greater risk of sexual assault, even women of higher social status similarly embody ‘precarity’: a life lived without predictability, and thus without security. While structural changes have encouraged increased agentic performativity among women in India, a culture of condoned sexual violence is nonetheless an ongoing and horrifying reality.     

Engaging the audience through videography as performance

ABSTRACT

The audience is an important part of videography, but its role tends to be seen as passive and unengaged. The audience’s experience is often guided in videography, with intended reaction made clear. Yet such an approach to the audience does not make use of the possibilities of videography for inciting active interaction and incorporating multiple interpretations. Previous research has suggested that videography has potential for interventional influence on audiences by taking on the performative turn in research. Developing more deeply the notions of performance and performativity in the context of videography, this paper proposes that one way to activate audiences, interact directly with them and engage them in meaning-making is to approach videography as performance. To provide practical suggestions for creating such performance, the paper contextualises videography as a recording medium, thus establishing its ontological position and ties to other media.     

Brands that ‘sell their soul’: offshoring,brand liquidification and the excluded consumer

ABSTRACT

Fuelled by open markets and globalisation, offshoring has become a common business practice for firms in industrialised countries. However, consumer research investigating offshoring in a larger macroeconomic and political context is scant. Using a naturalistic, contextualised approach, the current research investigates how a predominantly working/middle-class consumer segment perceives production offshoring for durable goods. The findings show how consumers can develop a sentiment of being excluded or left behind, even when they do not belong to traditionally disadvantaged segments in society defined by income, gender, education, appearance or sexual preference. Perceived brand liquidification, discussed through the marketplace mythologies of corporate greed and the opportunistic consumer, perceived brand de-contagion and patriotism/nationalism, leads to sentiments of exclusion and a longing for re-solidification. Exploring these relationships helps to understand current consumer sentiment towards offshoring in the larger context of neoliberalism and labour arbitrage.     

Multilevel trust in international marketing of healthcare services: A five-country comparative study

PurposeThis research aims to increase understanding on how multilevel trust is developed as well as how trust levels are interconnected and influence international marketing strategy for healthcare services.Design/Methodology/ApproachA comparative case study approach was applied with Elekta, a Swedish firm, operating in Brazil, the Philippines, China, Russia, and Hong Kong.FindingsThe research culminated in a multilevel trust (MLT) model comprised of three levels relating to individuals, company performance, and context.Research implications/limitationsThis study offers a context-based multilevel trust model from a process perspective focusing on healthcare. This model can be tested in other service sectors.Practical implicationsManagers should consider multilevel trust to boost relationships and achieve local acceptance.Originality/ValueThis research contributes to trust theory by constructing a context-based multilevel trust model for international healthcare marketing.     

Facilitating transformative change in medication adherence practices

ABSTRACT

This article explores how healthcare consumer collectives integrate self-service technology as part of their everyday lives on a long-term basis. Combining previously published research with data collected from field observations, in-depth interviews and focus groups, the author uncovers distinct adoption styles and then links these to well-being in a chronic healthcare context. Importantly, findings from the research suggest that successful long-term adoption of new technology depends not only on improving a targeted practice (medicating patients in this case), but also other affected everyday practices in the lives of consumers. By drawing on insights from the literature of service-dominant logic and practice theory, the author identifies ‘value-in-context’ and ‘lifestyle fit’ that underlie resource integration in medication adherence. Four adoption styles were uncovered, in which two in particular, ‘door opener’ and ‘transformative change,’ should be emphasized by healthcare managers and developers as they tend to be associated with higher well-being.     

Temporal and financial risk assessments: How time and money constrain shopper behavior and influence purchase solutions

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to better understand the constraints that make shopper behavior unique from consumers and how those constraints manifest themselves in retail purchase solutions.Design/methodology/approachThis study utilized value laddering and phenomenological research methodologies to explore the data gathered from 39 interviews of male and female grocery shoppers.FindingsThis research examines the perceived constraints on shopper resources. The data reveal that all shoppers perceive themselves to be constrained by both finances and time. These findings hold across all income, age, and employment strata. As a result, price and convenience no longer function as segmentation tools. Instead, pricing and convenience become thresholds setting shopper “floor” expectations for retailers, service providers and brands.Research limitations/implicationsThis study was limited to grocery shoppers largely located in the southern US. Future research could expand on the variety of product categories and conditions explored, along with the cultural diversity of the participants.Practical implicationsShoppers' broader view of purchase relationships reduces the importance of transactional savings. Shopper consideration of total market basket value, allows for more focus on services and relationships to drive shopper value. Shopper constraints can result in purchase outcomes different than what consumer research would indicate.Originality/valueThis research is the first to examine elements which may constrain shoppers, particularly temporal and financial risk assessments, and how they impact shopper purchase solutions.     

Marketing the female politician: an exploration of gender and appearance

Abstract

This paper sheds light on issues of gender roles and gender hierarchies using Goffman’s theories on gender and performance as a starting point to explore modern-day manifestations of power structures in political marketing, particularly as related to female politicians. In-depth interviews with four female politicians, 17 aides, volunteers, PAC and media executives as well as two focus groups with registered voters reveal subordination of female politicians through hyper-ritualised displays of social relations. The findings showcase how appearance is used to facilitate the ongoing objectification of female politicians in political marketing and devalue their candidacies. This study is an important step in examining the role of gender and appearance in political marketing and its importance in building brand image for a female politician.     

Caring for her: the influence of presumed influence on female consumers’ attitudes towards advertising featuring gender-stereotyped portrayals

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how presumed influence on others affects women's evaluations of advertising featuring gender stereotypes. Previous research has largely overlooked the social context of the reactions to gender stereotypes. Addressing that gap, this study draws on the influence of presumed influence model to proposed that female consumers believe that other women are negatively affected by advertising that contains gender-stereotyped portrayals. This perception is hypothesized to influence ad and brand attitudes as consumers ‘punish’ the brand for hurting others. The results of two experimental studies featuring stereotyped and non-stereotyped advertising portrayals indicate that the hypothesis holds for two types of stereotype components (physical characteristics and role behaviour). This new theoretical perspective to the literature on gender stereotypes in advertising, one that helps to explain why many women dislike gender stereotypes in advertising even though those stereotypes often have limited impact on them personally.     

Managing the Brand in a Corporate Advertising Environment: A Decision-Making Framework for Brand Managers

Abstract

Corporate advertising has become a significant business activity. That fact is important for brand managers because consumers' knowledge formed from corporate advertising may influence the way they think about brands the company markets. Brand managers must understand how such potential influence may occur and manage it to their advantage. The authors explore four key questions brand managers should consider in that context. In presenting answers, they integrate several literatures and propose a conceptual framework with a set of research propositions. Finally, they describe general directions for future research.     

Marketplace orchestration of taste: insights from the Bridgewater Hall

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to explore how a concert hall can orchestrate and shape individuals’ classical music tastes. The paper is based on an 8-month ethnography at the Bridgewater Hall concert venue in Manchester. Our emergent findings illustrate how classical music tastes are influenced via the spatial meanings of the concert hall. These meanings include various physical, historical and sociocultural aspects that are revealed in the context of the Bridgewater Hall. Our study contributes to various streams of consumer culture theory research and opens up avenues for future research on the interrelationships of space and place with taste.     

Motherhood in migration: schools as acculturation agents

ABSTRACT

Motherhood roles lie at the intersection of gender, professional, family, and social identities and are highly contextualized in culture, making them particularly relevant for acculturation success. We provide an empirical example of how schools act as acculturation agents, using the experiences of career-oriented migrant mothers whose children attend elite private schools in Santiago, Chile. This study contributes to consumer acculturation research and to research on matricentric feminism, which positions mothers’ concerns as the starting point for theories, politics, and practices of empowerment. We employ Turner's notion of root paradigms to discuss how schools maneuver their unique institutional agentic power, acculturating career-oriented migrant mothers and their families into a cultural framework of female domesticity and intensive mothering.     

Country Equity

Abstract

The idea of country branding, while controversial, has gained broad acceptance and is actively practiced at the national and regional levels. A number of new research studies are indicative of the growing interest and importance of the topic. This article focuses on practical opportunities for South Africa to become more adept at using marketing communications to promote itself to critical international audiences.     

Exploring the Antecedents of Brand Loyalty and Electronic Word of Mouth in Social-Media-Based Brand Communities: Do Gender Differences Matter?

ABSTRACT

Recently, social media have emerged as key marketing communication channels. In this context, consumers are increasingly gathering in online communities which have been identified as social-media-based brand communities (SMBBCs). However, notwithstanding scholars' attention towards SMBBCs, the role of consumers' gender in developing brand loyalty intention (BLI) has been scarcely explored by literature. Moreover, scant attention has been given to the analysis of whether gender is related to different propensities towards brand recommendation—identified as a proactive behavior towards a positive electronic word of-mouth diffusion (E-WOM)—in the social media context. Hence, this research aims to explore the antecedents of BLI and E-WOM by focusing on consumers' gender differences. A structural equation model has been created based on 250 surveys collected among SMBBCs of an American sportswear brand. The results showed that male consumers' BLI is influenced by engagement in SMBBCs. Instead, brand trust was the main antecedent of females' BLI.     

Women “in motion”: the kinaesthetic viewing experience in Chinese viral advertising films

ABSTRACT

Visual imagery provides aesthetic experiences for viewers, and viral advertising films address viewers’ experience of movement which has not been analysed. Developing visual analyses, this study uses phenomenological approaches and the concept of kinaesthetic empathy, defined as the ability of viewers to react to movements, also in film. It considers Chinese Wei movies (“microfilms” or viral advertising films) with reference to examples by Audi and Swarovski as representatives of China's post-socialist marketing culture. Women in these films are presented as “in motion,” yet still are often delimited by traditional gender stereotypes. These films are potentially ambivalent ideological carriers that encourage women to reinvent themselves through consumption within traditional gender roles but may also suggest the pursuit of different experiences as movement is abstract, transitory and cannot be commodified.     

Consumer transits and religious identities: towards a syncretic consumer

ABSTRACT

The majority of research on religious consumption assumes stable, singular and exclusive preferences, an individual is an adherent to one religion at a time and conversion is a radical break in identity. In examining a context where individuals can simultaneously practice multiple religions despite seemingly theologically incompatible beliefs, we introduce the concept of religious transit, allowing for a more processual understanding of religious identity. To do so, we draw on theories of religious capital, foregrounding the flexibility of this resource in enabling multifarious religious consumption. This is made possible by the religious leaders themselves; in highlighting shared rituals and discourses, they downplay any cognitive incongruences to allow for easy, market-mediated accessibility. By conceptualising four types of religious consumption, we theorise the dynamics of consumer mobility.     

A conversational approach to consumer vulnerability: performativity,representations, and storytelling

ABSTRACT

This conceptual article provides a conversational analysis of consumer vulnerability, which unveils how vulnerability is made through conversations and interactions among actors holding different market power positions. Three types of conversations prove fruitful to pursue a transformative research agenda improving vulnerable consumers’ well-being: (1) performativity, which unpacks agency and finalism in conversations; (2) social representations, which reveal uneven power positions and normativity expressed by participants in a conversation; and (3) storytelling, which reveals alternative and more powerful persuasive mechanisms of conversations framed as stories. Illustration for these types of conversations comes from extensive review of the literature on consumer vulnerability and from a critical consideration of my life-as-researcher with consumers as varied as gays, homeless people, migrants, second-generation immigrants, and subcultures of consumption.     

Approaches to managing co-production for the co-creation of value in a museum setting: when authenticity matters

ABSTRACT

This qualitatively-based empirical research explored the strategies used by two museums to manage their roles in co-production as well as how they manage, motivate and guide visitors through the process of co-production. We also gained insights into how visitors responded to these strategies. Our findings suggest that the two museums employ different strategies to co-produce the consumption experience and that their strategies were linked to the nature of authenticity that is apparent in the museums. Strategies included explicitly controlling the visitor experience through empowering visitors to design their own visitor experience. The success of these strategies relied on the two museums recognising the situational variables of the context of consumption and adopting appropriate strategies that enabled them and the visitors to leverage the value of the visitor experience. The findings from this study suggest that further research should be undertaken on how authenticity might be integrated into a service-dominant logic paradigm and service strategies aimed at enhancing the co-creation of value.     

Offensive Advertising

Abstract

Prior literature regarding offensive advertising relates mainly to western cultures. No work has been done on this area in an Asian context. The research in this article reports on a survey of Singaporean consumers. The survey aimed to identify what types of products and appeals consumers find offensive in advertising, the reasons why they find the advertisements offensive, and how this offensive advertising may affect their purchase intentions. The results found that advertisements relating to chat-line services and sexual diseases were the most offensive, followed by advertisements for dating services. Levels of offensiveness were clearly related to demographic variables such as gender and age. In terms of reasons for offensiveness, consumers were most concerned by advertisements that had a sexual connotation or evoked unnecessary fear.Levels of offensiveness also affected purchase intentions. Based on the results, the article recommends that advertisers and their agencies should think more carefully about the demographic profile of their audiences, how this profile might impact their audiences ?sensitivity“ to potentially offensive advertising, and how this sensitivity should be used as a guide when making media and message decisions     

Divas of the Wassoulou Sound: Transformations in the Matrix of Cultural Production,Globalization, and Identity

This paper examines the role of popular music performance in a context of urban change, globalization, and gender. Through an in-depth examination of the Malian music style Wassoulou and its reigning star Oumou Sangaré, issues of gender, interpretation, and cultural production are discussed. Ethnographic data presented indicate that wassoulou performance provides much needed space for Malian youth to negotiate changing notions of identity and community without openly challenging the status quo of women and youth in traditional Mande social hierarchy. These new identities convey multiple and sometimes paradoxical symbolic meaning for Malian and world-music listeners. Viewing vocal performance in Mali as a verbal mode of communication and social display, wassoulou divas are particularly excellent sites for the study of emergent identities in the context of globalization.     

Neither passive nor powerless: reframing economic vulnerability via resilient pathways

ABSTRACT

Resilience, as an emerging construct within the contemporary field of consumer vulnerability, has received limited empirical attention within the context of economic adversity. This paper examines how low-income women strive to reframe their relationship to the market via resilient pathways. It establishes how through active agency, self-care practices and relational coping, women maximise care of self and care of others with limited economic means. Comprised of multidimensional coping resources for positive adaptation, resilient pathways offer vulnerable consumers distinct trajectories to well-being and overturn deficit-focused views about how those facing chronic economic disadvantage, (re)assert themselves in vulnerable consumption contexts.