CCMS Seminar- Giana M. Eckhardt & Alex Atanasova

LOURIM Louvain-La-Neuve, Mons

June 10, 2021

4.00 pm

Teams

We will welcome Giana M. Eckhardt (Professor of Marketing at the King’s Business School, King’s College London) and Alex Atanasova (PhD student at the Royal Holloway, University of London) for a CCMS research seminar that will take place on Thursday June 10 at 4 pm on Teams.

 

Title: Using consumption to find security in an era of uncertainty: An ethnography of digital nomadism

 

Abstract : Historically, consumers have anchored their sense of control in solid consumption such as retirement savings, steady employment and home ownership. We live in an era, however, where global warming and health pandemics, economic uncertainty and professional precarity are challenging many of these signposts of stability. It has been suggested that in liquid modernity, solid consumption is becoming a luxury and a resource-heavy indulgence out of reach for many. Thus, we ask, how do consumers find security and gain a sense of control in this precarious socioeconomic context? Drawing on a two-and-a-half-year ethnography of digital nomadism, we argue that when faced with uncertainty and precarity, instead of seeking stability through solidity (possessions, material accumulations, permanence), consumers paradoxically choose to lean into liquidity as a means to transform and re-imagine their lived reality and find control. We detail three practices whereby consumers: 1. Embrace a precarious consumption lifestyle; 2. Engage in reflexive reprogramming of the self; and 3. Marketize gained know-how for lifestyle liquefaction. We contribute to the consumer research literature by advancing understandings of precarious consumption, consumer self-transformations and liquid consumption.

 

Bios :

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/giana-m-eckhardt

https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/alex-atanasova(f3d89029-a605-4b36-bed1-9c6225ce031c).html