Moving up, down or sideways?: Exploring consumer experience of identity and status incongruence

European Journal of Marketing

Volumn 48, Issue 5-6, 2014, Pages 833-853

  Ulver, Sofia ^a   Ostberg, Jacob ^b  

^a LUND UNIVERSITY   (Sweden)

^b STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY   (Sweden)

Author keywords

Consumer culture; Consumption; Identity; Incongruence; Social status; Transition

Indexed keywords

EID: 84940297553     PISSN: 03090566     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1108/EJM-07-2012-0418     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. Ahuvia, A.C. (2005), "Beyond the extended self: loved objects and consumers' identity narratives" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 171-184.
2. Andreason, A.R. (1984), "Life status changes in consumer preferences and satisfaction" in The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 784-794.
3. Arnould, E.J., Thompson, C.J. (2005), "Consumer culture theory (cct): twenty years of research" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 868-882.
4. Bardhi, F., Eckhardt, G., Arnould, E.J. (2012), "Liquid relationship to possessions" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 510-529.
5. Bauman, Z. (2000), "Consuming life" in Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 9-29.
6. Bauman, Z. (2001), Liquid Modernity, Polity, Cambridge.
7. Belk, R.W. (1988), "Possessions and the extended self" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 139-168.
8. Belk, R.W. (2000), "May the farce be with you: on Las Vegas and consumer infantilization" in Consumption, Markets, and Culture, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 101-123.
9. Belk, R.W., Bahn, K.D., Mayer, R.N. (1982), "Developmental recognition of consumption symbolism" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 4-18.
10. Belk, R.W., Wallendorf, M., Sherry, J.F. (1989), "The sacred and profane in consumer behavior: theodicy on the odyssey" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 1-33.
11. Bernthal, M.J., Crockett, D., Rose, R.L. (2005), "Credit cards as lifestyle facilitators" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 130-145.
12. Bourdieu, P. (1984), Distinction: A Social Critique of The Judgement of Taste, Routledge, London.
13. Cody, K. (2012), "No longer but not yet: tweens and the mediating of threshold selves through liminal consumption" in Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 41-65.
14. Coskuner-Balli, G., Thompson, C.J. (2012), "The status costs of subordinate cultural capital: at-home fathers' collective pursuit of cultural legitimacy through capitalizing consumption practices" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 19-41.
15. Douglas, M., Isherwood, B. (1979), The World of Goods, Allen Lane, London.
16. Elliott, R., Jankel-Elliott, N. (2003), "Using ethnography in strategic consumer research" in Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 215-223.
17. Friedman, J., Björkman, I., Elfverson, J., Bok, S. (2005), "Exit Folkhemssverige: En Samhällsmodells Sönderfall", Cruz del Sur, Torsby.
18. Gentry, J.W., Kennedy, P.F., Paul, C., Hill, R.P. (1995), "Family transitions during grief: discontinuities in household consumption patterns" in Journal of Business Research, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 67-79.
19. Giddens, A. (2006), Sociology, 5th ed., Polity Press, Cambridge.
20. Henry, P.C. (2005), "Social class, market situation, and consumers' metaphors of (dis)empowerment" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 766-778.
21. Hogg, M.K., Curasi, C.F., Maclaran, P. (2004), "The (re-) configuration of production and consumption in empty nest households/families" in Consumption Markets and Culture, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 239-259.
22. Holt, D.B. (1998), "Does cultural capital structure american consumption?" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 1-25.
23. Holt, D.B., Thompson, C.J. (2004), "Man-of-action heroes: the pursuit of heroic masculinity in everyday consumption" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 425-440.
24. Kjeldgaard, D., Csaba, F., Ger, G., Belk, R.W. (2006), "Grasping the global: multi-sited ethnographic market studies" in Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Marketing, Edward Elgar Publishing, London, pp. 521-533.
25. Kozinets, R.V., Sherry, J. F.Jr, Storm, D., Duhachek, A., Nuttavuthisit, K., Deberry-Spence, B. (2004), "Lucid agency and retail spectacle" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 658-672.
26. Kvale, S. (1996), Interviews, Sage, London.
27. McCracken, G. (1988a), Culture & Consumption, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.
28. McCracken, G. (1988b), The Long Interview, Sage, Newbury Park, CA.
29. McDonald, S., Oates, C.J., Young, C.W., Hwang, K. (2006), "Toward sustainable consumption: researching voluntary simplifiers" in Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 23, No. 6, pp. 515-534.
30. Marcus, G.E. (1995), "Ethnography in/of the world system: the emergence of multi-sited ethnography" in Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 24, pp. 95-117.
31. Mick, D.G., Fournier, S. (1998), "Paradoxes of technology: consumer cognizance, emotions, and coping strategies" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 123-143.
32. Muniz, A.M., O'Guinn, T.C. (2001), "Brand community" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 412-432.
33. Noble, C.H., Walker, B.A. (1997), "Exploring the relationships among liminal transitions, symbolic consumption, and the extended self" in Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 29-47.
34. Ochberg, R.L., Comeau, W., McAdams, D.P., Josselson, R., Lieblich, A. (2001), "Moving up and the problem of explaining an unreasonable ambition" in Turns in the Road: Narrative Studies of Lives in Transition, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, pp. 121-150.
35. Ostberg, J., Cova, B., Kozinets, R.V., Shankar, A. (2007), "The linking value of subcultural capital: constructing the Stockholm brat enclave" in Consumer Tribes, Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann, London, pp. 93-106.
36. Ostberg, J., Belk, R.W., Ruvio, A.A. (2012), "Masculine self presentation" in The Routledge Companion To Identity And Consumption, Routledge, London, pp. 129-136.
37. Otnes, C., Lowrey, T.M., Shrum, L.J. (1997), "Toward an understanding of consumer ambivalence" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 80-93.
38. Robertson, R. (1992), Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture, Sage, London.
39. Sandikci, Ö., Ger, G., Kuechler, S., Miller, D. (2005), "Aesthetics, ethics, and the politics of the turkish headscarf" in Clothing as Material Culture, Berg, London, pp. 61-82.
40. Schau, H.J., Gilly, M.C., Wolfinbarger, M. (2009), "Consumer identity renaissance: the resurgence of identity-inspired consumption in retirement" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 36, pp. 257-267.
41. Schouten, J.W. (1991), "Selves in transition: symbolic consumption in personal rites of passage and identity reconstruction," in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 17, pp. 412-425.
42. Schouten, J.W., McAlexander, J.H. (1995), "Subcultures of consumption: an ethnography of the new bikers" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, pp. 43-61.
43. Solomon, M.R. (1983), "The role of products as social stimuli: a symbolic interactionism perspective" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 319-329.
44. Thompson, C.J., Haytko, D.L. (1997), "Speaking of fashion: consumers' uses of fashion discourses and the appropriation of countervailing cultural meaning" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 24, pp. 15-42.
45. Thompson, C.J., Hirschman, E.C. (1995), "Understanding the socialized body: a poststructuralist analysis of consumers' self-conceptions, body images, and self-care practices" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, pp. 139-153.
46. Thompson, C.J., Tambyah, S.K. (1999), "Trying to be cosmopolitan" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 26, pp. 214-241.
47. Thompson, C.J., Locander, W.B., Pollio, H.R. (1989), "Putting consumer experience back into consumer research: the philosophy and method of existential-phenomenology" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 16, pp. 133-146.
48. Thompson, C.J., Locander, W.B., Pollio, H.R. (1994), "The spoken and the unspoken: a hermeneutic approach to understanding the cultural viewpoints that underlie consumers' expressed meanings" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 21, pp. 432-452.
49. Thomsen, T.U., Sørensen, E.B. (2006), "The first four-wheeled status symbol: pram consumption as a vehicle for the construction of motherhood identity" in Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 22, Nos 9/10, pp. 907-927.
50. Turner, B.S. (1988), Status, University of Minnesota Press, MN.
51. Turner, V.W. (1969), The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
52. Turner, V.W. (1974) in Liminal to Liminoid in Play, Flow and Ritual: An Essayin Comparative Symbology, Vol. 60, Rice University Studies, Houston TX, pp. 53-92.
53. Üstüner, T., Holt, D.B. (2010), "Toward a theory of status consumption in less industrialized countries" in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 37, pp. 37-56.
54. van Gennep, A. (1960), The Rites of Passage, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
55. USA Census Bureau (2010), "Income, poverty, and health insurance in the United States: 2010", Publication No. P60-239.
56. VOICE group (2010), "Buying into motherhood? problematic consumption and ambivalence in transitional phases" in Consumption Markets and Culture, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 373-397.
57. OECD (2010), "The emerging middle classes in developing countries", Working Paper No. 285, written by Homi Kharas.