“If social exchanges are the same as Art, how can we portray them?” (Kip Jones)
CCT is such a vast field of methodological approaches, epistemic pursuits and even diverging ontologies (e.g. the recent introduction of Practice Theory into CCT, see 2.9 for an overview) that it resists categorization, and indeed, from its inception, such a resistance follows consistently from its pluralistic underpinnings. Many potential approaches for knowledge production based on these foundations have since been offered, not as competitors for a new hegemony, but as diverse approaches for different kinds of knowledge products and relations. Primarily focusing on various shades of qualitative inquiry (e.g. Schwandt 2000; Goulding 2005) these, often liminal approaches fuse various epistemological and methodological stances – epistemologies
include various ways of ‘locating’ knowledge and thus producing it through diverse methodological workbench approaches.
Examples include:
• Postmodernism (Firat, Dholakia and Venkatesh 1995; Firat and Venkatesh 1995; Firat and Dholakia 2006)
• Ethnography (Celsi, Rose and Leigh 1993; Arnould and Wallendorf 1994; Peñaloza 1994; Schouten and McAlexander 1995; Kozinets 2001; Arnould and Price 2006; Üstüner and Holt 2007; Goulding et al. 2009)
• Existential-phenomenology (Thompson, Locander and Pollio 1989;
Thompson and Haytko 1997; Goulding 2005)
• Hermeneutics (Arnold and Fischer 1994; Thompson 1997)
• Semiotics (Holbrook and Grayson 1986; Mick 1986; Sherry and Camargo 1987; Arnold, Kozinets and Handelman 2001; Goulding 2005)
• Introspection (Gould 1991, 1995; Wallendorf and Brucks 1993; Brown 1998a; Holbrook 2005)
• Critical Theory (Murray and Ozanne 1991; Bristor and Fischer 1993;
Murray, Ozanne and Shapiro 1994; Denzin 2001a)
• Deconstruction (Stern 1996a, 1996b, 1998)
• Practice Theory (Reckwitz 2002a; Warde 2005; Shove and Pantzar 2005; Schau, Muñiz and Arnould 2009; Halkier and Jensen 2011;
Halkier, Katz-Gerro and Martens 2011)
• Netnography (Kozinets 2002a, 2009)
• Critique of representation (Smithee 1997 [you may or may not know the man behind the name]; Brown 1998b; Schouten 1998; Sherry and Schouten 2002; Bochner and Ellis 2003; Belk and Kozinets 2005a;
Kozinets and Belk 2006)
At first glance it would seem that these pluralistic research endeavors fulfill Anderson’s wishes in their eclecticism and criticality. Yet, such a diverse field
made it difficult for researchers in the interpretative minority stream(s) to assume a research identity – a critical shortcoming in academia from a pragmatic perspective. Thus, Arnould and Thompson (2005) coined the label Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) to conceptually organize the work conducted during the previous two decades.
As noted by Arnould and Thompson (2005):
“Consumer culture theory is fulfilling the recurrent calls of consumer research’s thought leaders for a distinctive body of theoretical knowledge about consumption and marketplace behaviors. It strives to systematically link individual level (or idiographic) meanings to different levels of cultural processes and structure and then to situate these relationships within historical and marketplace contexts. It presents a continual reminder that consumption is a historically shaped mode of sociocultural practice that emerges within the structures and ideological imperatives of dynamic marketplaces” (p. 875)
Likewise:
“Interpretive methods are capable of uncovering paradoxes in thoughts and behaviour, and revealing the nature and structure of consumer rationales and justifications, making them especially appropriate for examining this situation wherein people’s stated attitudes and behaviours differ. Moreover, this approach allows us to examine the holistic influence of culture, rather than utilizing particular reductionistic dimensions of culture” (Belk, Devinney and Eckhardt 2005: 279-280) A contrarian view to epistemology:
“The time for obfuscation and obscurantism masquerading as profundity is past; the time for reasoned rethinking is just beginning” (Hunt 1994: 24)
While on the ‘other side’, in no loose terms:
“In social sciences today there is no longer a God’s eye view that guarantees absolute methodological certainty. All inquiry reflects the standpoint of the inquirer. All observation is theory-laden. There is no possibility of theory- or value-free knowledge. The days of naive realism and naive positivism are over” (Denzin 2001a:
325)
While rumors of such demise may be greatly exaggerated, CCT has indeed become established as a field of interpretive inquiry into the nature of knowledge uncovered via holistic field site experiences; certainly not in the laboratory. As Belk (1998) states, “As qualitative researchers we are the explorers who leave our desks and go out and observe and talk to consumers in their natural environments. And it is up to us to preserve and present some of the richness and humanity of the consumers we encounter and their worlds, despite the grown-ups […] who would reduce this complexity to numbers” (p. 309-310). Additionally, CCT is loosely unified through its links to an ontology of constructivism and epistemological interpretivism (of which the former is now somewhat questioned by the recent introduction of Practice Theory) and its interest in understanding profound, rich and culturally complex and overlapping phenomena. This inquiry has consistently defied
‘progression’, ‘truth’ or ‘reductionism’ of the more ‘positivistically’ orientated discourses, as “Owning to its internal, fragmented complexity, consumer culture does not determine action as a causal force” (Arnould and Thompson 2005: 869).
Earlier attempts to establish a ‘field’ for interpretive research have been made as well. Hudson and Ozanne (1988) contrasted the interpretive against the ‘positivist’ and Shankar and Patterson (2001) constructed the ‘ICR’
(Interpretive Consumer Research) concept in their review of interpretive epistemologies in consumer research. They projected a very poststructuralist future with lessening influence of the ‘positivist’ backdrop, increasing influence of reflexivity and even artistic approaches (Shankar and Patterson 2001).
More recently, CCT scholars have been characterized as contextually investigating the “sociocultural processes and structures related to 1) consumer identity projects, 2) marketplace cultures, 3) the sociohistoric patterning of consumption, and 4) mass-mediated marketplace ideologies and consumers’ interpretive strategies” (Arnould and Thompson 2005: 871), and to situate these ideas of marketplace phenomena into historical marketplace contexts. While both the concept ‘CCT’ and the fourfold categorization of the research approaches have been criticized for being a totalizing closed system and as trying to establish a new logocentric ‘theory’
towards which to progress, Arnould and Thompson (2007) clarify their position by insisting that the CCT label was set up mostly to pragmatically improve the academic careers of interpretive researchers by giving them a vernacular rallying point, and that “Our framework for mapping this diversity into four clusters of theoretical interest should be used as an orienting device and nothing more” (Arnould and Thompson 2007: 6). Indeed, the framework is expanding as we speak. A recent Facebook update by Eric Arnould noted:
"Most importantly it made me think that the work that Craig Thompson, Zeynep Arsel, Gokcen Coskuner-Balli, Aric Rinfleisch, Markus Giesler, Ashley Humphries, Melea Press and others have been doing, some of Rob Kozinets and colleagues work for instance, about market creation, formation, and reformulation is really an important direction for CCT not captured in the fourfold theoretics Craig and I wrote about almost 7 years ago”. It seems that, criticism notwithstanding, the CCT framework is working satisfactorily in providing nonlimiting systematization that is open for extensions – exactly what Arnould and Thompson called for (Arnould and Thompson 2005, 2007).
Arnould and Thompson (2005, 2007) also provide a practical account of the shortcomings of CCT researchers in their jargon and in their ability to construct linkages to other academic discourses in promoting their cause – seemingly persistent challenges, as I was most recently involved in such a
debate at the CCT5 and the ACR 2011 conferences. The current problems of a minority field notwithstanding, there is also a flipside that I feel has constituted much of the driving force behind CCT. Not taking any epistemology for granted and the lack of a single theoretical and methodological focus can (and does) translate into a greater degree of freedom to pursue a diversity of research interests. This position, combined with a brazen approach to take philosophical questions seriously, can allow the CCT field to further evolve rather than to stagnate. Yet, as noted by Arnould and Thompson (2005, 2007), there is a more pragmatic game of institutional politics that needs to be played, as CCT researchers still constitute a small minority in the academic hallways of top-tier university departments.
One movement that has been seen as somewhat problematic by many, has consisted of the ‘flirtations’ some CCT researchers have been making with other areas of inquiry, for example by incorporating more artistic approaches into the ongoing academic discourse. Such endeavors should not be surprising, as artistic modes of expression, such as poetry, visual representations and ethnographic fictions have certainly made recent inroads into other academic disciplines, such as anthropology and sociology, and, more close to home, into the discourse of organization theory (e.g. Goodall 2000; Denzin 2001a; Sherry and Schouten 2002; Bochner and Ellis 2003).
But how can such an intermingling of epistemic pursuits be maintained, after all, is artistic expression not wrapped around a completely different pole from
‘science’ if seen as:
“The creation of art is a ritually potent sphere often connected in human history to gift giving, mysticism, animism, irrationalism, countercultural movements, and authenticity” (Kozinets 2002b: 30)
“Producing interesting theoretical perspectives is, I think, a matter of rejecting the premises of science and embracing those of art […] That is, in our data collection and representation we should eschew the cold precision and hollow mechanical language of science in order to become both literary and visual artists in crafting compelling documents for today’s visual world” (Belk 1998: 331)
And indeed, while some see these movements as posing a risk for CCT in its striving to become further established under academic auspices (Arnould and Thompson 2005), such thinking is well in line with the postmodern/poststructuralist movements. This fear is certainly relevant from a pragmatic perspective, if it is believed that such liberty in academic expression will automatically mean decreased relevance in the political game of academic prowess. Yet, if we continue to move further from the arcane notion of truths-for-certain, or the progression towards a single truth, would it not be curious if different expressive approaches would not be accepted as well, or as Kavanagh (1994) states, “if marketing is to provide new insights […] it should broaden its attendant philosophical discussion from the
philosophy of science to aesthetics, metaphysics, technology and theology” (p.
36; see also Belk 1986). Bold claims indeed, and perhaps some of the ongoing tensions reflect the insecurities of some researchers in the CCT community, who feel (and rightly so) that they have battled so long for more qualitatively-oriented approaches against ‘the numbers as truth’ approach that they feel these new types of expressions will jeopardize the ongoing political game, or as Kozinets and Belk (2006) put it in terms of videographic work: “Somehow, the association with art deprivileges and delegitimizes videography, making it seem more entertainment than knowledge” (p. 343). As will be discussed further in this study, there is indeed a pressing need to take the epistemic implications of such ‘entertainment’ very seriously (see also Martin, Schouten and McAlexander 2006; Sunderland 2006).
A balance between expressive strategies and epistemological approaches will hopefully emerge in such ways that CCT research will not forevermore continue to be touted as consisting of ‘entertaining esoterica’, something unscientific and without relevance (Arnould and Thompson 2005, 2007; see also Belk 2009). Yet, it seems that CCT researchers often appear to feel that they are the producers of relevance in consumer research if anyone is, a notion that we can hear echoing since as early as the 30’s, when the first frustrations with the inapplicability of research solely utilizing quantitative methods emerged (Levy 2006; see also Martin, Schouten and McAlexander 2006; Sunderland 2006 for a contemporary perspective). Indeed, it does seem that while it is admitted that there were some shortcomings in the project to market the CCT field (Arnould and Thompson 2007), the relevance question has not received sufficient interest. But what would be ‘relevance’ for CCT? And how could such relevance be marketed amidst the intercolumniations of prestigious academic hallways? At least in Europe, it seems that ethnographic approaches are swiftly making their way into managers’ decision-makings regarding corporate research activities and projects, not to compete, but to coexist with conventional quantitative approaches. Concurrently, numerous market research organizations offering
‘ethnographic only’ research are beginning to mushroom around us. Indeed, there are many examples where managers seem to have surpassed the creativity of expression which we now pursue in academia e.g. in terms of utilizing ethnographic storytelling and videography (Belk and Kozinets 2005a; Martin, Schouten and McAlexander 2006; Sunderland 2006). Is this a promise for future relevance? And yet, is it not the promise of CCT to go much further? Indeed, why do we always seem to be axiomatically indebted to the managers in their respective organizations (see also Holbrook 1985;
Sherry 2008)? Should it not be, as stated already long ago by Arndt (1976) that: “The ‘self-evident’ orientation toward marketing practitioners as the key reference group could well be replaced by an endorsement of a true consumer
frame of reference” (p. 218). It would seem, that one task of CCT could be to continue to go beyond such given positions and to tap into the society around us from the perspective of the consumers and their well-being (Murray and Ozanne 1991; Murray, Ozanne and Shapiro 1994; Denzin 2001a). Could such, still somewhat nascent, approaches open doors for completely new bedfellows, such as non-profit organizations and government interest groups? Would that be a new source of relevance? Time will tell.