771 Advances in Consumer Research Volume 35, © 2008
A Friend and/or A Foe?: Exploring Activeness of Objects in Consumption
Olga Kravets, Bilkent University, Turkey
Berna Tari, Bilkent University, Turkey
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
The issue of consumer-object relation has received consider-able attention in consumer research. Taking Belk’s (1988) notion of the extended self as the conceptual foundation, a significant body of work has examined the role of things in self-actualization, constructing social identities and coping with identity change in transition periods (e.g., Price et al 2000; Schouten 1991), as well as feelings of possessiveness, and moral effects of possessions on personality and person’s well-being (e.g., Hill 1991; Richins 1994). Another active stream of consumer research explores how con-sumption objects mediate social relations and the ways consumers use goods to make and maintain social distinctions (e.g., Kates 2002). While this research has generated valuable, rich insights into various facets of person-object relations in consumption contexts, as a generalization, much of this research focuses on symbolic aspect of goods and consumer-object relations; hence objects are often conceived as passive relation-partners, albeit endowed by people with meanings. However, our exploratory study reveals that some people see and interact with various objects as active entities that could enhance or interfere with their everyday life. It is this activeness of objects, how it transpires in and impacts consumption that we seek to explore.
In this research, we draw extensively on the existent research into consumers’ relation to things andto animal companions (ibid.; Hirschman 1994; Holbrook et al 2001). In addition, we engage a selection of concepts, debates and ideas on the activeness of things from the world of art, literature and popular science. Thus, we consider the 1920s soviet constructivists’ concept of a socialist
thing–an active partner and co-worker, whose activeness arises
primarily from its functionality. The core of the notion is the belief that “thing has an agency that is potentially beneficial to the human subject, which is itself rendered more active and “evolved” through interaction with this thing” (Kiaer 2004, 263). We also draw on works of fiction from the same period in the Soviet history, where such agency of things was celebrated as well as questioned (e.g., Olesha 1923). That literature anticipated the emergence in the 1950s of a controversial idea of resistentialism, which rests on the belief that inanimate objects have a natural hostility toward hu-mans; thus, it is things rather than people who increasingly control daily living (Jennings 1948). Finally, our research is informed by more recent academic works that consider activeness of objects, premised on objects’ utility among other things. Particularly, em-phasizing the importance of the materiality of things and their sensual qualities, Miller (1998) contends that objects are active insofar as they are constituents of social relations. Latour (1992; 1994), to oversimplify greatly, argues against the artificially made distinction between inanimate objects and human subjects, and advocates thinking of things as non-human actors, that carry huge amount of social work.
The notion of things’ activeness emerged in the course of in-depth interviews conducted as part of an exploratory study into car ownership practices. As the significance of this notion became apparent, we broadened the scope of the inquiry to include objects other than cars to enhance our understanding of this phenomenon. Such research conduct is consistent with the methodological logic of grounded-theory approach (Goulding 2002). We interviewed 23 consumers about their experiences with active objects in their lives. We followed the guidelines of McCracken’s (1988) “long
inter-view,” allowing our interviewees to lead the way raising the issues of interest to them as regards the suggested topic. The analysis was iterative; we focused on discerning broader patterns and common themes across the interviews, moving back and forth between the themes and the literature to develop an understanding of the themes (Goulding 2002).
Two thematic constellations of relating to active object emerged in the study, each comprising of a number of practices. The first, objects as companions, refers to seeing and treating a particular object as a partner, which helps a person to cope with the daily challenges. The theme is realized through humanizing tendency, which in turn is enacted in practices naming objects, assigning gender, celebrating their birthdays and constructing their life-histories. Informants report a range of positive experiences result-ing from object companionship from emotional support (‘makes me smile’) to improving the quality of person’s life (both through objects’ functioning and its aesthetics). The second theme –object as a consumer– relates to the idea that objects place demands on people in terms of skills, knowledge, manner of use but it also relates to people’ perception that some objects have needs and desires, feelings and interests. Such view is evident in the practices of buying ‘presents’ for a pet-object and servicing an object as a way of pleasing it. The positive experiences with the objects compan-ionship depends on the functional performance of the object, and adequacy of the demands it puts on people relative to its perfor-mance and centrality of the object in people’s everyday life. Overall, the two tentative thematic constellations are deeply inter-twined, they become evident and acquire their significance in specific contexts, and importantly they speak of the activeness of things, which appears to emerge in relations, in people’s mundane practices and daily experiences with objects.
Conceiving the paper as polemic, we conclude by pointing out three issues that arise from considering the activeness of things. The first has to do with how, if at all, the perceived activeness of an object reflects on consumption patterns. The second concerns the general question of the use of consumption objects and consump-tion as work, against the background of consumer researchers’ focus on acquisition and prevalent interest in symbolic aspects of consumption. The third is the question about the nature of relation-ships between people and objects, activeness of which arises and depends on both their utility and their aesthetic value. Theoreti-cally, we hope to contribute to an understanding of object-relations that arise from objects’ functionality. Practically, by focusing on practices, including both people’s doings with things and social work of things, we hope to contribute to the research on sustainable consumption, for, given that sustainability is not just a matter of technical fixes but of social and cultural practices (Shove 2003), a more nuanced understanding of curating practices, for example, could help in devising effective strategies to increase the longevity of objects in use, thereby promote sustainable consumption.
References
Ahuvia, Aaron (2005), “Beyond the Extended Self: Loved Objects and Consumers’ Identity Narratives,” Journal of
Consumer Research, 32 (June), 171-84.
Appadurai, Arjun (1986), The Social Life of Things:
Commodi-ties in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge
772 / A Friend and/or A Foe?: Exploring Activeness of Objects in Consumption
Arvatov, Boris (1925/1997), Everyday Life and the Culture of the Thing (Toward the Formulation of the Questin), trans. Kiaer, C., October (81), 119-28.
Baudrillard, Jean (1996), The System of Objects, trans. James Benedict, London & New York: Verso.
Belk, Russell (1988) “Possessions and the Extended Self,”
Journal of Consumer Research, 15 (September), 139-68.
Curasi, Caroyln F., Linda L. Price and Eric J. Arnould (2004), “How Individuals Cherished Possessions Become Families’ Inalienable Wealth”, Journal of Consumer Research, 31 (December), 609-622.
Fournier, Susan (1998) “Consumers and Their Brands: Develop-ing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research,” Journal of
Consumer Research, 24 (March) 343-74
Goffman, Erving (1974) Frame Analysis, Philadelphia: Univer-sity of Pennsylvania Press.
Goulding, Christina (2002), Grounded Theory: A Practical
Guide for Management, Business and Market Researchers,
London: Sage.
Hill, Ronald Paul (1991), “Homeless Women, Special Posses-sions, and the Meaning of Home: An Ethnographic Case Study,” Journal of Consumer Research, 18 (December), 298-310.
Hirschman, Elizabeth (1994), “Consumers and Their Animal Companions,” Journal of Consumer Research, 20 (March), 616-633.
and Craig J. Thompson, (1997), “Why Media Matter: Toward a Richer Understanding of Consumers’ Relation-ships with Advertising and Mass Media”, Journal of
Advertising, 26 (1), 43-60.
Holbrook, Morris, Debra Stephens, Ellen Day, Sarah Holbrook, and Gregor Strazar (2001) A Collective Stereographic Photo Essay on Key Aspects of Animal Companionship: The Truth About Dogs and Cats, Academy of Marketing Science
Review, vol.1, available: http://www.amsreview.org/articles/
holbrook01-2001.pdf
Hudson, Laurel Anderson and Julie L. Ozanne (1988), “Alterna-tive Ways of Seeking Knowledge in Consumer Research,”
Journal of Consumer Research, 14 (March), 508-21.
Jennings, Paul (1948), “Report on Resistentialism,” The
Spectator, http://www.handstones.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
yewtree/resources/resistentialism.htm.
Kates, Steven M. (2002) The Protean Quality of Subcultural Consumption: An Ethnographic Account of Gay Consumers,
Journal of Consumer Research, 29 (December), 383–99
Kiaer, Christina (2005), Imagine No Possessions: The Socialist
Objects of Russian Constructivism, Cambridge, Mass.: The
MIT Press.
Kopytoff, Igor (1986), “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process,” in The Social Life of Things:
Commodities in a Cultural Perspective, Arjun Appadurai,
Ed. New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Kozinets, Robert V. (2002), “The Field Behind the Screen:
Using Nethnography for Marketing Research in Online Communities”, Journal of Marketing Research, 39 (1), 61-72.
Latour, Bruno (1992), “Where are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts” in (W. E. Bijker and J. Law eds.) Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in
Sociotechnical Change, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
224-58.
(1994). “Pragmatogonies: A Mythical Account of How Humans and Nonhumans Swap Properties,” American
Behavioral Scientist, 37(6): 791-808.
Luczak, Holger, Matthias Rotting and Ludger Schmidt (2003), “Let’s Talk: Anthropomorphization as Means to Cope with Stress of Interacting with Technical Devices,” Ergonomics, 46 (13/14), 1361-74
McCracken, Grant (1988), The Long Interview, London: Sage. Miller, Daniel (1998) A Theory of Shopping, Ithaca, New York:
Cornell University Press.
Mick, David Glen and Susan Fournier (1998) Paradoxes of Technology: Consumer Cognizance, Emotions, and Coping Strategies, Journal of Consumer Research, 25 (September), 123-43
Olesha, Yury (1923/1967), Envy and Other Works, trans. Andrew MacAndrew. Garden City: Anchor.
Price, Linda L, Eric J. Arnould, and Carolyn Folkman Curasi (2000), “Older Consumers’ Disposition of Special Posses-sions,” Journal of Consumer Research, 27 (Sept.), 179-201. Richins, Marsha L. (1994), “Special Possessions and the
Expression of Material Values,” Journal of Consumer
Research, 21 (December), 522-533.
Schouten, John W. (1991), “Selves in Transition: Symbolic Consumption in Personal Rites of Passage and Identity Reconstruction,” Journal of Consumer Research, 17 (March), 412-425.
Shove, Elizabeth (2003) Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience:
The Social Organization of Normality, London: Berg.
and Mika Pantzar (2005), “Consumers, Producers and Practices: Understanding the Invention and Reinvention of Nordic Walking,” Journal of Consumer Culture, 5 (1), 43-64.
Venkatesh, Alladi, Norman Stolzoff, Eric Shih, Sanjoy Mazumdar (2001), The Home of the Future: An Ethno-graphic Study of New Information Technologies in the Home, in Advances in Consumer Research, vol. 28, Mary Gilly & Joan Myers-Levy (eds.), Valdosta, Georgia: Association for Consumer Research, 88-96.
