Ethical Consumption as a Reflexive Project
Negotiation of Consumer Identities through
Ethical Labelling
Overview
• Background:
- Introduction to the ethical consumption phenomenon
- Key research approaches and gaps
• Theoretical framework: ideas and concepts
- Consumption and identity
- Ethical consumption and reflexivity
- Ethical labelling: identity, reflexivity and consumption of
meanings
Introduction into the ethical
consumption
• Key events in the modern history of environmental thinking:
- Rio Earth Summit 1992
- World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002
- Rio+10 conference in Johannesburg 2002
• Definition:
ethical consumption refers to a range of consumption practices and
choices informed by individuals’ morals, i.e. their understanding
of what is right or wrong with respect to the surrounding contexts
(natural environment, animal welfare, human rights)
Research approaches and gaps
Question
Approach
Gap
What is the nature of the A mode of political
ethical consumption
engagement
phenomenon?
Understanding the individual
agency and identity
imperatives of an ethical
consumer
How can we explain
consumers’ ethical
shopping behaviour?
A theoretical perspective
accounting for consumer
subjectivity, reflexive ability as
well as structural factors and
social conditions
What is the role of
ethical labelling in ethical
shopping?
Agency-oriented
(theory of planned
behaviour)
Structure-oriented
(governmentality
theory)
An information tool
Sociological perspective:
symbolic and identityenhancing value of ethical
Theoretical framework: linking
consumption, identity and reflexivity
Consumption and Identity
Identity is Rome to which all discussions of modern Western consumption
lead (Gabriel and Lang, 2006, p. 81)
•From consumption as an indication of class to consumption as an
expression of individual identity
•A shift from a product’s exchange and use value (its price and
functions it serves to) to its identity value
“Today, people define themselves through the messages they transmit to
others via the goods and practices that they possess and display. They
manipulate or manage appearances, thereby creating and sustaining a “selfidentity” (Warde, 1997, p. 68).
Theoretical framework: linking
consumption, identity and reflexivity
Consumption and Identity
•Food consumption as a major site of identity construction
•Warde’s (1997) antinomies of taste:
-novelty and tradition
-health and indulgence
-economy and extravagance
-convenience and care
•Fifth antinomy of ethical / unethical
Theoretical framework: linking
consumption, identity and reflexivity
Consumption and Identity
•Ethical consumption and identity
-“the story of who we are” (Gabriel and Lang, 2006, p. 94)
-“a fantasy of what we wish to be like” (Gabriel and Lang, 2006, p.
94)
-How we want to be seen as
“… if you're putting Cafedirect [Cafedirect is a brand of fair trade coffee in the
UK] in your trolley and driving around with it then you're saying to other people
I'm clever enough to know the difference between this and Nescafe” (Shaw et
al., 2005, p. 190)
Theoretical framework: linking
consumption, identity and reflexivity
Ethical consumption as a reflexive project
•Reflexivity – “the regular exercise of the mental ability, shared by
all normal people, to consider themselves in relation to their (social)
contexts and vice versa” (Archer, 2007, p. 4)
•Social action as a reflexive project:
<Concerns → Projects → Practices>
Concerns are “those internal goods that they care about most, the
precise constellation of which makes for their concrete singularity as
persons” (Archer, 2007, p. 7)
Theoretical framework: linking
consumption, identity and reflexivity
Ethical consumption as a reflexive project
•Ethical consumption as a reflexive project of an identity-seeking
consumer:
-defines his/her ultimate concerns and in them and through them –
his/her identity;
-develops an appropriate consumption project;
-realizes the project through corresponding shopping practices
Theoretical framework: linking
consumption, identity and reflexivity
The role of ethical labelling
•Practical
-Informs consumer choices, enables ethical product decisions
•Symbolic
- Construction of products’ “ethicality”
- Reduction of commodity fetishism: “at least a partial antidote to the
commodity fetish” (Brown and Getz, 2008, p. 1188).
- Generation of consumer reflexivity: “reflexivity turn on the
consumer’s reading of the label” (DuPuis, 2000 cited in Guthman,
2002, p. 302)
- Revival of the sense of responsibility, motivation for ethical choices
Research questions
• What is an ethical consumer identity?
• What are the different dimensions of an ethical consumer
identity?
• What are the dynamics of an ethical consumer identity – how is it
constructed, sustained and manifested through ethical food
choices?
• What is the role of labelling in the symbolic construction and
representation of products’ as ethical?
References
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Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational behavior and human decision
processes, 50(2), 179-211.
Archer, M. S. (2007). Making our way through the world: Human reflexivity and social mobility.
Cambridge University Press.
Barnett, C., Cloke, P., Clarke, N., & Malpass, A. (2010). Globalizing responsibility: The
political rationalities of ethical consumption. John Wiley & Sons.
Brown, S., & Getz, C. (2008). Privatizing farm worker justice: Regulating labor through
voluntary certification and labeling. Geoforum, 39(3), 1184-1196.
Gabriel, Y., & Lang, T. (2006). The unmanageable consumer. Sage.
Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: self and identity in the late modern age.
Cambridge: Polity. Chicago
Guthman, J. (2002). Commodified meanings, meaningful commodities: Re–thinking
production – consumption links through the organic system of provision. Sociologia
ruralis, 42(4), 295-311.
Middlemiss, L. (2010). Reframing individual responsibility for sustainable consumption:
lessons from environmental justice and ecological citizenship. Environmental Values, 19(2),
147-167.
Shaw, D., Grehan, E., Shiu, E., Hassan, L., & Thomson, J. (2005). An exploration of values in
ethical consumer decision making. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 4(3), 185-200.
Warde, A. (1997). Consumption, food and taste. Sage.
Thank You
Yana Manyukhina
ssym@leeds.ac.uk
www.ediblematters.wordpress.com