scholarly journals Enacting Green Consumers: The Case of the Scandinavian Preppies

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 963-977 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Fuentes
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Economic Sociology ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Sustainable Consumption ◽  
Analytic Approach ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Green Consumption ◽  
Green Consumers ◽  
Do So

The aim of this paper is to develop and illustrate an analytic approach that brings the active making and makings of green consumer images to the fore. Efforts to “know” the green consumers have generated multiple representations. Enactments of the green consumer are not innocent but also play a role in shaping how we understand and approach sustainable consumption. Because of this it is important to examine and critically discuss how green consumers are enacted today. This paper develops an approach that allows us to examine how green consumers are enacted and discuss the consequences these constructions might have for sustainability. Theoretically, a performativity approach drawing on theories from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and economic sociology is used to discuss the enactment of green consumers. Empirically, focus is on Boomerang – a Swedish fashion retailer, brand, and producer – and its marketing practices. The analysis shows how the marketing work of the Boomerang Company leads to the enactment of the Green Scandinavian Preppy. This specific version of the green consumer is a combination of the knowledgeable green connoisseur – a consumer that knows quality when he/she sees it – and the green hedonist in search of the good life. The Green Scandinavian Preppy wants to enjoy nature, go sailing, and do so wearing fashionable quality clothes. This is a consumer that knows quality, appreciates design, and has the means to pay for both. While this is a version of the green consumer that might be appealing and thus have the potential to promote a version of green consumption, it is also a green consumer image that has lost much of its political power as green consumption is framed as simply another source of pleasure and identity-making.

“I don’t buy LED bulbs but I switch off the lights”

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nitika Sharma ◽  
Raiswa Saha ◽  
Rudra Rameshwar
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
Sustainable Consumption ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Business Strategies ◽  
Consumption Pattern ◽  
Sustainable Business ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Green Consumption ◽  
Green Consumers

Purpose The rationale of viewpoint is to comprehend green consumption (GC) and sustainable consumption (SC). The purpose of this study is to understand how the phenomenon of sustainable and green consumers perceives in an everyday perceives in an everyday/routine life in modern today’s dynamic world society, where consumers clients are highly encouraged towards use and practicing sustainability, also to understand people’s personal lived experiences in this affair of green and SC processes. The adoption of sustainable business strategies has been a well-thought-out plan which act as a foremost driver for the socioeconomic development. Design/methodology/approach Present study is based on phenomenological interviews, using interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA) which has offered a platform to investigate, explore and discover to talk about latent prime aspects (causes to procure or adopt green products, its category, expression of feeling about perceived product self-assurance, readiness to pacification and consolation, familiarity of environmental-friendly products, reflection of alternatives, make use of and abandonment). Semi-structured exhaustive dialogues with Indian green consumers are set up to stimulate dialogue on their viewpoint. Findings The findings classify bewilderment of how sustainability applies in routine style for sustainable and GC followed by the consumers with respect to his/her behaviour and challenges of SC over GC, predominantly for ecological and environmental issues, and there was cynicism concerning higher pricing order of green and sustainable products available in market. Interestingly in findings framework, the analysis designates that green consumers represent a non-natural segment and offer auxiliary experiential description of sustainable development or sustainability as a measure of sustainable market and its orientation concept. Research limitations/implications The idiographic nature of IPA, particularly phenomenological approach, may be considered as a research limitation. Well-presented research work is exploratory in nature; and a research team is followed by well-known guidelines in order to make certain impartialities. Though, the research conclusions are limited to Indian GC and a replication or limitation into different nations would aid in the direction to get rid of several probable nation partiality. Practical implications In a nutshell, here findings exemplify that green or sustainable consumers are shifting sustainable ideology from one situation to another, and that by speaking about sustainability, these consumers possibly will obtain a competitive lead. Social implications The results or findings reveal green or sustainable consumers’ augmented association with sustainability and the role expected from them to create better society and world. Originality/value The research work exclusively places green or sustainable consumers’ dependence on heuristics to show sustainable preferences or choices, due to the lack of information and awareness, and it entails that sustainable concepts and sustainability are becoming popular nowadays; ever more included into their everyday behaviours and practicing. Very limited research studies have been done to investigate the GC and SC; measuring consumers’ actions using qualitative research approaches through IPA approach. This paper explores their consumption pattern and processes in detail.

Capitalising on ageing anxieties: Promissory discourse and the creation of an ‘anti-ageing treatment’ market

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Economic Burden ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Economic Sociology ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Population Ageing ◽  
Consumer Products ◽  
Health It ◽  
Medium Term ◽  
Ageing Treatment ◽  
Societal Impacts

Long portrayed as a potential economic burden, population ageing is increasingly viewed as offering new marketing opportunities. This is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the market of ‘anti-ageing treatments’ (AATs). Over the last two decades, this market has rapidly expanded to encompass a vast variety of products that are advertised for their promise to prevent, delay, reverse or mask the effects of ageing. Drawing on ideas from economic sociology and science and technology studies, this article explores the character, foundations and operations of the promissory discourse that underpins the AAT market. It is argued that this discourse rests upon assumptions about the operations of markets and about how consumer products are ascribed value that are problematic and exploit the anxieties that surround ageing and self-responsibility for health. It is a discourse that serves to reinforce the commodification of ageing and ageism. The article concludes by suggesting that, while the promissory discourse of AATs will be difficult to sustain over the longer term, since what is promised mostly cannot be delivered, its personal and societal impacts over the short to medium term are likely to be profound.

Using Virtue to Think About Science and Technology

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Stapleford ◽  
Emanuele Ratti
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
High Technology ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
Philosophy And Religion ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

Scholars have recently turned to a surprising source for analyzing contemporary science and technology: concepts of virtue drawn from ancient philosophy and religion. This chapter provides a brief history of the relationship between virtue, science, and technology before turning to the contents of this edited volume. Science, Technology, and Virtue offers a range of perspectives illustrating how scholars across multiple disciplines have found virtue valuable for helping us to understand, construct, and use the fruits of modern science and technology. In doing so, the authors show how intellectual and moral character—as embodied dispositions for action—continue to be central for pursuing the good life, even in an age of high technology and science.

The Liberal International Order and Peaceful Change: Spillover and the Importance of Values, Visions, and Passions

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-533
Author(s):  
Trine Flockhart
Keyword(s):  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
International Order ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Shared Vision ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
Do So

AbstractAs part of the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” this essay focuses on the role of institutions as agents of peaceful change from a perspective that emphasizes the importance of a wide spectrum of human emotions to better understand the less quantifiable but nevertheless important conditions for being able to sustain initiatives for peaceful change. It aims to throw light on the often overlooked psychological and emotional hurdles standing in the way of agents’ ability to undertake and sustain action designed to lead to peaceful change. To do so, the essay returns to the pioneering work of Ernst Haas and his important concept of “spillover.” The essay shows that the neofunctional understanding of spillover was a theoretically important innovation, but that it was missing three essential elements: an understanding of the need for positive emotions and ontological security; an understanding of the link between values and identity; and a realization of the importance of a shared vision for the “good life.” To illustrate the problems with Haas's version of spillover, but also to highlight the significant potential of the theory, the essay turns to the crisis of the liberal international order as an example of a forum where the agency to undertake peaceful change seems to be faltering. The essay concludes that the ability of the liberal order to effect peaceful change is currently hampered because the order is characterized by negative emotions, contested values, and a vision of the good life that is seen as mainly a benefit for the cosmopolitan elite.

Intervention, Materiality, and Contemporary Somali Counterpiracy

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 511-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katja Lindskov Jacobsen
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Solution Problem ◽  
Do So

AbstractTaking seriously debates in IR about the significance of materiality and noticing the prominence of materiality in contemporary counterpiracy interventions, this article combines insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS) with insights from the poststructuralist intervention literature. Both literatures highlight the importance of “constitutive effects.” Poststructuralists do so with attention to the effects of intervention in constituting, temporarily, the meaning of sovereignty, and STS scholars do so with attention to constitutive effects that processes at the level of materiality give rise to. By combining these two literatures, this article asks: how might we think about the constitutive effects of material aspects of counterpiracy interventions? This question is explored through a focus on two donor-funded pirate prisons in Somalia. By operationalizing the STS notions of coproduction (Jasanoff 2004c) and solution/problem-framings (Beck et al. 2016), the article broadens the study of how intervention practices give rise to constitutive effects by explicitly attending to processes at the level of materiality. This approach enables the article to highlight an important tension in contemporary intervention practices: a tension between donor's desire to delimit intervention contributions and the risk that such contributions (including presumably more easily delineated material aspects) give rise to effects that challenge this faith in neatly delimited forms of intervention. This tension is not only relevant in relation to Somali counterpiracy, but also in other intervention contexts. The article thus illustrates how STS insights can help advance our appreciation of the manifold dimensions and effects of contemporary interventionism.

A Liberal Theory of the Good?

1987 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 567-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Neal
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Liberal Theory ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Political Morality ◽  
To Come ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Made In ◽  
Do So

One argument often made in support of liberal political morality is that liberalism, both as a theory and as a practice, is neutral in regard to the question of the good life. In this essay, I shall criticize and reject this argument. Now this conclusion is anything but novel; one would have almost as much difficulty finding a critic, of whatever perspective, granting that liberalism is indeed neutral with regard to the good as one would have finding a liberal denying it. It is this phenomenon that I find especially interesting, and which serves to set the context of my discussion. If, as I aim to show, it is a relatively straightforward path of argument which leads to the conclusion that liberalism is not neutral with regard to the question of the good life, then why do so many liberals remain convinced that it is? Why, when liberals and their critics debate the issue of neutrality, do they so often seem to talk beyond one another? It seems to me that instances of these debates ought to come off better than they do, and so I shall attempt here to describe how they might.

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