An heretical consumer research perspective on music, culture and heritage

ABSTRACT

This special issue presents both empirical and conceptual papers on music, culture, and heritage as a discursive site of human action and social interaction. The theme of this special issue of music, culture, and heritage are aspects symbolically embedded throughout the market, as well as within cultural and ritualistic practice. The work featured in this special issue captures the essence of the 2015 Heretical Consumer Research Revival conference held 28–30 September in New Orleans, LA (partially funded by Association of Consumer Research). This diverse gathering of critical thinkers and consumer researchers considered various avenues to enrich future directions for consumer culture research. In line with that conference, this special issue is oriented towards generating innovative, radical, and even heretical schools of thought in consumer culture research surrounding markets, music, culture, and heritage in a nonconventional, nonconformist manner.

KEYWORDS:

• Consumer research
• heretical consumers
• consumer culture
• music marketing
• heritage

Stemming from the 2015 Heretical Consumer Research Revival conference, this special issue presents both empirical and conceptual papers on music, culture, and heritage as a discursive site of human action and social interaction. The 2015 Heretical Consumer Research Revival, partially funded by Association of Consumer Research (ACR), was a diverse gathering of critical thinkers and consumer researchers for the purposes of a roundtable discussion and experiential event. More specifically, the purpose of the Heretical Consumer Research Revival conference was to engage in a critical and transgressive dialogue. Held 28–30 September in New Orleans, LA, the context presented a unique opportunity to identify and explore various avenues that can enrich future directions for consumer culture research. In the societal context, music, culture, and heritage are symbolically embedded throughout the market, as well as within cultural and ritualistic practice. The complex and evolving social action surrounding markets, music, culture, and heritage are generating innovative, unconventional, and radical shifts in the way the market operates, the way music is presented to the market and consumed within, along with the associated cultural heritage. By considering music, culture, and heritage in a nonconventional, nonconformist manner, this special issue is oriented towards generating innovative, radical, and even heretical schools of thought in consumer culture research.

The ideological premises and underlying assumptions of contemporary consumer theory and practice are called into question within a growing body of critique (Cova, Maclaran, and Bradshaw 2013; Tadajewski 2008). As per Bradshaw and Shankar’s (2008) special issue on the production and consumption of music, by locating phenomena such as music beyond the consumption–production nexus, authors rose to the challenge of considering music as an ideological lens as evidenced in personal identities, subversion, and relationships. Similarly, Askegaard and Özçaglar-Toulouse’s (2011) special issue on migration, consumption, and markets, various socio-cultural and ethno-consumerist works present theory and evidence that goes beyond the standard social and psychological foundational aspects of traditional marketing and consumer research theory. Further work is available in the special issue on “Nostalgia in the twenty-first century” edited by Hamilton et al. (2014) with several reflective accounts of nostalgia as a contemporary cultural force. Within that special issue edited by Hamilton et al. (2014), heritage is particularly highlighted by Edwards and Wilson’s (2014) interview with Lowenthal about his revised seminal work, The Past Is a Foreign Country. In the same vein, Higson (2014) presents a reflective essay on the heritage in film and the argued co-existence of modern and postmodern nostalgia. Just as Higson (2014) observes the coincidence of modernism and postmodernism in film, so too might authors choose to consider the contexts of music, culture, and heritage as the investigative site as related to this special issue. As a more specific example, Modrak (2015) presents an artistic critique of brand identity by analyzing the imagery and aesthetic cultural references of the Re Made project which parodies the designer axe brand, Best Made Co. Through this arts-centered analysis of the construction of brand identity, Modrak (2015) critiques the Best Made Co narrative of physical labor, adventure, and masculinity (Meamber 2015) to show how consumers move between contradictory selves and use artistic mimicry as a form of resistance.

While, for example, rebellion and/or rejection of music and/or consumer research theories and/or practices is not a new phenomenon, human action is the guiding light in seeking to study, critique, and engage in a dynamic dialogue of this heresy. As Friedman (1985) suggests, for as long as there has been marketing activities, consumers have rebelled accordingly. In the extreme, individuals and/or groups actively engage in action that communicates resistance and rejection of a particular ideology (Gabriel and Lang 1995). Specifically in the music scene, genres of music have emerged from the people organizing around songs that symbolize a rebellious message, a question of tradition, or the challenge of assumptions (Lena and Peterson 2008). In looking to such organic human action as found within music scenes and genres, researchers are provided a lens by which to investigate the movements towards heresy and critical action. Such interjections regarding music, heritage, and others offer a fruitful collaborative platform to develop novel, heretical, critical, and radical discourses to engage in and this special issue takes a step in that direction.

The special issue opens with a paper from Eagar et al., which offers an heretical observation of five researchers on a journey to the heart of Tréme and specifically the St. Augustine Catholic Church. Working from Mary Douglas’ negotiated concepts of purity and pollution, rituals and symbols, the five researchers offer an insight into their personal Tréme adventure to show idiosyncratic thin-sliced meanings and the spirited spaces in between. From the heart of Tréme, Ostberg and Hartman offer a two-part paper that begins with a recorded song from Chris Hackley, “CCT Blues Re-Inquiry” which is presented as a reflexive critique of the CCT research area. Through this musical lens, the second part of the Östberg and Hartman paper presents an analytical discussion of the ideological undercurrents of the CCT tradition as evident in Hackley’s recording, which Östberg and Hartman describe as academic linear notes. Also considering music as an analytical lens, Ulusoy and Schembri present an ethnography that shows how music subcultures offer a learning context. As a participative, interactive and creative learning space, Ulusoy and Schembri reveal how the subcultural experience of music awakens, engages, activates, and generates alternative ways of knowing from within. The final paper in this special issue presents an autoethnography on the quest to achieve epic tone. Highlighting the paradox and complexities inherent within (rock and roll) musical consumption constellations, Lanier and Rader take the reader on a journey though the intricacies of determining (anti)structure and (anti)function of sound production. Their conclusion is that consumers need to embrace this paradox while also learning and unlearning to follow and break the rules simultaneously. Maybe similarly, consumer researchers seeking to take a heretical perspective need to simultaneously learn and unlearn traditional research questions, traditions, and approaches. To that end, this special issue takes a step in that direction.

The Heretical Consumer Research conference series started not only to question and criticize the knowledge generated in the consumer research discipline until then as highly servile to the commercial and capitalist consumer culture of the time, but also to think about positive and progressive and creative new avenues and alternative ways to explore potential and brighter futures for humanity. At the very first Heretical Consumer Research Conference in 1996, the participants were asked what theories they would tackle and what research would they undertake if they had all the resources they needed to do so. This spirit has continued during the following conferences.

At the 2015 revival conference, we deliberately selected the theme of music, culture, and heritage not only because the conference location was New Orleans but also because the intent was to return to a broader and more comprehensive sense of exploring and understanding culture. At a time when the powers that be are increasingly imposing a neoliberal ideology, a sense of the world that only one dimension of culture, the economic, is significant, that only the economy and the market matter, it is of paramount importance for humanity’s sanity that we appreciate all dimensions of culture and the cultural nature of human existence. Contributions to this issue are significant in this respect.

As a final note, we are grateful for the initial funding from ACR to revive the Heretical Consumer Research conference series and we are grateful of the participants in that 2015 conference. These four papers capture some of the intentional essence of the heretical consumer research and we will endeavor to continue to encourage heretical interventions. Thanks too, to each of the contributing authors in this special issue and we hope that this special issue serves to inspire other researchers to consider a heretical perspective. Any queries regarding this special issue should be addressed to Fuat Fırat [email protected] and/or Sharon Schembri [email protected].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Sharon Schembri, previously tenured at Griffith University, Australia, now Assistant Professor at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA. Research focus on critical and curious approaches and questions in the context of healthcare, branding, and visual-research methods. Passionate about politics, the environment, travel, and Twitter.

A. Fuat Fırat is Professor of Marketing at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. His research interests cover areas such as macro consumer behavior and macromarketing; postmodern culture; transmodern marketing strategies; gender and consumption; marketing and development; and interorganizational relations. He has won the Journal of Macromarketing Charles Slater Award for best article with co-author N. Dholakia, the Journal of Consumer Research best article award with co-author A. Venkatesh, and the Corporate Communications: An International Journal top-ranked paper award with co-authors L.T. Christensen and J. Cornelissen. He has published several books including Consuming People: From Political Economy to Theaters of Consumption, co-authored by N. Dholakia, and is a founding editor of Consumption, Markets & Culture.

Additional information

Funding

An incentive of $1,000 was received from the Association of Consumer Research (ACR) [06062014] to host the 2015 Heretical Consumer Research Revival conference held 28–30 September in New Orleans, LA.