NEW CONSUMPTION COMMUNITIES AND THE ROLE FOR ETHICAL SPACES

1
NEW CONSUMPTION COMMUNITIES AND THE ROLE FOR
ETHICAL SPACES

• Dr Caroline Bekin
• Caroline.Bekin_at_brunel.ac.uk
• Brunel Business School
• Brunel University

2
New Consumption Communities? (Szmigin and
Carrigan 2003)

• The development, over time, of alternative
  consumption communities which provide different
  forms of thinking and production-engaged
  consumption to an increasingly varied range of
  individuals
• NCCs are sustained around a sense of community
  (Muniz and OGuinn 2001) developed through
  consumer engagement in boycotts, voicing of
  concerns and buycotts (Friedman 1996)

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New Consumption Communities? (Szmigin and
Carrigan 2003)

• NCCs reveal inadequacies of existing marketing
  systems
• And may be seen to represent responses to
  corporate behaviour

4
Methodology

• Ethnography involves an ongoing attempt to place
  specific encounters, events, and understandings
  into a fuller, more meaningful context. It is not
  simply the production of new information or
  research data, but rather the way in which such
  information or data are transformed into a
  written or visual form. As a result, it combines
  research design, fieldwork, and various methods
  of inquiry to produce historically, politically
  and personally situated accounts, descriptions,
  interpretations, and representations of human
  lives it is located between the interiority of
  autobiography and the exteriority of cultural
  analysis (Tedlock 2000, p.455)

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Methodology

• Ethnographic research
• Participant-observation
• Depth-Interviews
• Narratives
• Analysis of written documents, newsletters,
  leaflets, books, websites etc
• 2004 2007
• 7 communities / focus on 5

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Discussion Themes

• The communities did not reveal any surprising
  sustainable consumption practices
• What was relevant was not so much what, but how
  they produced and consumed
• Shared (SH/WC/SV) and self-generated electricity,
  water etc (HHP/SH)
• Vegetable gardening and food processing
• Bulk-buying and bulk-consuming
• Reduced and responsible personal consumption
• Repair, re-usage, recycling and composting

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Futurefarms

• Its not just what we produce we provide a
  marketplace People grow their own stuff anyway.
  So in the summer people bring their own
  courgettes or runner beans, things that were not
  selling or additional to what were selling. Nick
  has asparagus, and we provide a marketplace for
  things like that, that perhaps would have just
  got thrown away And were also, as you saw,
  marketing cheese and lamb in season So there is
  a greater consumption of locally produced things
  outside of what we produce ourselves.
  FFI/Pr96/Paul

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Sunny-Valley Community

• Everything we do is developed with an awareness
  of the impact of our work and lives on the
  environment. We recycle as much waste as we can
  and strive to reduce our consumption of energy.
  We grow our own vegetables and fruit
  organically. SVCW/Pr6

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Hockerton Housing Project

• We purchase quite a lot of stuff from Suma, who
  are wholesalers, cooperative They supply a lot
  of organic, fairly traded products. Items from
  toilet rolls through to walnuts and dates. So we
  bulk-buy those for ourselves and we took a
  delivery on Sunday and it was split between three
  houses from here, two houses from the neighbours,
  one person whos friends with the project, so
  its about six people involved Our community
  seems to be growing at the moment!
  HHPI/Pr92/Nick

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Stone-Hall Community

• We thought it would be a great idea if we used a
  page to ask if any of you could donate certain
  items. Most of them are old items that you might
  be throwing away. As you know, Stone-Hall is
  non-profit making and we value your support in
  whatever way possible. Please look at the list
  below and see if you could contribute... Garden
  stuff. Unwanted wheel barrows given a good home.
  In fact any unwanted garden equipment you have in
  your shed. Insulation material. We will gladly
  take away your old and worn-out duvets or
  sleeping bags, to be used as roof insulation for
  our straw bale house SHCW/Pr150

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Discussion Themes

• Place was fundamental (Kozinets 2002)
• It strengthened the communities values and group
  norms
• The communities acted as alternative consumption
  spaces (Williams and Paddock 2003 Williams,
  Windebank and Paddock 2005)
• Living arrangements, organisational structures
  and processes facilitated, and were facilitated
  by positive, production-engaged consumption
  practices

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Stone-Hall Community

• We can all work together, and obviously I
  wouldnt have massive patches of land andI
  wouldnt be able to cope with all the digging and
  that kind of thing. So in a way, community makes
  it really easy to be able to do it
  SHCI/Pr92/Cynthia

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Futurefarms

• Pretty much all members of the group have been
  here at one point in the morning and we sort of
  have a chat and go through things and there are
  certain tasks that we do together as a group. ()
  Also other members of the community who are not
  on the committee were there helping us as well
  FFI/Pr160/Mark
• I have been here about ten years and probably
  for the first eight years I knew very few people,
  but now through being involved with this I know
  almost everybody in the village. So, yeah, its
  had great benefits, and of course when we have
  our market, well, you saw it at the Club, people
  come and it is a place for people to meet
  FFI/Pr83/Janette

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Discussion Themes

• Not conflict free, particularly where the realms
  of individual and community consumption clashed
• Issues of fairness with regards to the
  communities ethical consumption policies were to
  the fore (cf. Mayo and Fielder 2006)

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Woodland Community

• Woodland doesnt like the dirt and the sight of
  so many vehicles, so from now on if you have more
  than one car and only one in use, there will be a
  parking fee charged per day, and if the vehicles
  remain on site they must be kept clean But look
  at that, do you see it? Thats Jonathans old
  boat, and it has been there for nearly 20 years
  and he never does anything with it!
  WCF/Pr19/Laura

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Discussion Themes

• NCCs address the social contexts and some of the
  structural factors which sustain
  environmentally-unfriendly habits they
• Develop their own environments
• Develop their own information/knowledge
• Develop normative incentives, punishments (!) and
  structures
• Discuss mundane consumption issues

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Sunny-Valley Community

• Co-op members have been debating on whether or
  not to procure some piglets. According to
  Raymond, some community members are vegetarians
  and unsupportive of meat consumption. However,
  one of the values of this community is to respect
  diversity, so they have decided to allow meat
  consumption as long as they raise their own
  meat and take the animals to the slaughter
  house. SVFN

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Woodland Community

• At Woodland members had their weekly must-do
  jobs divided into rotas and posted on a
  blackboard. Additionally, members could either
  join or create projects, e.g., grow the
  potatoes or the carrots during a particular year.
  Although gardening was not compulsory it was
  successfully embraced, and there was much
  normative pressure on members who were more laid
  back and unwilling to join others or to come up
  with their own contribution. Cliffs perception
  of this pressure made him feel as if he were not
  contributing enough, which in turn generated much
  guilt. WCFN

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Futurefarms

• Futurefarms has educated me in knowing a bit
  more about how most food in Britain is produced,
  so I have learnt an awful lot through it about
  agriculture, horticultural techniques and the way
  the farming community works FFI/Pr70/Mark

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Discussion Themes

• NCCs as ethical spaces (Low and Davenport 2007)
• Ethical by default
• Choice-editing (Mayo and Fielder 2006)
• Safe-shells from consumer temptations and an
  aid in self-discipline
• Moral foundations and supportive social contexts
  (Jacobs 2002) for the enactment of ethical,
  production-engaged consumption

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Stone-Hall Community

• Theres less opportunity to buy things, so Im
  not walking around the supermarket going, oh
  Ill just have that! Im not ever inspired to
  just, Im not ever Yeah, Im not ever tempted!
  Im satisfied with the food here its really
  great for me. And I suppose TV as well we dont
  have a TV soWell, we have a TV, but we watch
  videos and things so theres none of that
  constant, you go out and buy cheese strings or
  whatever they are Theres none of that, so its
  really easy to not consume SHCI/Pr140-144/Cynth
  ia

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Stone-Hall Community

• The ethical choices are being made for me,
  really, because Ive joined this organisation
  where, or am part of this thing wherethings are
  sourced ethically in that way, so Im not having
  to make the choices. I definitely think I am
  becoming a more ethical consumer and
  particularly linking courses that are sort of
  connected with the environment and deep ecology
  and stuff like that has really had an effect. So,
  I think Im being sort of strongly influenced by
  those kinds of conversations and that kind of
  information. SHCI/Pr174/Norman

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Stone-Hall Volunteer

• My initial intent for volunteering at
  Stone-Hall was to have a place to stay and see
  a little bit of England. I was not expecting to
  have the eye opening experience that I had. I
  think that much of this came from being around
  people that truly respected the environment and
  with the peace of mind that for at least that
  week I was doing my best to not further harm our
  environment. SHCN/Pr11/Sibyl

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Conclusions

• NCCs highlight the importance of groups and
  community in consumption issues (Jackson 2005
  Cova 1997 Cova and Cova 2002)
• NCCs emphasise the relevance of creating
  alternative spaces of choice
• As aims and consequences of consumers own
  systems of meaning (Giesler and Pohlmann 2003)
• Alternative meanings of the good life and good
  citizenship (c.f. Soper 2007 Soper and Thomas
  2006)

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Conclusions

• We do not need to live in intentional communities
  to try and be green, but (Jackson 2005
  Verplanken and Wood 2006)
• Change basic environmental cues
• Create the appropriate incentives, structures and
  technological innovations
• Recognise the need for a multilayered approach
  to sustainable consumption
• Bring everyday consumption into discursive
  consciousness (Giddens 1984)
• Allow for alternative meanings to develop