Meh-consumption: a resistant moral form? A foucauldian approach

Le Balek dans la consommation: une forme morale résistante ? Une approche foucaldienne

Laurent Busca ()
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Laurent Busca: UM - Université de Montpellier, MRM - Montpellier Research in Management - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - UM - Université de Montpellier

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Abstract: Consumer research is generally quick to emphasize the reflexive, agentic aspects of consumption, although it also shows how strongly material and discursive structures constrain this agency. But is consumption necessarily a matter of agency, for the individuals themselves? Using a Foucauldian approach, this paper seeks to explore this question through the characterization of meh, a kind of voluntary indifference, as a form of morality resistant to the governmentality of consumption. We propose that meh is a moral form characterized by individuals' focus on a certain moral substance, namely the refusal of their agentic capacity, which distinguishes it from both "classic" consumption and resistant anti-consumption. We attempt to characterize how meh could be another form of resistance to consumption, and could take multiple forms in its everyday incarnation.

Keywords: Foucault; governmentality; moral; indifference; consumption; gouvernementalité; morale; indifférence; consommation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-11-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme, nep-inv and nep-ipr
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Published in 22èmes Journées Normandes de Recherche sur la Consommation, Nov 2023, Cherbourg, France

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