A Note on Bazaar Consumer Collectives

Maitrayee Deka

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2021, vol. 6, issue 4, 509 - 514

Abstract: This commentary forwards the bazaar consumer collective as a distinct way to view popular consumer sociality. Instead of just building social relations through a particular commodity or brand, bazaar consumer affinities emerge by “grabbing” the moment of potentiality. This commentary argues that what defines bazaar consumerism is about getting onto a trend very quickly through ad hoc and informal production networks. Unlike in previous analysis of popular consumer cultures, bazaar consumerism is no more about aspiring toward upper-class consumption; it is about encapsulating whatever is trending in their environment. A loose bazaar consumer collective gets formed by the possibilities of wearing garments that are thoroughly capturing the moment, not about wearing a specific brand. By this logic, bazaar consumerism is an act of mimesis of decentering corporate discourse at one level and introducing copies as new symbols at the other end.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/716070 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/716070 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jacres:doi:10.1086/716070

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of the Association for Consumer Research from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().