Ethical Consumption: Practices and Identities: A Realist Approach

✍ Scribed by Yana Manyukhina

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 201
• Series: Routledge Studies in Critical Realism
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book engages with the topic of ethical consumption and applies a critical-realist approach to explore the process of becoming and being an ethical consumer. By integrating Margaret Archer’s theory of identity formation and Christian Coff’s work on food ethics, it develops a theoretical account explicating the generative mechanism that gives rise to ethical consumer practices and identities. The second part of the book presents the findings from a qualitative study with self-perceived ethical food consumers to demonstrate the fit between the proposed theoretical mechanism and the actual experiences of ethically committed consumers. Through integrating agency-focused and socio-centric perspectives on consumer behaviour, the book develops a more comprehensive and balanced approach to conceptualising and studying consumption processes and phenomena.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Endorsement
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Ethical consumption, the identity-building consumer, and critical realism
Clarification of terms
The scope and structure of the book
References
Part 1 Theorising the ethical consumer
Chapter 1 Analysing consumption: Towards an integrated approach
A view on consumption: lessons from the past, directions for the future
References
Chapter 2 Ethical consumption and critical realism
Reflexivity: an emergent subjective power
A realist social ontology: towards a stratified reality
References
Chapter 3 Ethical consumption as a reflexive life project
In pursuit of identity: reflexivity and the internal conversation
Ethical consumer – unravelling the relationship between commitments and concerns
References
Part 2 Studying the ethical consumer
Chapter 4 Studying consumption: A realist approach
Epistemological approach: towards the interpretivist paradigm
Detailed research design
Data production: the rationale, limitations, and benefits of my chosen research methods
Reflexivity in research
Data analysis
Assessing the validity of research: a realist approach
References
Chapter 5 Meeting the ethical consumers
Vignette 1: Lucy
Vignette 2: Jason
Vignette 3: David
Vignette 4: Darren
Vignette 5: Mary
Vignette 6: Maggi
Vignette 7: Joe
Vignette 8: Solveig
Vignette 9: Lila
Note
Reference
Chapter 6 Becoming an ethical consumer: Moral concerns, emotional commentaries, and reflexive deliberations
On the origins of consumers’ moral concerns
Reflexivity and internal conversation in the context of ethical consumption
Consumption and the ethical self: on the links between concerns, practices, and identities
References
Chapter 7 Being an ethical consumer: Exercising moral agency in the contexts of objective reality
Contextualising consumer practices
Reinstating consumer agency
The many concerns of a single (ethical) consumer: striking the balance
Reflexivity in ethical consumption: an ongoing imperative
Maintaining ethical consumer identities: in pursuit of an authentic self
Accommodating ethics, negotiating morality: the unethical practices of an ethical self
On values and practices
References
Chapter 8 The inner self in the outer world: The social life of an ethical consumer
References
Conclusion
Limitations and further research: beyond individual identities
References
Index

✦ Subjects

Humanities, Politics & International Relations, Social Sciences