With apologies for cross-posting
-----------------------------------

We are pleased to announce our plans to organize a stream at the 
5th International Critical Management Studies Conference 
to be hosted by Manchester Business School on 11-13 July 2007. 

For more information on this event please visit the CMS5 website
(http:www.cms5.org/).

Stream Title: 
Critical marketing perspectives on identity construction in market exchanges

Convenors (in A-Z order):
Nick Ellis, University of Leicester
Gill Hopkinson, Lancaster University
Gavin Jack, University of Leicester
Daragh O'Reilly, University of Sheffield
Mike Saren, University of Leicester

Call for Papers:

This stream seeks to develop a critical understanding of what happens at and
around the boundaries of the firm in the range of 'markets' highlighted by
the mainstream.      We aim to build on the success of previous Critical
Marketing streams within CMS by exploring notions of 'self' and 'otherness'
in consumer and business relationships. 

We want to 'unpick' the discursive resources that critical marketing can
mobilise in pursuit of its project. We wish to do so specifically in terms
of deconstructing managerial and consumer constructions of self and the
'other', whether in terms of 'B2C' or B2B' exchanges. What insights do
notions of identity, variously conceived, offer with respect to the
individual's and the (reified) organisation's engagements with others?
Possible 'others' that might be considered include consumers and other
organisations which might be inter alia commercial, governmental or pressure
groups. Key aspects of engagement are likely to include the range of
exchanges such as social, economic and material, and the flow of (cultural)
ideas, noted in the marketing field. 

Contributions might consider a plethora of issues such as:
.	How participants negotiate and deploy or how they resist or subvert
such exchanges (perhaps through 'sharing' rather than 'exchanging').
.	Exclusion from participation in exchange. 
.	Theories of identity that consider how social actors (organisational
or otherwise) make sense of, or 'do', participation in exchange.
.	Notions of a collective entity (or 'selves') on the part of
consumers, e.g. brand communities or tribes.
.	How repertoires, scripts, theories or narratives are brought to bear
in the construction of 'the market' and the legitimisation of the self as a
market participant. 
.	Alternatively, the role of markets, boundaries, their materiality or
d/Discourses, may be considered as productive of identity. 
.	Is talk of 'relationships' or 'relationship marketing' an attempted
construction of the inter-connection between identities on either side of
the exchange?
.	Is 'exchange' even the most appropriate concept for this analysis of
the performance of identity/self, a performance seemingly played out in the
spotlight of the d/Discourses of marketing management and consumption? 
.	To what extent are social actors 'staging value', and how can this
be linked to the meaning/sign value(s) of exchanges?
.	Does 'exchange' help us conceptualise the individual manager,
consumer or this thing called the organisation?
.	Can a critical view of the notion of 'self-concept' provide
different insights into our understanding of consumer identity?
.	To what extent is identity a 'consumable', and are corporations
'identity-factories', such that 'brand identity' becomes a set of meanings
produced by corporate interests as a means of structuring and camouflaging
exchanges?
.	The question of authenticity: certain brand identities could be read
as including covert legitimisations; there is also the issue of the
manufacture of 'authentic' brand heritage.
.	The co-optation by corporations of other identities by means of
product placement, celebrity endorsement, sponsorship, etc.
.	The terms and negotiation of ethical market engagement could also be
explored;  
.	As could feminist, Marxist or post-colonial perspectives on market
exchanges.  


Contributions might also consider 'our' engagement with the subject matter,
for instance:
.	How do scholars make sense of the sense-making of market
participants? 
.	How do 'our texts' influence and pattern exchange and distribute
power in economic and other arenas? 
.	How do 'we' form, and how are we formed by the boundaries over which
we exchange with practitioners, with academics in other areas and with those
marketing academics that we place outside the boundary that we construct in
seeking to form an inner community of 'critical marketing' scholars? 
.	In the light of contributions by Alvesson, Brown, Brownlie, Burton,
Hackley, Marion, Saren, Wensley and others, can we attempt a framing
statement of what critical marketing 'is' right now?
.	Finally, what are the implications of this for 'our' research,
writing, supervision and teaching?


 
Submission:
The deadline for Abstracts will be 6 November 2006.

Abstracts should be of no more than 300 words, and conform to the following
format:
.	Authors (incl. affiliation & contact details, with lead author
indicated)
.	Stream to which the abstract is submitted (i.e. Critical marketing
perspectives on identity construction in market exchanges)
.	Title
.	Body text
.	A4, single-spaced, min. 11-point Arial font, left hand margin min. 1
inch

Please send your Abstract as an email attachment to Nick Ellis at
[log in to unmask] or Gill Hopkinson at [log in to unmask]

After we convenors have confirmed with the CMS conference organisers
precisely how many slots have been allocated to our stream, then we will be
in touch with authors during February 2007 with our decision on acceptance
or rejection.

We look forward to hearing from you. Meanwhile, if you have any queries
about the Stream, please contact any of the convenors via email.


Regards,

Nick ([log in to unmask])
Gill ([log in to unmask])
Gavin ([log in to unmask])
Daragh ([log in to unmask])
and
Mike ([log in to unmask])

Daragh O'Reilly