Call for Papers
Global Conference on Economic Geography (GCEG), Cologne, July 24-28 2018
Between co-creation and political consumption: New perspectives on the role of consumers and consumption practice in economic value creation
Organisers: Martin Hess (University of Manchester, UK) and Felix Mueller (IRS Erkner, Germany)
In the age of big data and social media, tracing and quantifying the consumer’s every move has become a source of enormous economic value. At the same time, consumer demands, preferences and decisions are
increasingly seen as paramount in the process of economic value creation, and reflected in discourses ranging from user-driven innovation to calls for sustainability and ethical business conduct.
Researching the agency of consumers in economic value creation presents a fundamental challenge to economic geography, both in ontological and in epistemological terms. Work in cultural economy and geography
has taken up the notion of ‘co-creation’ of value by consumers, often employing flat ontologies to study places and performances of value creation (Crewe 2016, 2017; Lange and Bürkner 2013). A certain bias towards creative and high-end products is evident.
On the other hand, critical approaches rooted in Marxist Political Economy tend to remain centred on production and labour theories of value. From this angle, consumption and co-creation can themselves be understood as labour (Goss 2006; Cova, Dalli & Zwick
2011), and both the consumer and the private household appear as objects of exploitation, often involving mechanisms of debt (Sokol 2013). However, such structuralist ontologies tend to fail at fully appreciating the potential of consumption-driven value creation.
Can – and should – this rift be overcome?
Methodologically, the precise role of consumption in economic value creation is difficult to grasp. Through the lens of of a given product, firm or production network, it is possible to identify and frame
the buyer as ‘the consumer’. But more recently, consumption practice as a more holistic notion has come into the focus of research. Encompassing the intricacies of everyday decision making of consumers (Mansvelt 2010), it is much more elusive and certainly
has to eschew the rather crude dichotomy of the ‘consumer as dupe’ and consumer ‘sovereignty’. Likewise, a shift has taken place from ethical consumption as a matter of individual responsibility to the entanglements and distributed agency of political mobilization
in consumption (Clarke 2008; Evans, Welch & Swaffield 2017).
In this session we invite conceptual and empirical contributions which include but are not limited to
- advancing the theorization of consumption and value creation in Economic Geography, possibly within the frame of a Cultural Political Economy (Best and Paterson 2010, Hudson 2008),
- suggesting and discussing new methodologies to study consumption in Economic Geography,
- addressing political contestation in consumption practice and value creation
- interrogating the notion of value and valuation regimes in relation to consumption
- critically reflecting upon avenues of intervention, expression, emancipation and activism involving consumers.
Clarke, N. (2008): From Ethical Consumerism to Political Consumption. Geography Compass 2(6), pp. 1870-1884
Cova, B., Dalli, D. & D. Zwick (2011): Critical perspectives on consumers' role as 'producers': Broadening the debate on value co-creation in marketing processes. Marketing Theory 11(3) pp. 231-141
Crewe, L. (2016): Placing Fashion: Art, space, display and the building of luxury markets through retail design. Progress in Human Geography. 40(4), pp. 511 - 529
Crewe, L. (2017): The Geographies of Fashion: Consumption, Space, and Value. London / New York, Bloomsbury
Evans, D., Welch, D., J. Swaffield (2017) Constructing and mobilizing ‘the consumer’: Responsibility, consumption and the politics of sustainability. Environment and Planning A 49(6), pp. 1396 - 1412
Goss, J. (2006): Geographies of consumption: the work of consumption. Progress in Human Geography 30(2), pp. 237-249
Hudson, R. (2008): Cultural political economy meets global production networks: a productive meeting? Journal of Economic Geography 8(3), pp. 421-440
Lange, B. & HJ. Bürkner (2013): Value Creation in Scene-based Music Production: The Case of Electronic Club Music in Germany. Economic Geography 89(2), pp. 149-169
Mansvelt, J. (2010): Geographies of consumption: engaging with absent presences. Progress in Human Geography 34(2), pp. 224 - 233
Patterson, M. & J. Best (2009): Cultural Political Economy. Routledge, London
Sokol, M. (2013): Towards a ‘newer’ economic geography? Injecting finance and financialisation into economic geographies. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 6(3), pp. 501-515
Please send your paper abstract (roughly 250 words) and title to Martin Hess ([log in to unmask]) and Felix Müller ([log in to unmask])
by January 15th 2018.
Dr. Felix C. Müller
Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung (IRS)
Forschungsabteilung „Dynamiken von Wirtschaftsräumen“
Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS)
Research Department „Dynamics of Economic Spaces“
Flakenstraße 29-31
15537 Erkner (near Berlin)
Germany
Fon: +49 3362 793- 242
Fax: +49 3362 793-111
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]