Dystopia or utopia – how does it affect consumer behavior? After the turmoil of the last decade in terms of injustice, climate crisis, pandemic and war, it is time to rethink the foundations of the consumer cultural game we play. That was the idea behind this year's conference theme, 'Utopia revisited'. The hope was to provide inspiration for free thinking and topics for papers on, for example, politics, utopia through consumption, dreams and the role CCT has to play in a utopian future.
From Service Studies, four researchers contributed papers and posters to the conference exhibition.
Emma Samsioe presented two working papers where Ashleigh McFarlane (Edinburgh Napier University) is co-author of paper 1 and Christian Fuentes at Service Studies is co-author of paper 2.
Paper 1: Changing public opinion on fashion and age: unpacking narrative strategy in Instagram message posts of 50+ fashion influencers which is about how older influencers deliberately use different types of narrative strategies on social media (Instagram) in order to try to change the way the fashion industry and the public in general view how fashion is used by older female consumers.
Paper 2: Fashioning wellbeing: the F/ACT Movement and a transformative consumer research approach explores how fashion consumption can be used by consumers to enhance wellbeing. They identify turning points in consumer behavior and the implications of these turning points for how more sustainable fashion consumption can take shape. The paper is based on a case study of sustainable fashion consumption in the F/ACT Movement project conducted by Science Park Borås in 2020 and 2021.
Reka Ines Tölg participated with the poster Selling of Care and the Ethicalisation of Consumption based on her ongoing doctoral thesis. The dissertation manuscript argues that the way clothing retailers introduce different care products and services to Swedish retail markets, problematises routinised clothing-related acts, such as laundry or storing clothes as care-less, and reposition them into spheres where consumers are expected to act more ethically through caring.
Carin Rehncrona presented a poster on The Promise of Cryptocurrencies: The role of states, banks and companies in legitimization processes for digital/cryptocurrencies. The path towards acting as a means of payment and price setter, contemporary perceptions and in comparison with historical launches of means of payment (Co-author Jonas Bååth, SLU and Circle).
Cecilia Fredriksson participated in the CCT conference Art Gallery with eight watercolors on the theme "Seaweed Magics". She also presented a poster on the theme MARINE UTOPIA. About the knights of the Baltic Sea and the secret love life of seaweed. See the poster here (pdf).
