Special Issue on Communities and Consumption

Citation

(2006), "Special Issue on Communities and Consumption", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 26 No. 1/2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijssp.2006.03126aaa.001

Special Issue on Communities and Consumption

Editors: Dr Marylyn Carrigan, Dr Isabelle Szmigin and Caroline Bekin, Birmingham Business School, United Kingdom

Community as a concept has had a long history of empirical research. Arguably it has evolved from the traditional, geographically-bound notion comprising the extended family, village, neighbourhood etc, to non-geographically dependent affiliations formed around people's need for communal relations. Put simply, geography is no longer the sole delineator of social relations; it is the social relations that now seem to define or shape space. Such ''evolution'' could be said to have freed individuals from the pressures of traditional forms of community membership. It has enabled us to choose to which communities we want to belong, and how much effort we desire to put into such endeavours (Colombo et al., 2001). This in turn made the simultaneous participation in various types of community possible, for example, communities of practice (Goode, 1969; Greer, 1969; Wenger, 2002), communities of interest (Rose, 1996), epistemic communities (Cinquegrani, 2002), virtual communities (Jones, 1995), hybrid communities (Etzioni and Etzioni, 1999), consumption or brand communities (Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001; Cova, 1997; Schouten and McAlexander, 1995) and even alternative consumption communities (Giesler and Mali, 2003; Kozinets, 2002), arguably a response to the over-marketization of some aspects of social relations in post-modern societies. What types of communities are co-existing in individuals' lives? How is this co-existence operationalised? What are the benefits, consequences, trade-offs or moral implications? How do they vary across social groups or gender? What circumstances may lead to defection from communities and what are the implications to the communities involved? Also, to what extent and in what ways are the market or commercial relations intervening in social relations today? What are the responses? Irrespective of the forms and shapes of such responses, consumption plays a major role in helping these groups to socialise. In this way, how is consumption being utilised by these various community manifestations etc?

It is arguable, however, that such different types of community and the increased emphasis on individualism is characteristic of the socio-economic condition that emerged throughout the affluent countries of Europe and European descent in the course of the second half of the twentieth century'' (Cova, 1997, p. 298). Thus are other less developed markets in different stages of this process of reformulation of community? How do they compare to so-called developed societies? The scope for cross-cultural research is considerable.

This special issue of International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy aims to bring together a wide range of research perspectives on the field of community and consumption. Possible topics may include but are not restricted to:

• •

  Community currencies

• •

  Time banks, local exchange trading systems (LETS)

• •

  Brand communities and anti-brand communities

• •

  Gendered communities

• •

  Alternative and ethical communities, anti-consumption communities

• •

  Virtual communities of consumption

• •

  Consumer communities, food co-operatives, worker collectives

• •

  Credit unions

• •

  Community involvement, community projects e.g. recycling initiatives

• •

  Fairtrade communities

• •

  Communities of interest e.g. school communities, childcare communities, housing communities, spiritual communities, leisure communities

• •

  Sub-culture communities, marginalised communities

Theoretical, conceptual, empirical or practical approaches are welcome. Papers should not exceed 6,000 words and should follow the author guidelines established by the journal. Guidelines are available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/ijssp/notes.htm

Papers will undergo a double blind peer review process and will be selected according to originality and contribution to this field of research. The submission deadline is August 31st 2006.

Three hard copies, and an electronic version (via e-mail in MSWord) of your paper should be submitted to:

Dr Marylyn CarriganUniversity of Birmingham, Birmingham Business School,University House, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TTe-mail: m.carrigan@bham.ac.uk Tel: +44(0) 121 414 6696