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Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Abstract

The main aim of this research is to understand the genesis and nature of an anti-consumption movement in India and its emphasis on nationalism through localism. This research adopted a case study design, including in-depth interviews and discursive analysis. Through a historical analysis this research shows the influence of anarchist political philosophy in a contemporary anti-consumption movement. It demonstrates that anti-consumption is inflected with discourses of freedom, anti-authoritarianism, and anti-statism, which are central to the anarchist conception of localism. This research shows that anti-consumption movements in India use consumption objects to privilege local over both national and international. This helps to expand the framework of product-place-images and country-of-origin effects by showing how nationalism can become anti-nationalist in an anti-consumption discourse. It further helps to differentiate anti-consumption from consumer resistance as a deeper systemic challenge to consumerist lifestyle and consumer culture.

Author Bio

Rohit Varman is Professor of Marketing and Consumption at Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK. He uses interpretive methodologies and his current inter-disciplinary research focuses on corporate violence, exploitation, and slavery. He has published his research in several outlets that include the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Service Research, Organization Science, Human Relations, Journal of Business Ethics, and Marketing Theory.

Russell Belk is York University Distinguished Research Professor, Royal Society of Canada Fellow, and Kraft Foods Canada Chair in Marketing at the Schulich School of Business in York University. His research involves the extended self, meanings of possessions, collecting, gift-giving, sharing, digital consumption, and materialism. He has received a number of research and teaching awards and has over 750 publications. This work is primarily qualitative and is often conceptual, visual, and cultural. He has had visiting positions at many universities around the world and has spent a year or more at universities in Romania, Zimbabwe, the US, and Hong Kong with shorter visiting stints of one to three months in India, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, the UK, France, and Italy.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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