RELOCATING PROFANE CONSUMPTION INTO SACREDNESS CONSUMER REDEMPTION AND RESURRECTION

RELOCATING PROFANE CONSUMPTION INTO SACREDNESS CONSUMER REDEMPTION AND RESURRECTION
SECTION 0700 SCHOOL LICENSURE OPERATIONS CLOSING AND RELOCATING





Reproducing the rhythms of human life: Sacrifice and Dispossession Practices

Relocating Profane Consumption into Sacredness:

Consumer Redemption and Resurrection through Practice of Disposal

Helene Cherrier, American University in Dubai, United Arab Emirates*
Kaleel Rahman, American University in Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates


Abstract


This study aims to improve our understanding of the relationship between intentional disposal and changes in consumption lifestyle. The hermeneutical analysis of twelve in-depth interviews with self-proclaimed voluntary simplifiers shows the practice of disposal organized around three main themes: redemption, resurrection and sacredness. The study concludes with insights on the concept of sacrifice for questions of disposal and calls for further research on the gain rather than the loss, affiliated to letting go of our material belongings.


Extended Abstract

This study focuses upon the role of disposal in relation to changes in consumption lifestyle. It argues that adopting a voluntary simplicity lifestyle can lead consumers to experience disposal as a sacrificial ritual. Grounded in anthropological studies, sacrifice is conceptualized as both a liberating act and a process of moving toward sacredness.

The data consists of existential phenomenological interviewing with twelve informants who identify themselves as voluntary simplifiers and have, at one point in their lives, voluntarily lowered the amount of their material possessions. The interviews offer descriptive details on their process of disposal and its relation to a change in values and consumption lifestyle. The hermeneutic analysis shows informants’ practice of disposal organized around three main themes: redemption, resurrection, and sacredness.


The theme “redemption” describes informants’ practice of disposal as a way to redeem themselves from the social norm to own and display countless objects. Similar to a ‘sacrificator’, each informant was a bearer of pollution and sins. According to the interviews, they had accumulated and owned objects in excess. Disposing of the material surplus provides the means for cleansing the self of social stains, impurity and sins. Under this theme, disposal is described as a purifying act, focusing on the termination of a self that had been polluted by the ideology of consumer culture, with its emphasis on material success, accumulation, holding on and storing goods.


The second theme “resurrection” shows disposal as a necessary ritual for self-transformation. Disposing of material possessions was for the informants a rite of passage from the termination to the recreation of personhood and lifestyle. Like a sacrificial rite, informants found in the practice of disposal a way to repair equilibriums between their self-concept and their environment, which involves both a deliverance from the slavery of material accumulation and a reconciliation with their self-concept. Re-creating this equilibrium called for the re-appropriation of material accumulation through its apportionment to others, including friends, charity organizations and strangers.


Finally, “sacredness” notes disposal as a transcendental experience that prefigures the death of profane consumption and the birth of sacred consumption. The act of disposal represents a gift informants made to others, to nature and/or to God. Impetus for the gift is the informants’ understanding that their objects are passed on to others and that their meanings are regenerated in the process. The gift and the regeneration of meanings prolong the life of objects and infuse characteristics of eternity and sacredness within the material. Just as a sacrificial rite opens doors to sacredness, disposal provides the means to participate in the circulation of objects and to enact sacred consumption practices.


The three themes support that disposal entails both a process and an act. It is not just an act of letting go of our belongings, but also a process of becoming (Cherrier and Murray 2007; Lastovicka and Fernandez 2005; Ozanne 1992; Price and Arnould 2000; Young 1991; Young and Wallendorf 1986). This study also notes that consumers do not necessarily divest the private meanings attached to particular objects prior to disposing of them. Instead, informants reflected on broad societal and sacred meanings. It is the reflections on interconnectivity between people and the circulation of objects that lead informants to dispose of their possessions and engage in sacred consumption practice. Furthermore, this study on voluntary simplifiers shows relevant similarities between practices of intentional disposal and the concept of sacrifice. The majority of anthropological studies recognize sacrifice as a personal renunciation of a human life, an animal or a material object that nourishes a higher purpose. In this study informants felt being polluted by material surplus and letting go of their possessions offers the means for cleansing and elevating themselves to higher beings. From this perspective, the personal renunciation of objects nourishes a quest for meanings and sacredness. Here, the accent lies no longer on the suffering and the burden of disposal but on the engagement to a meaningful existence through which, similar to a sacrificial ritual, “a man can find himself anew” (Jung, 1969, p. 260).


This study turns on the very question of disposal as a gain rather than a loss for the owner. For the informants, disposal bears an ontologically promise of value, a promise that motivates and underwrites the process of disposal. Disposal redeemed informants from sins of material accumulation and resurrected them into a transformed state of sacred participation. In a more general sense, disposal was for the informants a symbolic instrument for self-realization. From this perspective, we may question whether the practice of disposal is linked to Mauss’ concept of societal obligation for which individuals have to give, to receive and to reciprocate (Mauss 1954).



Belk, R. W. (1988), "Possession and the Extended Self," Journal of Consumer Research, 15 (September), 139-68.


Belk, Rusell W., Seo Joon Yong, and Eric Li (2007), "Dirty Little Secret: Home Chaos and Professional Organizers," Consumption, Markets & Culture, 10 (2), 133-40.


Belk, Russell. W., Guliz Ger, and Soren Askegaard (2003), "The Fire of Desire: A Multisited Inquiry into Consumer Passion," Journal of Consumer Research, 30 (3), 326-42.


Cherrier, Helene and Jeff B. Murray (2007), "Reflexive Dispossession and the Self: Constructing a Processual Theory of Identity," Consumption, Markets & Culture, 10 (1), 1-30.


Crossley, Michele L. (2000), Introducing narrative psychology: self, trauma, and the construction of meaning. Buckingham: Open University Press.


Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly and Eugene Rochberg-Halton (1981), The meaning of things: domestic symbols and the self. Cambridge [Eng.] ; New York: Cambridge University Press.


Dreifuss, G. (2006), "Sacrifice in Analysis," Journal of Analytical Psychology, 22 (3), 258-67.


Gandolfi F. and Cherrier H. (2008), Downshifting: a Theoretical and Practical Approach to Living a Simplified Life; Hyderabad, India: The ICFAI University Press.


Guliz, Ger (2005), "Religion and consumption: the profane sacred," Advances in Consumer Research, 32, 79-81.


Holt, Douglas B. (2004), "Man-of-Action Heroes: The Pursuit of Heroic Masculinity in Everyday Consumption," Journal of Consumer Research, 31 (2), 425-40.


Hubert, Henri and Marcel Mauss (1964), Sacrifice: its nature and function. London: Cohen & West.


Jung, Carl Gustav (1969), "Transformation Symbolism in The Mass," in Collected works of C. G. Jung Vol. 11. New York: Princeton University Press.


Kayes, Steven M. (2004), "The Dynamics of Brand Legitimacy: An Interpretive Study in the Gay Men’s Community," Journal of Consumer Research, 31 (September), 455-564.


Kleine, Susan S., Robert E Kleine III, and Chris T. Allen (1995), "How is a Possession 'Me' or 'Not Me'? Characterizing Types and Antecedent of Material Possession Attachment," Journal of Consumer Research, 22 (December), 327-43.


Kozinets, Robert (2002), "Can Consumers Escape the Market? Emancipatory Illuminations from Burning Man " Journal of Consumer Research, 29 (June), 20-38.


Lastovicka, John L. and Karen V. Fernandez (2005), "Three Paths to Disposition: The Movement of Meaningful Possessions to Strangers," Journal of Consumer Research, 31 (4), 813-24.


Mauss (1954). The Gift.


McAdams, Dan P. (1997), The stories we live by: personal myths and the making of the self. New York ; London: Guilford Press.


Mehta, Raj and Russel W. Belk (1991), "Artifacts, Identity, and Transition: Favorite Possessions of Indians and Indian Immigrants to the United States," Journal of Consumer Research, 17 (March), 398-411.


Miller, Daniel (1998), Material cultures : why some things matter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.


Muniz, Jr. Albert M. and Hope Schau (2005), " Religiosity in the Abandoned Apple Newton Brand Community " Journal of Consumer Research, 31 (4), 737-47.


Murray, Jeff B. (2002), "The Politics of Consumption: A Re-Inquiry on Thompson and Haytko's (1997) 'Speaking of Fashion'," Journal of Consumer Research, 29 (3), 427-41.


Ozanne, Julie L. (1992), "The role of consumption and disposition during classic rites of passage: The journey of birth, initiation, and death," Advances in Consumer Research, 19 (1), 396-98.


Price, Linda L. and Eric Arnould (2000), "Older Consumers' Disposition of Special Possessions," Journal of Consumer Research, 27 (2), 179-92.


Roster, Catherine (2001), "Letting Go: The Process and Meaning of Dispossession in the Lives of Consumers," Advances in Consumer Research, 27 (2).


Schouten, John. W. (1991), "Personal Rites of Passage and the Reconstruction of Self.," Advances in Consumer Research, 18 (1), 49-52.


Thompson, Craig J., William B. Locander, and Howard R. Pollio (1989b), "Putting Consumer Experience back into Consumer Research: The Philosophy and Method of Existential-Phenomenology," Journal of Consumer Research, 16 (September), 133-47.


Tian, Kelly and Russell W Belk (2005), "Extended Self and Possessions in the Workplace," Journal of Consumer Research, 32 (September), 297-311.


Young, Melissa (1991), "Disposition of Possessions During Role Transitions," Advances in Consumer Research, 18 (1), 33-40.





Tags: consumer redemption, in consumer, redemption, relocating, consumption, profane, resurrection, consumer, sacredness