Adam Smith Business School

Professor Fleura Bardhi, City University of London, Bayes Business School

"Anti-Consumerist Hedonism"
Wednesday 14th May 2025. 10:30-12:00
Room 584, Adam Smith Business School

Abstract

Despite the rich literature on hedonic consumption, the hedonistic aspects of resisting consumerism remain less explored and theorized. Building on a long-term ethnographic study of an anti-consumerist initiative in Athens, Greece, we advance the notion of anti-consumerist hedonism, which involves the joys and pleasures gained in resistive consumption practices. We identify three distinct dimensions: joys in the alternative, in the collective, and in ongoing engagement. We also explore the conditions that help cultivate and sustain anti-consumerist hedonism, including anti-market sociomateriality, horizontalist structures and spatiotemporal permanence. Importantly, we show how their effectiveness is always tentative, subject to ongoing aesthetic, collective organizing and stewardship work. Overall, our study contributes to the theoretical understanding of anti-consumerist hedonism, going beyond prior consumer activism literature that emphasizes the centrality of ideological opposition and its structural limitations. In doing so, it underscores the observation that alternative consumer lifestyles are more likely to be adopted when experienced not only as ideologically superior but also as highly meaningful and pleasurable. Implications for future research on consumer activism, and for public policy and consumer education programs are discussed.

 

Bio

Fleura Bardhi is a Professor of Marketing at Bayes Business School, City, University of London, UK as well as a visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Her research falls into these three areas of research: 1) access, sharing, ownership and possessions; 2) digital consumption; and 3) consumer life transitions (e.g., geographical mobility). Broadly, she aims to advance understanding of the ways that the shift to a digital and knowledge economy in post-industrial urban society has shaped consumption. Fleura’s work has been published in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, Harvard Business Review, Psychology and Marketing, Marketing Theory, etc. She serves as an AE at Journal of Marketing and Journal of Consumer Psychology (JCP), as well as an ERB member Journal of Consumer Research and International Journal of Research in Marketing. She is also in the Policy Board of the Journal of Advances in Consumer Research (J-ACR), and an advisory board member for the Center for Empirical Philosophy and Behavioural Insights (CEPBI), Wharton Business School. She was an Associate Professor of Marketing at Northeastern University, Boston, USA before moving to London, UK.

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First published: 4 April 2025