Selling of care offerings and the ethicalisation of consumption
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: With care being increasingly present and offered for sale on markets consumers are more often asked to consider ethical questions. However, ethical consumption literature has not paid close attention to how the selling of different care offerings contributes to the ethicalisation of consumption. To illustrate and conceptualise this phenomenon, the present paper builds on an object-focused study of care products and services from both online and offline Swedish clothing retail settings. The Callonian notion of qualification, which refers to the attachment of different characteristics in the making of exchangeable goods, is drawn on theoretically to study how care offerings, such as repair kits and laundry tools, are offered for sale. The findings suggest that the qualifications propose a shift from care-less consumption, where the care offerings are made central to the performance of caring consumption through everyday mundane activities. Thus, the paper shows that the way care products and services are offered for sale wants to intervene and shape how caring consumption is made possible through markets and how it should be performed through ethicalised mundane chores.
Source: Marketing Theory
Author: Réka Tölg
Institution: Lund University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,700
OpenAlex ID: W4402097354