Ordinary Resistance as a Parasitic Form of Action: A Dialogical Analysis of Consumer/Firm Relations

INTRODUCTION Holt’s (2002) article on dialectical relations between consumers and brands has usefully stressed the centrality of the market as the locus of construction of people’s identities. Postmodern as well as critical approaches of resistance tended previously to overemphasize either consumers’ freedom through emancipatory projects (Firat and Venkatesh 1995) or the market’s domination through imposed codes and seductive practices (Murray and Ozanne 1991). But it seems as inaccurate to idealize consumer power, as it is to overvalue market dominance. In challenging the first perspective, poststructuralist approaches have unveiled the mechanisms by which individuality is originally constructed by social fields that tend to shape and reproduce a system of tastes (Bourdieu 1984). As a consequence, consumers are neither ontologically free to choose, nor ontically free to escape socially constructed mental structures acquired primarily through language (Elliott and Ritson 1995). For that reason, individuals are constrained, most often unwittingly, by a web of power-based relations. Conversely, the taken-for-granted hegemony of firms needs also to be reconsidered. Firms mainly owe their existence to a sufficiently long-lasting willingness on the part of consumers to buy their offerings. They can be challenged both by dissatisfied consumers who denounce their social or commercial practices (Kozinets and Handelman 1998) and by alternative forms of communities, which create shared solidarity upon adversary actions (Giesler and Pohlmann 2003; Hemetsberger 2006). Both parties– firms and consumers–are in fact indissolubly linked by common interests (Holt 2002). Moreover, since each interpretation seems to be shaped by a particular socio-ideological framework, they tend to conceal the inherent nature of power–which is both dialogical and dialectical and cannot be grasped, except in a simplistic manner, from a single perspective. As Foucault (1982) pointed out, resistance must be regarded as the telltale sign of power relations, just as power relations should be considered as inherent elements of social relations. But resistance is also a contingent reaction: though coextensive with human interplay, it does not necessarily happen everywhere, all the time, among all consumers or in opposition to everything. It represents a specific type of response that occurs at the intersection of individuals and their interpretations of a situation. It acts as a sometimes vehement, but other times silent, denunciation of the discourses and practices of power (Hirschman 1970). In accordance with this dialogical conceptualization of power and resistance, this paper first puts forward a theoretical framework capable of grasping and classifying a wide range of resistant behaviors that have been identified and depicted in recent consumer research literature. Three levels of resistance are suggested–each of them corresponding to a specific means used by firms to make consumers act in expected ways: against the discourses and codes they mobilize through brands and advertising; against the practices and mechanisms they deploy; and finally against firms themselves, rejected as relationship partners. The paper then defends the idea that uncovering the dynamic and dialectical process by which consumers interact with markets requires going beyond an analytical and often static standpoint. To this end, a phenomenological research approach was chosen as best suited to the exploratory nature of the study. A two-stage procedure, involving introspective essays followed by three in-depth interview sessions, was adopted over an 18-month period. Eight consumers whose profile was delineated as reflexive and critical-minded were recruited by networking through colleagues. The aim of the investigation was to examine which dynamics resistance followed over time, and how it could be related to biographical information. The results are discussed in the third section, in accordance with this constructed and dialectical perspective of resistance. They reveal the importance of the psychic economy of individuals (Bourdieu’s concept of illusio) through the way people act and respond to firms’ strategies.