Understanding re-constructed consumer identities in a post-deconstructive society

"Even in order to differ, to subvert meaning, there has to be a meaning. If the social does not manage to fix itself in the intelligible and instituted forms of a society, the social only exists, however, as an effort to construct that impossible object." - Laclau and Mouffe, 2001

The postmodern tradition of consumer studies emerged at the turn of the 80s and 90s and profoundly changed our understanding and approach to consumer behaviour. It notably relied on Derrida’s (1967) deconstruction method to account for fragmented, multiple, fluid, and sometimes incoherent consumer identities (Firat & Venkatesh, 1993, 1995; Stern, 2006). Gender identities count among the topics that have been the most infused, read, and researched through deconstructionist stances. Deconstruction applied to gender has also permeated the public discourse, since we speak of "deconstructed men". 

Since its emergence, however, the postmodern frame has been challenged. Perhaps to reassure themselves in our constantly unstable environment, we witness in consumers a return to structure (Cantone et al., 2020). While still at an early stage, this research aims to retrace the fragmentation of masculinity as portrayed and consumed in media, from its deconstruction and fragmentation up until its reconstruction. We aim to provide evidence of the aforementioned process and of the new constructs of masculinity, and what they imply for cultural consumption.

The seminar will end on a participatory critical discussion in order to challenge the research and make it advance.

Samuel Haddad-Bacry is a Lecturer at the University of York’s School of Arts and Creative Technologies. He leads the MA Management in the Creative and Cultural Industries. 

He spent a couple of years working in the classical music industry within the Universal Music Group and at Canal+ in France. He then pursued a career in academia, specialising in Marketing and Consumer Studies applied to the consumption of cultural goods - how people engage with culture. He’s been a regular visiting lecturer in Marketing for the Creative Industries at IAE Paris Sorbonne Business School since 2018. He also taught at Université d’Angers from 2020 to 2022.

Samuel’s focal research question is ‘What makes people consume cultural goods?’. He is always keen to discuss it with his peers and his students, and approaches it through a broad lens, blending insights from Sociology, Marketing, Philosophy and Psychology into the conversation. He also works around York as a part-time musician.