An Existential Analysis of Consumers as "Incarnated Beings": A Merleau-Pontyian Perspective

Ai-Ling, Lai, Dermody, Janine ORCID: 0000-0002-0399-398X and Hanmer-Lloyd, Stuart (2008) An Existential Analysis of Consumers as "Incarnated Beings": A Merleau-Pontyian Perspective. European Advances in Consumer Research, 8. pp. 381-389.

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Abstract

As consumer research continues to be dominated by a 'disembodied' perspective predicated on the 'mind-centred' school of cognitive psychology, it has also witnessed the growing prominence of interpretive research, for example Consumer Culture Theory (CCT). As such, the field has begun to embrace the idea of consumers as incarnated beings, whose embodied experience sutures them to their lifeworld in a particular time and space. This paper proposes that the existential-phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty illuminates the richest account of the body as the experiential locus of existence and knowledge. As such it provides consumer researchers with a fertile ground on which to theorize consumers from an embodied standpoint. This paper will explore several concepts of Merleau-Pontyian's phenomenology including (1) the body-subject (2) perception as a perspectival mode of embodied engagement (3) the phenomenal body (4) corporeal schema and the enfleshment of material possessions (5) habitual schema (6) intersubjectivity and (7) situated freedom and embodied projects. In so doing, we will be able to provide insights for an embodied re-reading of various theories including self-identity, materialism and the dialogical relationships between structure-agency and therefore address the quiet presence of the body within consumer research.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	CONSUMER research COGNITIVE psychology PERCEPTION INTERSUBJECTIVITY MATERIALISM MERLEAU-Ponty, Maurice, 1908-1961
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Business, Computing and Social Sciences
Depositing User:	Susan Turner
Date Deposited:	24 Oct 2014 12:52
Last Modified:	01 Aug 2023 12:03
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/1029

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