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This commentary on Craig Thompson's 'Towards an Ontology of Consumers as Distributed Networks' moves beyond his emphasis on the need for CCT to embrace material-semiotic theories to reflect our dynamically interconnected world. We argue that this restates the objectivity and apoliticality of academic practice, and critique the implied 'light' versus 'heavy' selves dichotomy, arguing instead for emphasising scholars' responsibility to recognise their own heavy situatedness within the socio-cultural phenomena they study. We propose a 'heavy' CCT scholarly self, (re)integrating the political dimensions of material-semiotic theories often denuded in translation. This suggests a paradigmatic shift from 'praxeomorphic' (the observing/theorising of light academic selves) to 'praxeomorphing' (the active engagement of heavy academic selves), guiding socio-economic transformations towards equity, sustainability, and transformative change in a more politically-conscious scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nietzsche invites us to turn our focus to how subjects seek out what is average rather than what is authentically independent. For marketing theory, this means recognising that while the desire for autonomy and self-determination functions as a seductive and collective narrative for consumer culture generally, it inevitably becomes denatured and delimited to what each individual consumer finds to be most convenient, credible, and practical. Using a Nietzschean toolbox, this paper diagnoses a contemporary malaise in the process of 'commodified self-overcoming', whereby subjects are fed the mass-mediated fantasy that they can overcome the symbolic similitude of the majority while remaining comfortably part of the social 'herd'. We discuss this process using three illustrative archetypes: the inhuman 'BIG Zombie', the transhuman 'Cyborg', and the all-too-human 'Slacktivist'. These archetypes reveal how the prospect of overcoming the self and all of its human trappings functions as a core fantasy for consumers, albeit one that is paradoxically produced and supplied by market mechanisms that perpetuate a lasting humanism. We explore the notion of ante -humanism and conclude with implications for the nascent tradition of Terminal Marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calling for more-than-representational modes of marketing research With this in mind, the special issue called for scholars willing to experiment with alternative forms of representing marketing research. Putting consumer experience back into consumer research: The philosophy and method of existential-phenomenology. While the piece makes a theoretical contribution (a theory of cathartic consumption) and an empirical contribution (therapeutic art consumption), given the spirit of the special issue we shall focus on the methodological and epistemic contribution - the use of art as a mode of research development and dissemination. It is important to stress that marginalised consumers, including those who go on to become consumer researchers, often feel that their experiences are unseen and unheard in the traditional representations of the academy - unsurprising given its enduring colonial constitution (Kravets & Varman, [70]). [Extracted from the article]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming advertising theory and practice. However, while applications of AI abound, it appears that not enough questions are being asked about the ontological, technical, and ethical consequences of artificially intelligent advertising ecosystems. Given the pace and unpredictability of technological change, this article adopts a question-driven approach, emphasizing the importance of adopting a maieutic attitude for academics, practitioners, and other advertising stakeholders, including the AI-ad-consuming public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Slavoj Žižek, critical marketing scholars have interrogated the ideological fantasies of mainstream marketing, de-romanticising markets and marketing. However, Žižek argues there is no ideology-free subject, so it stands to Žižekean reason that critical marketing scholars are also ideological fantasists. Our paper seeks to de-romanticise critical marketing theory by identifying the fantasy of capitalist corruption. This sustains the ideology of critical marketing theory by disavowing (self-)destructive desires within the human unconscious and suggesting that displacing capitalism will be enough to usher in a postcapitalist utopia. This ideological fantasy has therapeutic, motivational, and institutional benefits, but romanticises the human subject in ways that ultimately frustrate the critical project of societal betterment. By acknowledging the human unconscious as a corrupting influence, we hope to make critical aspirations more likely to be realised. We illustrate our argument via studies of sustainability, a favoured topic of Žižekean, critical, and mainstream scholars alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During a roundtable discussion at the 2022 GENMAC Conference, a group of researchers specializing in religiosity and spiritual consumption, using examples from their own fieldwork, reflected on how (i) researchers' subject positioning—including their gender and sexuality—shape fieldwork in multifaceted manners; (ii) investigations of religious/spiritual fields would benefit from a heightened sensitivity to issues of gender and sexuality; and (iii) greater sensitivity to aspects of religion and/or spirituality can help gender and sexuality scholars better understand consumers and markets. Based on the above, in this commentary paper, we call for intersectional reflexivity, attention to vulnerability and discomfort during fieldwork, and critical sensitivity to the religious "context of context" during theorization. Furthermore, we argue that specific spiritual/religious imaginaries can foster new research approaches that can contribute to more nuanced fieldwork and theorization in marketing and consumer research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The psychoanalytic tradition is split. Most marketing theorists work with a linguistic model, treating the unconscious as an extension of conscious language. This article promotes the machinic model of Deleuze and Guattari, which treats the unconscious as asubjective but also asignifying. This means that the unconscious is comprised of colliding forces and their contingent connections, rather than a chain of signification in a wider symbolic structure. There are a small number of machinic or proto-machinic articles in marketing theory, but this article explores how explicating the Deleuzoguattarian model could reconceptualise: (1) the unconscious, (2) its relation to sociomaterial systems, (3) its relation to marketing practice, and (4) the role of critical marketing theory. This article also argues that there is a strategic benefit in searching for complementarities between Deleuze and Guattari, on the one hand, and other psychoanalytic thinkers, on the other. A united front of unconscious understandings would be advantageous in a discipline that lionises conscious choice. As such, this article presents the machinic model as another perspective in the already pluralistic tradition of psychoanalytic marketing theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]