%D 2014
%L discovery10026153
%I Macromarketing Society
%T Speak to the Leg: A Post-Paralympic Analysis and Retheorization of Consumer-object Relations
%O This is the published version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
%P 480-484
%A R Duus
%A A Davies
%A M Saren
%E A Bradshaw
%E A Rappel
%B Macromarketing and the Crisis of the Social Imagination: Proceedings of the 39th Annual Macromarketing Conference, 2014
%X This paper reviews and re-theorizes objects in consumer research with specific focus on consumer-object
relations. Following Bettany and Kerrane’s (2011) argument of an ontological
shift towards objects as fluid, morphing and mutable, this research adopts a posthuman analysis
of consumer-object relations. The posthuman concept of human-machine hybrid also
raises fundamental physiological, technical and philosophical questions about what it means
to be human (Braidotti 2006; Haraway 1991). Empirical data is gathered through phenomenological
interviews, diaries and autodriving with amputees with prosthetic legs. A posthuman
route to analysis creates a space and language for hybrid and companion-based consumer-object
relationships to emerge. Themes reveal descriptions of leg favouritism and
coupling, normality and identity struggles, relationship fluidity and enabling and disabling
technology. This paper provides a novel approach to investigating consumer-object relations
with consequences for how objects are viewed in consumer research.
%S Macromarketing Conference