Department of Marketing Research seminar: Professor Giana M. Eckhardt
Next research seminar will be on January 31st (2.15-3.15 pm). The venue is E-127 (Finnair) at the Arkadia-building.
Professor Eckhardt is an expert in consumer behavior and consumer culture, with an extensive list of publications ranging from the Journal of Consumer Research to Harvard Business Review. You can find more information about her research here:
The title of her talk is: Experiencing Resonance in Liquid Consumption via Deceleration on the Camino de Santiago. You can also find the abstract below.
Hope to see you all there!
Giana M. Eckhardt: Experiencing Resonance in Liquid Consumption via Deceleration on the Camino de Santiago
Recent consumer research has suggested that in liquid consumption, marked by flexibility, movement, lightness, speed and access, consumers find it increasingly difficult to build meaningful, safe, durable, and trustworthy connections to the social, cultural and material world that usually prevails in more solid consumer lifestyles (Bardhi and Eckhardt forthcoming). In this study, we investigate the role of speed in this. We find, based on ethnographic data from the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain, that (1) consumption is liquid on the pilgrimage. (2) The pilgrimage is an oasis of deceleration (Rosa 2013), with deceleration happening in three ways: embodied, technological and episodic. This decelerated liquidity allows consumers to (3) experience meaningful and resonating relationships (Rosa 2016) to themselves, to others, to materiality, to the environment, and to the sacred. This study contributes to consumer research by highlighting the role of pace and speed in managing the challenges of liquid consumption.