IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jconrs/v48y2021i3p492-512..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Creating Responsible Subjects: The Role of Mediated Affective Encounters

Author

Listed:
  • Domen Bajde
  • Pilar Rojas-Gaviria
  • Eileen Fischer
  • Linda L Price
  • Ashlee Humphreys

Abstract

Why do people willingly bestow upon themselves the responsibility to tackle social problems such as poverty? Consumer research has provided valuable insight into how individuals are created as responsible subjects but has yet to account for the crucial role of affective dynamics in subject formation. We draw upon affect theorizing and nascent research on “affective governmentality” in organization and policy studies to theorize the formation of responsible subjects via affective encounters (i.e., consumption encounters through which consumers’ capacities to affect and to be affected change), and to explore how affective encounters are mediated downstream. Through a qualitative investigation of the online microloan market, we explain how market intermediaries contribute to the creation of affective-entrepreneurial subjects who willingly supply interest-free loans to the disadvantaged. The intermediaries accomplish this by nurturing and dramatizing a structure of feeling that subtends affective encounters and by deploying apparatuses of affirmation and relatability to target and intervene into affective encounters. In addition to illuminating the affective dynamics involved in consumer responsibilization and subject formation more broadly, our study facilitates critical reflection on the subject-formative power of consumer experiences and experiential marketing and carries important implications for research on charitable giving and critical thinking on microcredit.

Suggested Citation

  • Domen Bajde & Pilar Rojas-Gaviria & Eileen Fischer & Linda L Price & Ashlee Humphreys, 2021. "Creating Responsible Subjects: The Role of Mediated Affective Encounters," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 48(3), pages 492-512.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:48:y:2021:i:3:p:492-512.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jcr/ucab019
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joy, Annamma & Wang, Jeff Jianfeng & Orazi, Davide C. & Yoon, Seyee & LaTour, Kathryn & Peña, Camilo, 2023. "Co-creating affective atmospheres in retail experience," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 297-317.
    2. Friederike Döbbe & Emilia Cederberg, 2024. "“Do Something Simple for the Climate”: How Collective Counter-Conduct Reproduces Consumer Responsibilization," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 192(1), pages 21-37, June.
    3. Corciolani, Matteo, 2023. "Navigating institutional complexity through emotion work: The case of Italian consumers adapting to a ketogenic diet," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:48:y:2021:i:3:p:492-512.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/jcr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.