Conflict, Radical Imagination, and Strategic Coalition Paradigms of Consumer Movements and Activism

Consumer movements have typically been defined as persistent and resolute efforts by organized groups of consumers to reimage some aspect of consumer society. While this definition may seem straightforward, the dynamics that characterize consumer movements and activism are diverse and complex. Underlying consumer movements and activism is some desire for social change, and it is the complexities of the way social change happens that complicates our understanding of these phenomena. In this article, we present three paradigms of consumer movements premised on three different approaches to social change. In the conflict paradigm of social change, otherwise stable, formidable markets come to experience shocks from the definable actions of those social actors who seek definitive social change. In the radical imagination paradigm of consumer movements, change is considered an endemic feature of markets which are comprised of social actors who share “horizons of possibilities,” leading to unintended social change. With the strategic coalition paradigm, like-minded social actors form coalitions around common interests; however, the power dynamics that emerge from these coalitions are as varied and unpredictable as the resulting composition of the coalition itself. Investigating consumer movements and activism across these three paradigms requires a diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches. The articles in this issue represent this diversity. This article provides a description of how the articles in this issue advance our understanding of each of these three consumer movement paradigms.