Meh-consumption: a resistant moral form? A foucauldian approach[Le Balek dans la consommation : une forme morale résistante ? Une approche foucaldienne]

Consumer research is generally quick to emphasize the reflexive, agentic aspects of consumption, although it also shows how strongly material and discursive structures constrain this agency. But is consumption necessarily a matter of agency, for the individuals themselves? Using a Foucauldian approach, this paper seeks to explore this question through the characterization of meh, a kind of voluntary indifference, as a form of morality resistant to the governmentality of consumption. We propose that meh is a moral form characterized by individuals' focus on a certain moral substance, namely the refusal of their agentic capacity, which distinguishes it from both "classic" consumption and resistant anti-consumption. We attempt to characterize how meh could be another form of resistance to consumption, and could take multiple forms in its everyday incarnation.