Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Marketing Theory, 18 (3), 2018, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2018 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Marketing Theory page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/mtq on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Bodysnatching in the marketplace
T2 - Market-focused health activism and compelling narratives of dys-appearance
AU - Cronin, James Martin
AU - Hopkinson, Gillian Clare
N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Marketing Theory, 18 (3), 2018, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2018 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Marketing Theory page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/mtq on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/
PY - 2018/9
Y1 - 2018/9
N2 - This article theorizes how market-focused health activism catalyses market change through revealing the ill-effects that consumers’ conformity with market-shaped expectations and ideals has on their bodies and embodied lives. An understanding of this activism is developed by analysing a vicarious form of ‘bodily dys-appearance’ which is used in Jamie Oliver’s televised documentary,Sugar Rush (2015), to narratively provoke corporeal anxieties among audiences. In our analysis, we borrow tropes from the science fiction film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, to interpret themes centred on a threat, a victim and a hero. We argue that market-focused health activism problematizes the neo-liberal logic of personal responsibility and promotes market intervention as the only means to insulate and safeguard the body from harm. Where extant theorization of consumers’ antagonism towards the market hinges mostly on politically or intellectually motivated resistance, this article demonstrates how somatically oriented concerns operate alternatively to invoke activism.
AB - This article theorizes how market-focused health activism catalyses market change through revealing the ill-effects that consumers’ conformity with market-shaped expectations and ideals has on their bodies and embodied lives. An understanding of this activism is developed by analysing a vicarious form of ‘bodily dys-appearance’ which is used in Jamie Oliver’s televised documentary,Sugar Rush (2015), to narratively provoke corporeal anxieties among audiences. In our analysis, we borrow tropes from the science fiction film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, to interpret themes centred on a threat, a victim and a hero. We argue that market-focused health activism problematizes the neo-liberal logic of personal responsibility and promotes market intervention as the only means to insulate and safeguard the body from harm. Where extant theorization of consumers’ antagonism towards the market hinges mostly on politically or intellectually motivated resistance, this article demonstrates how somatically oriented concerns operate alternatively to invoke activism.
KW - Activism
KW - bodily dys-appearance
KW - consumer subjectivity
KW - food
KW - health
KW - Jamie Oliver
KW - narrative
KW - neo-liberalism
U2 - 10.1177/1470593117740754
DO - 10.1177/1470593117740754
M3 - Journal article
VL - 18
SP - 269
EP - 286
JO - Marketing Theory
JF - Marketing Theory
SN - 1470-5931
IS - 3
ER -