TY - JOUR

T1 - Plastic

T2 - a passengerial marketplace icon

AU - Cronin, James

AU - Hadley, Charlotte

AU - Skandalis, Alexandros

PY - 2022/9/30

Y1 - 2022/9/30

N2 - We provide a critical reading of plastic in consumer culture highlighting its furtive omnipresence and supporting role in enabling the consumption of countless products, services, and brands, including many previously identified marketplace icons. We introduce the term “passengerial icon”to explore how the iconicity of plastic is often characterised by its unobtrusive and inconspicuous presence in consumers’ lives. Like a passenger, plastic most typically accompanies consumers on various experiential journeys rather than drives them. Drawing upon Leder’s concept of dys-appearance, we discuss the “absent presence” of passengerial icons as they tend to fade from consumers’ awareness, remaining present but unseen and unthought about until somethingabout them appears to dysfunction. We discuss the dysfunctional appearance of plastic as catalysed most dramatically by environmental and health consequences. Though plastic’s dys-appearance affects society broadly, it is often hermeneutically and fetishistically handled by individuals through precautionary consumption adjustments rather than collective political action.

AB - We provide a critical reading of plastic in consumer culture highlighting its furtive omnipresence and supporting role in enabling the consumption of countless products, services, and brands, including many previously identified marketplace icons. We introduce the term “passengerial icon”to explore how the iconicity of plastic is often characterised by its unobtrusive and inconspicuous presence in consumers’ lives. Like a passenger, plastic most typically accompanies consumers on various experiential journeys rather than drives them. Drawing upon Leder’s concept of dys-appearance, we discuss the “absent presence” of passengerial icons as they tend to fade from consumers’ awareness, remaining present but unseen and unthought about until somethingabout them appears to dysfunction. We discuss the dysfunctional appearance of plastic as catalysed most dramatically by environmental and health consequences. Though plastic’s dys-appearance affects society broadly, it is often hermeneutically and fetishistically handled by individuals through precautionary consumption adjustments rather than collective political action.

KW - Plastic

KW - pollution

KW - dys-appearance

KW - marketplace icon

KW - consumer culture

KW - fetishistic disavowal

U2 - 10.1080/10253866.2022.2030319

DO - 10.1080/10253866.2022.2030319

M3 - Journal article

VL - 25

SP - 485

EP - 497

JO - Consumption, Markets and Culture

JF - Consumption, Markets and Culture

SN - 1025-3866

IS - 5

ER -