You are on page 1of 14

Autopoiesis and

home-confined
consumer
175
International Journal of Sociology
and Social Policy
Vol. 27 No. 3/4, 2007
pp. 175-188
#Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0144-333X
DOI 10.1108/01443330710741101
Autopoiesis and the
home-confined consumer
The role of personal communities
Hilary Downey and Miriam Catterall
School of Management and Economics,
Queens University Belfast, Belfast, UK
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the consumption of a personal community and its
role in the everyday life of the home-confined consumer.
Design/methodology/approach Using a Radical Constructivist approach, three cases of home
confinement were explored in depth over a period of two years. Ongoing conversations captured the
consumption experiences with personal communities.
Findings In relation to the home-confined context, the ability to attain individuality, empowerment
and creativity are all heightened as a result of personal community construction. An underlying
concern for home-confined consumers is their removal from independent living to institutionalized
living, and, as a result the need to construct, manage and maintain a personal community is of major
concern.
Research limitations/implications Although the study addresses a home-confined context, it is
nevertheless reflective of concerns that are significant to all consumers, namely the attainment of
individuality and independence irrespective of marginalization or not.
Practical implications The importance of a personal community in terms of both self-
empowerment and self-identity with respect to marginalized groups and vulnerable individuals
should not be underestimated. The supporting role of a personal community provides, in times of
uncertainty, a framework to maintain self-identity and independence.
Originality/value This paper provides a better understanding of the role of a personal community
in the consumption experiences of those consumers marginalized and vulnerable as a consequence of
context. Home-confined consumers are invisible in the marketplace and the personal community is
a means of redressing this imbalance by empowering such individuals.
Keywords Disadvantaged groups, Communities, Consumption
Paper type Research paper
You know that I care what happens to you, And I know that you care for me, So I dont feel
alone of the weight of the stone, now that Ive found somewhere safe to bury my bone, And
any fool knows a dog needs a home, a shelter from pigs on the wing (Animals 1977, Pink
Floyd).
Introduction
The word community is derived from the word common (Sanders, 1994) and is
conventionally defined by such markers as race or income usually bounded by a
certain geographical space. Sanders (1994) suggests that belonging to a certain
community involves multiple interactions and embracing shared values and goals.
Although new radical forms of community such as symbolic communities (Gergen,
1991) and virtual communities (Rheingold, 1993) are not bounded geographically, they
are characterized by the capacity of their members for symbolic exchange.
Within consumer research there has been a move away from focusing purely on the
individual level of experience to address the broader communal nature of human
existence and meaning (Fischer and Arnould, 1990; Fischer and Gainer, 1995; Holt,
1995; Mehta and Belk, 1991; Penaloza, 1994; Thompson, 1996). In particular, consumer
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0144-333X.htm
IJSSP
27,3/4
176
researchers have recognized the importance of community in relation to self-identity
through sustained social interaction.
Current social and economic issues concerning the care of the elderly, disabled and
chronically ill suggest that communities of care and care support structures may be an
important area for future consumer research. This paper focuses on the personal
communities of consumers confined to the home through disability or long-term illness.
Specifically, it explores their experiences of personal communities and, in doing so,
provides insight into the roles and relationships offered by family, friends and
others. Wellman (2001, p. 227) suggests that personal communities are networks of
interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, a sense of belonging
and social identity. Personal communities are the closest we can get to postmodern
community life, as Calhoun (1998, p. 391) states a Community, thus, is not a place or
simply a small-scale population aggregate, but rather a mode of relating, variable
in extent. The home-confined consumers explored within this paper are active in
constructing their personal communities, which are managed in such a way as to
facilitate ongoing independent living within their own homes as well as offering
opportunities to maintain and develop their sense of self and self-identity.
The paper begins with a review of the literature on personal communities, both from
consumer research and sociological perspectives. The literature on intimacy and care
will also be discussed as these concepts underpin personal relationships and are
essential to a fuller understanding of the autopoietic (self-produced) communities of
home-confined consumers. A brief discussion of the research methodology employed
follows before the findings and discussion of the personal communities of three cases
of home-confined consumers are presented.
Literature review
In consumer research literature community has typically been conceptualized in the
traditional format where emphasis is centred on sustained social interaction and the
experience of communitas (Arnould and Price, 1993; Schouten and McAlexander,
1995). One of the major consequences of consumption based on market exchanges has
been the socialization and communalization of the consumption experience (Firat,
1987).
The proliferation of consumer lifestyle options, the increasingly narrow focus of
target marketing, and the ethos of expressing individuality through consumption
symbols are said to undermine the formation of enduring communal ties (Firat, 1995).
Gergen (1991) feels the search for community is more an ideal than a practical reality
given the fragmented, privatized, individualistic quest of consumers in postmodern
times. Thus the attainment of community demands ongoing creative consumer
solutions, which include the construction of a sense of community from privatized
consumer activities. Consumption activities have long been viewed as potent,
symbolically charged practices that play a central role in the development and
maintenance of community. Rituals of eating (Douglas, 1971), collecting (Belk et al.,
1991) and celebrity fan clubs (OGuinn, 1991) are but a few of the consumption
activities that create bonds and a sense of shared purpose.
Key characteristics of postmodernity are that social relations and self-identity are
centred on consumption and consumption increasingly provides a locus of community
relationship (Firat and Venkatesh, 1993). Consumers in brand communities and
subcultures of consumption are, by their very choices, focused on brands or
consumption (Kates, 2004). Consumers join these communities only if they are
Autopoiesis and
home-confined
consumer
177
interested in the focal brand (Muniz and OGuinn, 2001). Communal relationships, by
contrast, are those in which people take care of others needs and have a genuine
concern for their well-being. In such relationships, people take a perspective that
transcends an emphasis on self-interest alone (Aggarwal and Law, 2005). The
sociology literature, in the review that follows, offers insights on such relationships.
Communal relationships
Pahl and Spencer (2004) point out that there is some blurring of boundaries between
friends and family. Indeed there is a complex process of suffusion between familial and
non-familial relationships. It is important to remember that personal communities vary
widely in the extent to which family and friends play distinct or overlapping roles.
Where friends and family do play distinct roles, this often, though not always, involves
friends specializing in confiding and companionship, and family specializing in
providing practical help and support (Pahl and Spencer, 2004).
The 21st century has heralded a transition in the thinking on the family as a
sociological concept. Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002, p. 203) have recently described
the family as a zombie category . . . dead and still alive. In relation to this thinking
Budgeon and Roseneil (2004) have considered the increasing failing of the family to
address the multiplicity of practices of intimacy and care that, traditionally, has been
its prerogative. Their study focused on individuals who live outside the conventional
family and how they receive and give care. They identified an increasing diversity of
relationship practices resulting in a range of personal relationships providing
intimacy, care and companionship in an individualizing world, and that these
relationships are central to peoples core values (Budgeon and Roseneil, 2004, p. 128).
There is a need for research that focuses on the cultures of intimacy and care
inhabited by those living at the cutting edge of social change. In this respect, the home-
confined consumer offers rich opportunities to explore such cultures of intimacy and
care. Forms of communality that emerge from these living arrangements can reveal the
potential for long lasting significant ties. Budgeon and Roseneil (2004, p. 130) consider
that Central to the emergence of these ties is the institutionalized (quasi-communes) of
friendship through a shared domesticity. To illustrate, Staceys (1998) study focused
on the enduring friendships and couplings that often ensue from the cultures of gay
men. Her research highlights the diversity of all living arrangements, including paid
carers, who are essentially family. For the home-confined consumer such diversity of
living arrangements may be essential for ongoing identity construction, independent
living and avoidance of institutional care. Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002, p. 22) argue
that the ethic of individual self-fulfilment and achievement is the most powerful
current in modern society. The belief that the desire to be a deciding, shaping, human
being who aspires to be the author of his/her own life is giving rise to the shift in family
life away from being a given to that of a matter of choice. Indeed Beck-Gernsheim
(1998) suggests we are moving into a world of the post familial family.
Identity and personal community
Identity formation as a consequence of relationships of intimacy and care, is, as
Kellerhals et al. (2002, p. 224) suggest, a maieutic logic and It is through frequent,
serious exchanges among individuals that a specific family culture and a specific mode
of identity transmission take shape. The underlying theme of the maieutic logic is
conversation where the emphasis is on the self, on self-realization, but obviously
IJSSP
27,3/4
178
through interaction with those chosen people who are deemed important with respect
to personal meaning in ones life.
These interactions in which identities are formed are very personal, individual and
intimate processes, where the home-confined consumers family may be responsible
for displaying their distinctiveness and uniqueness. The interests at stake in identity
transmission and in helping to construct a social identity are ultimately confined to the
domestic, intimate, private sphere of the home-confined consumer. As Kellerhals et al.
(2002, p. 225) state, It is through the internal, relational dynamic, the management of a
private space, and the way in which the group recognizes and assigns a distinct place
to the person that the processes of identity construction take place. Essentially then,
the art of conversation with those individuals that form the family of choice for
the home-confined consumer may provide the basis for identity transmission and
associated identity construction. The emotional level attained through deeply felt
exchanges with persons who count in the individuals daily life go some way in
defining their family boundaries and, ultimately, their existence.
Care and personal community
Caring, as a combination of feelings with tasks, has been conceptualized in two ways,
as caring about the feeling part of caring; and caring for the practical work of
tending for others (Parker, 1981). As Williams (2001, p. 468) asserts, care as a practice
invokes different experiences, different meanings, different contexts and multiple
relations of power. At some point in all our lives we will require or give care. The
giving and receiving of care is imperative to human existence but is experienced
differently at various points in the life course. The context of the family is often the first
and the last location in which care is given and experienced. Finch and Mason (1993)
highlight the complex nature of care and support in families. Rather than caring being
a consequence of relationships, they have asserted that the act of providing care,
especially if repeated routinely over time, in fact, creates a relationship.
For many disability researchers and activists, the term care is value-laden,
contested and confused (Shakespeare, 2000, p. 9). It is also located in the private
domain of life (Thomas, 2001, p. 55) and, thus, largely invisible. For these reasons
there is potential for exploitation and disempowerment in caring activity. Care is
often associated with institutional confinement, limited social engagement, partial
citizenship, disempowerment and exclusion. To be cared for is to be in deficit and to
have ones competence as a social actor denied or questioned. Disabled recipients of
care live tragic lives (Oliver, 1990), ontologically doomed by a reduction of agency in
terms of personal autonomy, power and control. Of course, the meanings that are
attributed to caring work are never given but are variable, mutable and context
bound. The context is contingent upon the biographical and present resources of the
people in the caring relationship and by the public ideologies that bear upon them
(Chamberlayne and King, 2000).
Personal communities offer a means of exploring the processes of identity formation
as it is produced by discourses of care. Fox (2000, p. 338) points out that while care may
embody masculine and custodial technologies of domination, it is also a gift and as
such saturated with positive properties such as generosity, trust, confidence, love,
commitment, delight and esteem. It is however, the possessive, disciplinary element in
the caring relationship that has dominated the experience of disabled people, and it is
against this backdrop that disability activists propose the transformation of care into
help or assistance (Shakespeare, 2000). Disability activists seek to control care by
Autopoiesis and
home-confined
consumer
179
transforming it into a formal contractual relationship in which the disabled person
acquires control over the caring relationship.
The marginalization of caring is evident in the metaphors of waste that constitute
its practices and help to define and invalidate the subjects involved in it.
Furthermore, impairment is also represented as a deficit and a disabled life is
characterized universally as an invalidated or wasted existence (Hughes, 1999). The
medical distinction between the normal and the pathological provides a discursive
starting point that confirms the wasting or broken body with the wasted life. The
policy of the confinement of disabled people, for the best part of modernity, has left a
legacy that constitutes impairment as a tragedy deserving a charitable response
(Oliver, 1990), and a burden on the tax-paying community.
The individual case studies explored within this paper address varying degrees of
disability and, as a consequence, offer multiple perspectives in relation to feelings of
agency and their ability or need to construct a personal community or family which is
reflective of the self and its ongoing identity.
Methodology
Given the challenges in understanding personal communities and identity creation
amongst home-confined consumers, there was a need for a methodology that was
sensitive to the research agenda of discovery and the research context. The approach
adopted stems from the understanding that human beings have the ability to create
understandings that help them navigate life, regardless of whether or not these match
an external reality. Radical constructivism emphasizes such ability. Von Glasersfeld
(1995) asserts that human perception is adaptive; it evolved to help people survive.
Humans sense of continuity is preserved because we construct, and manage to believe
in a relatively smooth narrative of events. To the radical constructivist, discontinuities
in action are to be expected at every level of social living, from the individual to the
communal. Furthermore, the self as a locus of experience is an active agent rather than
a passive entity.
The term intersubjective denotes the highest most reliable form of experiential
reality (Von Glasersfeld, 1984). This level arises through the corroboration of other
thinking and knowing subjects. The introduction of others might seem in flat
contradiction of the constructivist principle that all knowledge is subjective. Although
the others are the individual subjects construction, they can nevertheless provide
corroboration of that subjects experiential reality. The individual has a need to
construct others and to keep these models of others as viable as possible because only
viable others can lend the highest level of support to the subjects experiential reality
(Von Glasersfeld, 1995).
In order to build knowledge of the experiential reality of the home-confined
consumer, a small number of research subjects were selected for in depth study over a
long period of time. To date, two years into the field research, this has involved weekly
interview sessions with each research subject. The term interview is used loosely to
describe what would otherwise be considered conversations. Usually, the subject
matter of these ongoing conversations originates with the home-confined consumer.
Given the context of their situation and so as not to exacerbate their vulnerability, it
was important to allow the research subjects to identify and discuss their consumption
experiences and issues important to their everyday lives. This is an interpretative
approach and rather than seeking to answer a set of questions that will provide
generalisable results, it seeks to add to the debate on individuality, consumption and
IJSSP
27,3/4
180
community by identifying issues from the differing individual perspectives of the
research subjects.
Radical constructivists also understand something that objectivists miss that
social conditions, no matter how harsh and unyielding, do not automatically and
inevitably produce a single invariant set of experiences in all who are exposed to them.
Everyones positioning is a little different, and each person couples with elements of the
social and natural environment in unique ways (Efran and Fauber, 1995). The personal,
subjective perspective adopted by radical constructivism parallels the interest and
focus embraced by Consumer Culture Theory (Arnould and Thompson, 2005) as the
key to bringing the consumers perspective back into consumer research. In keeping
with radical constructivism, Consumer Culture Theory highlights the importance of
experience, individual self-experience, or self-construction as Maturanas (1988)
process of autopoiesis suggests.
Radical constructivism nurtures and supports the consumers perspective and as
such provides an invaluable source of information that can extend, support or build on
prior understandings in relation to societal consumer consumption behaviour. It is only
the consumers experiences that can build the reality, the personal way of knowing and
as such the role of researcher as interpreter is even more justified in relation to this
approach. There is a pressing need to address consumer behaviour that combines
historical, sociological, cultural and political analysis (Murray and Ozanne, 1991).
Indeed Denzin (2001) believes that a more radical consumer research agenda can
advance this perspective where individuals freely determine their needs and desires
(Harms and Kellner, 1991). Bazerman (2001) suggests that the researcher should make
recommendations concerning specific consumption practices and consumer choices
that embrace lines of action that maximize consumer autonomy.
Findings
The three cases of home-confined consumers discussed here offer a diverse set of
contexts in terms of physicality and in their ability or need to construct a personal
community. The situations of Jay, Barbara and Gloria and David are explored and
insights into their personal communities of intimacy and care aid in the understanding
of the autopoietic process of these home-confined consumers and of the roles of their
personal community members.
Case 1: Jay
Jay was left a quadriplegic as a result of an automobile accident 26 years ago. He lives
on his own in his own home. Jay requires an ongoing level of functional medical care to
sustain independent living, and even survival. As such his personal community
members fall into distinct groups, namely, functional carers appointed by those in
charge of his medical care, functional carers who have crossed the boundary to become
personal friends, family members and friends. Most of the latter group were friends
before his home confinement. These members of Jays personal community provide
differing levels and types of emotional support and functional care.
Those in charge of his medical care set the number and nature of visits of his
functional carers and Jay has little control over these. This functional level of care
attends to the physical needs associated with severe non-abelism. Indeed Jays survival,
in its basic sense, is dependent on his ability to address inner and outer bodily concerns
in conjunction with these functional carers. Ultimately, they provide the basis for
self-production or autopoiesis.
Autopoiesis and
home-confined
consumer
181
Other community members visits are at Jays discretion in terms of times and
frequencies and are arranged strictly by appointment. Over the years, Jay has
established the days and times that individual family members and friends will visit.
This even extends to telephone calls, which are also subject to a similar degree of
pre-planning and routine. Similarly, individual family members and friends are each
entrusted with specialist responsibilities and tasks, such as the purchase of gifts for
other community members. Although personal community members are aware of each
others existence and many are known to one another, Jay manages his community in
such a way as to keep individuals separate and answerable only to him. Retaining
such control over the levels of interaction and communication between members is, in
Jays view, vital to realizing continued independent living. Specifically, he would be
concerned that community members were discussing his situation without his
participation in the discussion.
Within the medical caring part of Jays community there have been particular
individuals that have transcended the boundary to become more than functional
participants. These community members, whose levels of intimacy and care mirrors
those typically associated with kin, are representative of Jays ability to establish
exchange relationships and self-select a community that reflects and corroborates his
self and his self-identity. These chosen individuals undertake personal tasks that
would usually be considered outside their functional duties. This ability to determine
the strength of and choice of such relationships illustrates that this is essentially a
relationship borne out of care and the interaction associated with caring (Finch and
Mason, 1993). Jay will say Oh Lola (a medical carer) is away on her holidays for a
fortnight, I dont know who Ill get to cover for her. I hate it, especially over the
weekend because Lola would always stay on after her time and we have a good chat
and I am able to get a good nights sleep. This relationship has gradually extended
such that the receipt of care by Jay has now developed into the giving of care to Lola.
Im really worried, Lola has had a lot of stomach pains lately and I feel that something
is really wrong. I have asked her to go to the Doctor just to make sure everything is
okay. For Jay this concern is not momentary but encompasses other issues pertinent
to his well-being and his long-term welfare. His concerns are inextricably linked to
Lolas ability to remain an important member of his personal community.
Lola is not the only one to have crossed the boundary. Wallace, for example, is an
even longer established member of Jays medical care group, but he is also a valued and
trusted member of Jays self-selected personal community. Initially, this relationship
was forged through a common interest in football but has developed over the years.
In other words, a non self-selected medical carer can become as important, and as
emotionally close, as a self-selected personal community member.
Jays personal community comprises of members of choice and those essential to
survival but who are not self-selected. These two interlinking forms of community
membership reflect direct marketplace interaction and a socialization process deemed
necessary for autopoiesis. The intimacy and care that is built up over time through
interaction in the special space affords the opportunity for Jay to have an indirect
marketplace socialization process. The differing levels and forms of care experienced
by Jay provide him the opportunity to select those individuals who will become
significant members and whose presence is conducive to his own, on-going identity
construction. These significant others, as Maturana (1988) suggests, are representative
of third order coupling or interaction between the self and significant others. By
extension, these significant others can diffuse the identity that belongs to Jay back into
IJSSP
27,3/4
182
the external marketplace. This reinforcing of ones self, to oneself, and to the external
environment is accomplished by the interactions with these significant personal
community members.
Case 2: Barbara and Gloria
Barbara and Gloria are sisters in their late 50s. Over a period of five years they
gradually withdrew from the external world and confined themselves to their own
home. They view the external world as a dangerous and contaminating place
detrimental to their ongoing welfare and well-being. Although confined to the home,
the sisters have a certain degree of physicality that renders them abelist within their
own special space and they require only limited medical care provided through home
visits. Their personal community is devoid of carers in the functional sense and is
made up of family and friends that Barbara and Gloria feel they can trust to interact
within their autopoietic reality. It is also a small community comprised of two family
members, a niece and a cousin, both of whom are female and a neighbour of over
30 years (also female), who lives close by. The local pharmacist, John, has become a
regular visitor to the household to deliver the sisters medication and is also someone
with whom they can discuss personal medical issues. The sisters were regular
churchgoers before home confinement and they have also retained a few members of
their church as friends.
A history of caring for homebound parents over a 25 year period has created a
contextual situation in which the sisters have become self-sufficient to a certain extent.
However, their level of dependency on each other is high. Barbara and Gloria provide
each other with emotional caring and functional caring and have each other to support
ongoing autopoiesis through the many transitions that home confinement can bring.
They are disciplined in their approach to many aspects of their lives, such as keeping
their home spotlessly clean, and this is no less apparent in the regulation of their
chosen community.
The personal community is heavily managed and controlled in terms of its
membership, interaction between members and the roles performed by each member. It
is only at their request that personal members can visit; indeed they can be abrupt and
dogmatic in the rigid and disciplined approach they maintain. On many occasions
community members have called on them when passing, just to check if they are well
and whether they needed anything, only to be met with a rebuff. You will have to come
back later we are just sitting down to lunch. Our lunch is at 1 (pm) every day so we
cant have anyone in. Other situations have arisen where food items purchased at their
request have not met their specific requirements. Personal community members that
undertake such tasks are in no doubt about the outcome of incorrect purchases.
Barbara, in particular, will ensure that the offending product is returned Oh we
couldnt eat that; youll have to take it back. I told you the one we eat, its Glorias
stomach we have to be careful of. I dont want her to be up all night in pain. If they
havent the one we like just get the money back. As the personal community members
are concerned for the sisters well-being they will change the product and try to ensure
that they purchase exactly what Barbara and Gloria want.
The sisters overriding anxiety in relation to consumption of food products, which,
where possible, are high quality whole-foods, is focused on the need to maintain a
consistent level of healthcare to support optimal inner body maintenance. Any
relaxation of their dietary regime might result in a decline in health, and ultimately
their physical survival. Since this is so important to Barbara and Gloria, it is
Autopoiesis and
home-confined
consumer
183
understandable that personal community members must also take their dietary
concerns seriously to the extent that their behaviours reinforce and support the
disciplined regime the sisters have adopted. Like Jay, a key concern for the sisters
is to sustain their emotional and physical independence and to continue living
independently in their own home. In contrast to Jay, Barbara and Gloria are more likely
to direct, and even dictate, the roles of their members. Although their community is in a
sense more disciplined in terms of its cohesion, it nevertheless reflects the attendance
to detail that enables a level of care sufficient to sustain autopoiesis.
Case 3: David
David, like Jay, is single and in his 40s but his level of abelism is sufficiently high to
afford him physicality in his own home. David has been confined to the home for a
period of three years. At one time David was in full time employment, but agreed to a
voluntary redundancy. This provided the resources and time to engage in foreign
travel. He returned home to unemployment and there followed a period of gradual self-
withdrawal fromthe world outside his home. He requires no ongoing medical care.
David has a large personal community of friends that offer emotional and physical
support. This community is largely comprised of former boyhood friends who have
come to accept his decision to confine himself to the home. Initially efforts were made at
encouraging David out at weekends, but over time they have had to accept his position
on this issue. As life-long friends they have a strong sense of loyalty and try to
accommodate Davids wishes by rallying round and providing him with an indirect
socialization process in his home.
In direct contrast to Jay and Barbara and Gloria, David is less disciplined in the
management of his community. Davids community members are all known to one
another and interact socially; they are also permitted, and even encouraged, to visit his
home in groups. Indeed, parties and musical evenings are held in his special space and
this brings David into contact with new people. A continuous flow of new indirect
members of Davids community provides fresh interaction and information, which
mirrors direct marketplace socialization processes that are important to ongoing
identity construction. Some of the extended members (friends of chosen personal
members) come to be members of choice after ongoing interaction.
Unlike the other two cases discussed above, David has not adopted a disciplined
approach or regime of care deemed essential to survival. He is reliant on his
community to bring the basics of life, food, heat and companionship to his space. His
oldest friend, Neil, brings David supplies of home prepared food for his freezer. David
is full of praise for these connoisseur dishes and other personal community members
will drop by at meal times when they know that Neil has delivered. David certainly
feels no sense of inadequacy or impoverishment in receiving such gifts and Neil is
appreciative that his culinary skills are so much in demand. The two way flow of
caring is evident in this personal relationship and both parties enjoy a sense of
companionship borne out of intimacy and care (Beck and Katcher, 1983).
Even though David is not socializing in the external marketplace, he is able to
interact in the normal sense of socializing through his avant garde dinner parties. As
David will admit, When Neil brings his special pheasant curries I have loads of dinner
guests. It is really hot, Neil knows the way I like it. No-one has ever tasted anything like
it; his fame is growing every day. Although David is not the cook, by extension he
feels involved in the gift of gastronomical delights to other members of his personal
community. David enjoys the consumption experiences that are afforded by the
IJSSP
27,3/4
184
unexpected events or situations that present themselves. You wouldnt know who
would arrive at your door at any time of the night, bringing gifts of wine and fancy
biscuits and chocolates, all the things I love.
One can see that David enjoys reminiscing over many such occasions and
consumption memories are particularly important to him and his portrayal of self.
The times we all used to have. Sundays lying around drinking wine, sliding down the
banks on cardboard, those were the days. Everything is changed now, I cant stand
being in a bar anymore and I used to love it. Its the noise, all that talking it does my
head in. Davids consumption experiences are not all positive ones but they are an
essential part of his self and his self-production. Like nostalgia, the bittersweet
elements of consumption present special aspects of self that carry the identity forward
through different transitional phases and maintain abelism in the visible sense as a
consequence of such consumption experiences. Even though David is constrained in
his physical space he is certainly not restricted in his socialization processes.
Autopoiesis and therefore ongoing identity construction is not inhibited by the absence
of an external marketplace.
Discussion
These very individual personal communities represent the changing consumption
behaviour associated with transitional phases encountered in ones autopoietic system.
The forms of life, or special spaces, explored here draw from the social autopoiesis
constructed of existentially meaningful social interaction. The conversations or
language provides sophisticated landscapes of socially significant meanings or
practices that get shaped and reshaped to fit the current reality, but also at every point
(re)form it. The personal community of the home-confined consumer represents an
internal socialization process and offers the ability to connect and evolve through third-
order coupling (Maturana, 1988), and this is played out in the personal communities of
Jay, Barbara and Gloria and David.
It should be noted that the development, creation and evolution of the personal
communities explored within this study primarily stem from the context of the
individual concerned, and as a consequence of such creative activities, home-confined
consumers are both enabled and constrained in aspects of their social structure
(Giddens, 1990). The potential of social structures for both constraining and enabling
human action is realized in the experiential reality of the home-confined consumer in
relation to their personal community. Maturanas (1988) autopoiesis takes on board the
nature of the knowing subject, which is the focus of this paper. The consumer
experience as it is lived highlights the ability and creativity of the home-confined
consumers to establish personal communities of care. Although the case of Jay shows
that some personal community members may not be self-selected, the autopoietic
social system of Jay is not diluted as a consequence of this, but derives its strength
from the ability of Jay to manage this diverse personal community. Home-confined
consumers construct a sense of community through their consumption behaviours
and as a consequence of their privatized consumer activities are able to establish
individuality and on-going self-identity.
The ability for autopoiesis is heightened in relation to the consumption of a personal
community. The personal community affords such consumption behaviour deemed
necessary to maintain a self-identity and is instrumental in realizing and maintaining
individuality. Personal communities allow for fruitful exchange relationships to be
created and developed, and the self-identity is strengthened and extended as a
Autopoiesis and
home-confined
consumer
185
consequence of such consumption behaviour. Communities, as possessions can be
used to satisfy psychological needs such as creating ones self-concept, reinforcing and
expressing self-identity, and allowing one to differentiate oneself and assert ones
individuality (Belk, 1988; Kleine et al., 1995). Recent research indicates that consumers
construct their self-identity and present themselves to others through self-image
associations (Escalas and Bettman, 2005).
Conclusion
The home-confined consumers explored in this article exhibit competency to maintain
a self and a self-identity through the consumption of private consumer activities in
relation to their personal community. Consumer agency, in terms of empowerment,
creativity and control highlights the significance of others in the realization and
attainment of individuality, expressed within personal community construction. In
absence of direct marketplace interaction, autopoiesis can be a tenable outcome
through the mutual exchange processes of intimacy and care inherent in the dynamics
of personal community membership.
Personal communities can help empower the individual especially in periods of
uncertainty and vulnerability by providing a supporting framework for ongoing
construction of self and of identity. The personal community reflects ability for self-
choice, ability for creativity, and ability for individuality. Autopoiesis is reinforced by
the consumption of a personal community. Indeed those deemed marginalized, socially
excluded and often invisible, are seen to benefit from the construction of a personal
community in terms of well-being, welfare and feelings of empowerment. Of course an
underlying concern for home-confined consumers is their removal from independent
living to institutionalized living, and, as a result the need to construct, manage and
maintain a personal community is undoubtedly of major concern.
References
Aggarwal, P. and Law, S. (2005), Role of relationship norms in processing brand information,
Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 453-64.
Arnould, E.J. and Price, L.L. (1993) River magic: extraordinary experience and the service
encounter, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 20, June, pp. 24-46.
Arnould, E.J. and Thompson, C.J. (2005), Consumer Culture Theory (CCT): twenty years of
research, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 31, March, pp. 868-82.
Bazerman, M.H. (2001), Consumer research for consumers, Journal of Consumer Research,
Vol. 27, March, pp. 499-504.
Beck, A. and Katcher, A. (1983), Between Pets and People: The Importance of Animal
Companionship, Putnam, NewYork, NY.
Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002), Individualization, Sage, London.
Beck-Gernsheim, E. (1998), On the way to a post-familial family: from a community of needs to
elective affinities, Theory, Culture and Society, Vol. 15 No. 3-4, pp. 53-70.
Belk, R.W. (1988), Possessions and the extended self, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 15,
September, pp. 139-68.
Belk, R.W., Wallendorf, M., Sherry, J.F. and Holbrook, M.B. (1991), Collecting in a consumer
culture, in Belk, R.W. (Ed.), Highways and Buyways: Naturalistic Research from the
Consumer Behavior Odyssey, Association for Consumer Research, Provo, UT, pp. 178-215.
Budgeon, S. and Roseneil, S. (2004), Editors introduction: beyond the conventional family,
Current Sociology, Vol. 52, pp. 127-34.
IJSSP
27,3/4
186
Calhoun, C. (1998), Community without propinquity revisited: communications technology and
the transformation of the urban public space, Sociological Inquiry, Vol. 68 No. 3, pp. 373-97.
Chamberlayne, P. and King, A. (2000), Cultures of Care. Biographies of Carers in Britain and the
Two Germanies, Policy Press, London.
Denzin, N.K. (2001), The seventh moment: qualitative inquiry and the practices of a more radical
consumer research, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 324-30.
Douglas, M. (1971), Deciphering a meal, Daedalus, Winter, pp. 61-82.
Efran, J.S. and Fauber, R.L. (1995), Radical constructivism: questions and answers, in Neimeyer, R.A.
and Mahoney, J.M. (Eds), Constructivism in Psychotherapy, 1st ed., American Psychological
Association, Washington, DC, pp. 275-304.
Escalas, J.E. and Bettman, J.R. (2005), Self-construal, reference groups, and brand meaning,
Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 378-89.
Finch, J. and Mason, J. (1993), Negotiating Family Responsibilities, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Firat, A.F. (1987), Towards a deeper understanding of consumption experiences: the underlying
dimensions, in Wallendorf, M. and Anderson, P. (Eds), Advances in Consumer Research,
Vol. 14, Association for Consumer Research, Provo, UT, pp. 342-6.
Firat, A.F. (1995), Consumer culture or culture consumed?, in Arnold, J.C. and Bamossy, G.J. (Eds),
Marketing in a Multicultural World, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 105-25.
Firat, A.F. and Venkatesh, A. (1993), Postmodernity: the age of marketing, International Journal
of Research in Marketing, Vol. 10, August, pp. 227-51.
Fischer, E. and Arnould, S.J. (1990), More than a labor of love: gender roles and Christmas gift
shopping, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 17, pp. 333-45.
Fischer, E. and Gainer, B. (1995), Masculinity and the consumption of sport, in Costa, J.A. (Ed.),
Gender and Consumption, Sage,Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 84-103.
Fox, N. (2000), The ethics and politics of caring: postmodern reflections, in Williams, S., Gabe, J.
and Calnan, M. (Eds), Health, Medicine and Society: Key Theories, Future Agendas,
Routledge, London, pp. 333-51.
Gergen, K.J. (1991), The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life, Basic Books,
NewYork, NY.
Giddens, A. (1990), The Consequences of Modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Harms, J. and Kellner, D. (1991), Critical theory and advertising, Current Perspectives in Social
Theory, Vol. 11, pp. 41-67.
Holt, D.B. (1995), How consumers consume: a taxonomy of baseball spectators consumption
practices, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 1-16.
Hughes, B. (1999), The constitution of impairment: modernity and the aesthetic of oppression,
Disability and Society, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 155-72.
Kates, S.M. (2004), The dynamics of brand legitimacy: an interpretive study in the gay mens
community, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 455-65.
Kellerhals, J., Ferreira, C. and Perrenoud, D. (2002), Kinship cultures and identity transmissions,
Current Sociology, Vol. 50, March, pp. 213-28.
Kleine, S.S., Kleine, R.E. III and Allen, C.T. (1995), How is a possession me or not me?
Characterizing types and an antecedent of material possession attachment, Journal of
Consumer Research, Vol. 22, December, pp. 327-43.
Maturana, H.R. (1988), Reality: the search for objectivity or the quest for a compelling
argument?, The Irish Journal of Psychology, Vol. 9, pp. 25-82.
Autopoiesis and
home-confined
consumer
187
Mehta, R. and Belk, R.W. (1991), Artifacts, identity, and transition: favorite possessions of
Indians and Indian immigrants to the United States, Journal of Consumer Research,
Vol. 17, March, pp. 398-411.
Muniz, A. and OGuinn, T.C. (2001), Brand community, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 27,
March, pp. 412-32.
Murray, J.B. and Ozanne, J.L. (1991), The critical imagination: emancipatory interests in
consumer research, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 18, September, pp. 129-44.
OGuinn, T.C. (1991), Touching greatness: the Central Midwest Barry Manilow Fan Club,
in Belk, R.W. (Ed.), Highways and Buyways: Naturalistic Research from the Consumer
Behavior Odyssey, Association for Consumer Research, Provo, UT, pp. 102-11.
Oliver, M. (1990), The Politics of Disablement: A Sociological Approach, St Martins Press,
NewYork, NY.
Pahl, R. and Spencer, L. (2004), Personal communities: not simply families of fate or choice,
Current Sociology, Vol. 52, March, pp. 199-221.
Parker, R. (1981), Tending and social policy, in Goldberg, E. and Hatch, S. (Eds), A New Look at
the Personal Social Services, Policy Studies Institute, London.
Penaloza, L. (1994), Atravasando fronteras/border crossings: a critical ethnographic
examination of the consumer acculturation of Mexican immigrants, Journal of Consumer
Research, Vol. 21, June, pp. 32-54.
Rheingold, H. (1993), The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, Addison-
Wesley, Menlo Park, CA.
Sanders, S.R. (1994), The web of life, Utne Reader, March-April, p. 69.
Schouten, J.W. and McAlexander, J.H. (1995), Subcultures of consumption: an ethnography of the
newbikers, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, June, pp. 43-61.
Shakespeare, T. (2000), Help, British Association of Social Workers, Birmingham.
Stacey, J. (1998), Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late Twentieth Century
America, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Thomas, C. (2001) Feminism and disability: the theoretical and political significance of the
personal and the experiential, in Barton, L. (Ed.), Disability Politics and the Struggle for
Change, David Fulton Publishers, London.
Thompson, C.J. (1996), Caring consumers: gendered consumption meanings and the juggling
lifestyle, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, March, pp. 388-407.
Von Glasersfeld, E. (1984), An Introduction to Radical Constructivism, Norton, New York, NY
pp. 17-40.
Von Glasersfeld, E. (1995), Radical Constructivism: A Way of Knowing and Learning, 1st ed.,
Falmer Press, London.
Wellman, B. (2001), Physical place and cyberplace: the rise of networked individualism,
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 25 No. 2, pp. 227-52.
Williams, F. (2001), In and beyond new labour: towards a new political ethics of care, Critical
Social Policy, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 467-93.
Further reading
Roseneil, S. and Budgeon, S. (2004), Cultures of intimacy and care beyond the family: personal
life and social change in the early 21st century, Current Sociology, Vol. 52, March,
pp. 135-59.
IJSSP
27,3/4
188
About the authors
Hilary Downey is a PhD candidate at the School of Management and Economics at Queens
University of Belfast. Her research interests lie in consumer research, marginalized consumers
(home-confined consumers and disability), identity construction and companion-animal
consumption. Hilary Downey is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: h.downey@
qub.ac.uk
Miriam Catterall is a senior lecturer in management at Queens University Belfast, where she
is responsible for marketing and research programmes. Her research interests lie in consumer
research, feminist issues in marketing and in qualitative market research, particularly in focus
group theory, methodology and practice.
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com
Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

You might also like