How Global Mobility Shapes Consumption Practices
A Dissertation Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for
the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
By
Bernardo Figueiredo
June, 2012
School of Marketing
Australian School of Business
University of New South Wales
1
PLEASE TYPE THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
Thesis/Dissertation Sheet Surname or Family name: FIGUEIREDO
First name: BERNARDO
Other name/s: AMADO BAPTISTA DE
Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: PhD
School: Marketing
Faculty: Australian School of Business
Title: How Global Mobility Shapes Consumption Practices
Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE)
Despite the growing stream of literature concerned with the impact of globalisation on consumer culture, there
has been little discussion about how consumers’ geographical mobility, an important feature of globalisation, impacts consumption. This research addresses this gap by investigating how global mobility shapes the consumption practices of “global cosmopolitans,” those consumers who move constantly through different places in the world and identify with multiple cultures. More specifically, it investigates how global cosmopolitans’ notions of home, time and cultural identity shape their consumption practices.
Grounded in past work on Consumer Culture Theory, this study uses the Extended Case Method and global ethnography to examine the consumption practices of global cosmopolitans. Two complementary data sets are used: in-depth interviews with purposefully-selected global cosmopolitans and ethnographic fieldwork with a community of global cosmopolitans (InterNations). The interviews with cosmopolitans provide a more phenomenological view of their world; whilst the fieldwork with InterNations investigates a more social dimension of global mobility, as the community has online and offline features and more than 200,000 active members in 230 local communities based in large cities around the world.
This research extends current marketing literature on the globalisation of consumer culture by offering insights into how consumer behaviour operates under conditions of global mobility. In particular, the findings demonstrate that global mobility destabilises key cultural categories (such as the notion of home, time and national identity) that normally organise and provide meanings to various consumption activities. The findings also reveal that global cosmopolitans engage in various behaviours to re-assemble consumption practices and objects into meaningful bundles, to stabilise their meanings and to find new organising structures for time, home and identity. Specifically, the chapter on time shows how past and future are re-worked by global cosmopolitans to fit their present mobility needs and this new relationship with time affects the way they consume. The chapter on home demonstrates how global cosmopolitans are able to maintain a sense of home by developing a networked home. The chapter discusses the implications for consumption and for the meaning of homey possessions. Finally, the chapter on cultural identity highlights the importance of storytelling and other practices in re-working cosmopolitans’ territorially-based identities into global cosmopolitan ones. Declaration relating to disposition of project thesis/dissertation I hereby grant to the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all property rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstracts International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only). …………………………………………………………… Signature
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……….……………………...…….… Date
The University recognises that there may be exceptional circumstances requiring restrictions on copying or conditions on use. Requests for restriction for a period of up to 2 years must be made in writing. Requests for a longer period of restriction may be considered in exceptional circumstances and require the approval of the Dean of Graduate Research. FOR OFFICE USE ONLY
Date of completion of requirements for Award:
THIS SHEET IS TO BE GLUED TO THE INSIDE FRONT COVER OF THE THESIS
2
This dissertation is dedicated to
Janaína and Luiz Figueiredo and
Adilson Falcão
3
Abstract
Despite the growing stream of literature concerned with the impact of
globalisation on consumer culture, there has been little discussion about how
consumers’ geographical mobility, an important feature of globalisation, impacts
consumption. This research addresses this gap by investigating how global mobility
shapes the consumption practices of “global cosmopolitans,” those consumers who
move constantly through different places in the world and identify with multiple
cultures. More specifically, it investigates how global cosmopolitans’ notions of home,
time and cultural identity shape their consumption practices.
Grounded in past work on Consumer Culture Theory, this study uses the
Extended Case Method and global ethnography to examine the consumption practices
of global cosmopolitans. Two complementary data sets are used: in-depth interviews
with purposefully-selected global cosmopolitans and ethnographic fieldwork with a
community of global cosmopolitans (InterNations). The interviews with cosmopolitans
provide a more phenomenological view of their world; whilst the fieldwork with
InterNations investigates a more social dimension of global mobility, as the community
has online and offline features and more than 200,000 active members in 230 local
communities based in large cities around the world.
This research extends current marketing literature on the globalisation of
consumer culture by offering insights into how consumer behaviour operates under
conditions of global mobility. In particular, the findings demonstrate that global
mobility destabilises key cultural categories (such as the notion of home, time and
national identity) that normally organise and provide meanings to various consumption
4
activities. The findings also reveal that global cosmopolitans engage in various
behaviours to re-assemble consumption practices and objects into meaningful bundles,
to stabilise their meanings and to find new organising structures for time, home and
identity. Specifically, the chapter on time shows how past and future are re-worked by
global cosmopolitans to fit their present mobility needs and this new relationship with
time affects the way they consume. The chapter on home demonstrates how global
cosmopolitans are able to maintain a sense of home by developing a networked home.
The chapter discusses the implications for consumption and for the meaning of homey
possessions. Finally, the chapter on cultural identity highlights the importance of
storytelling and other practices in re-working cosmopolitans’ territorially-based
identities into global cosmopolitan ones.
5
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
‘I hereby grant the University of New South Wales or its agents the right
to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part
in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known,
subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all
proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in
future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or
dissertation.
I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my
thesis in Dissertation Abstract International (this is applicable to doctoral
theses only).
I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my
thesis or I have obtained permission to use copyright material; where
permission has not been granted I have applied/will apply for a partial
restriction of the digital copy of my thesis or dissertation.'
Signed ………Bernardo AB Figueiredo…………………...........................
Date ………21.06.2012……..................…………………………...........
AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT
‘I certify that the Library deposit digital copy is a direct equivalent of the
final officially approved version of my thesis. No emendation of content
has occurred and if there are any minor variations in formatting, they are
the result of the conversion to digital format.’
Signed ………Bernardo AB Figueiredo…………………........................... Date .......……21.06.2012……..................………………………….............
6
ORIGINALITY STATEMENT
“I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge
it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial
proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or
diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due
acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by
others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in
the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my
own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and
conception, or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.”
Signed ………Bernardo AB Figueiredo…………………...........................
Date .......……21.06.2012……..................………………………….............
7
Acknowledgements
Four months after I started my PhD, a professor told me: “Although this might look as
an individual endeavour, this is actually a collective effort; you will never be able to do
this by yourself only!” He was right. This thesis would never been possible without the
help of many people.
While there are countless people that contributed to this dissertation, I cannot thank
enough my parents Luiz Carlos and Janaina, and my partner Adilson, for their patience,
support and unconditional love. Whenever things seemed foggy and gray, you gave me
strength to go on. In particular, I would like to especially emphasize my mother’s key
role not as only as a supporter but as a diligent reader.
I owe sincere and earnest thankfulness to Dr. Julien Cayla, my supervisor. Without your
advice and comments, this dissertation would not be possible. I thank you for “hanging
on in there”, for believing we could do it, for the quick turnaround time, and for the
high-level feedback.
I would also like to thank Prof. Mark Uncles, my co-supervisor, for being a constant
positive influence during the whole process. I thank you for your support, your time, for
“being there” when I needed, and for your valuable advices.
I would like to thank the Graduate Research School for providing me with generous
scholarship and stipend, which allowed me to focus on learning and doing research
during the past 3.5 years. I would also like to thank the Association for Consumer
Research and the Jagdish N. Sheth Foundation for 2011 ACR/Sheth Cross-Cultural
Dissertation Award, which helped fund this research.
8
I would like to thank the Australian School of Business for the support throughout my
doctoral years. I am especially thankful to Nadia Withers, Paula Aldwell and Margot
Decelis for their kindness and for keeping the excellent working conditions in the
School of Marketing; to Prof. Pam Morrison, Prof. Jack Cadeaux, and Prof. Paul
Patterson for the support with the logistics of the dissertation and the funding to attend
conferences; to Prof. Ian Wilkinson and Prof. Roger Layton for their valuable
comments during the assessment of the proposal.
I owe sincere and deep gratitude to my colleagues at Schulich School of Business,
where I spent one term as a visiting scholar. I believe the time I spent in Toronto was
invaluable not only because I advanced my doctoral skills but also because I met
wonderful people, whom I kept as friends for life. In Particular, I would like to thank
Prof. Rob Kozinets for planting the seeds of a “visit to Schulich” when we first met in
Sydney, and for facilitating my visit to York, and Prof. Eileen Fischer, for being a
wonderful mentor both in and outside the classroom.
I would like to show my gratitude to the Marketing Department in the University of
Sydney, which allowed me to attend three of their courses. I would like to especially
thank Prof. Marylouise Caldwell and Prof. Paul Henry for keeping me in the loop and
inviting me to University meetings and gatherings whenever they thought this could
help advance my learning and career.
This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of InterNations,
which understood the relevance of this work and was kind enough to open its physical
and virtual doors to me.
I am also indebted and thankful to all participants of this research, for accepting to share
their personal stories and worldviews. For ethical reasons and to protect your right to
9
anonymity, I cannot disclose your names here and thank you individually, but I hope to
have managed to capture your voices and your imaginations as truthfully as possible.
I would like to thank the organisers and instructors of three very important seminars,
which have helped me tremendously in terms of understanding methods and theories
behind “Consumer Culture Theory”: the Seminar on Consumption, Markets, and
Culture run by Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey; the Seminar on Canon of Classics
run by the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark; and the Consumer
Culture Theory Data-Analysis Workshop, which happened at Northwestern University,
in Chicago, USA.
It is a great pleasure to thank everyone who helped me to complete my dissertation
successfully. In particular I am indebted and thankful to Ahir Gopaldas, Craig
Thompson, Daiane Scaraboto, Eric P.H. Li, Fabian Held, Fleura Bardhi, Hazliza Haron,
Kate Charlton, Marcia Christina Ferreira, Richard Kedzior, Sarah Wilner, Ting Yu,
Ursula Rao, Warat Winit, and Zoe Baker. Your help and advice have been critical to the
success of this endeavour. I would also like to thank others, who participated in my
journey towards getting a PhD: Chen Ning (Chris), Daisy Liu, Denni Arli, Eric
Arnould, Erik Sloth, Güliz Ger, Han Xiao (Hazel). Itir Binay, Jeff Murray, Julie
Emontspool, Kang Kang Yu, Lara Moroko, Lisa Peñaloza, Luca Visconti. Marius
Luedicke, Markus Giesler, Meng Jie, Nui Jiraporn, Paul Melton, Qian Cheng, Russ
Belk, Ryan Miller, Sammy Bonsu, Soren Askegaard, Theresa Teo, Will Neil, and
Zeynep Arsel.
I am thankful to the three external reviewers of this thesis, Dr. Eileen Fischer, Dr. Paul
Henry and Dr. Dannie Kjeldgaard. I know it must take a lot of time and dedication to do
a good thesis review, so I would like you to know that I am deeply grateful for it.
10
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 15
1.1 Research problem ......................................................................................... 15
1.2 Research questions and research objective .................................................. 23
1.3 Research context .......................................................................................... 24
1.4 Research methods......................................................................................... 25
1.5 Summary of the main argument and contributions ...................................... 27
1.6 Research structure ........................................................................................ 28
2. Research Background 30
2.1 Consumption in late modernity .................................................................... 30
2.2 Globalisation of consumer culture ............................................................... 33
2.3 Theoretical context ....................................................................................... 36
3. Methods and Empirical Context 41
3.1 Methodological approach ............................................................................. 41
3.2 Data collection and procedures .................................................................... 42
3.2.1 In-depth interviews: Understanding their global mobility from
their point of view .......................................................................................... 43
3.2.2 Ethnographic data.................................................................................. 46
3.2.3 From ethnography to multi-sited ethnography ...................................... 46
3.2.4 Multi-sited ethnography as a method of data collection ....................... 47
3.2.5 Field sites .............................................................................................. 49
3.2.6 Participant observation and informal interviews................................... 50
3.2.7 Netnographic data ................................................................................. 51
3.2.8 Access to the field sites and the role of the researcher ......................... 51
3.3 Data analysis ................................................................................................ 52
3.4 Ethical issues ................................................................................................ 54
4. Global Mobility and Time 56
11
4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 56
4.2 Time in modernity and late modernity ......................................................... 57
4.3 Time in Consumer Research ........................................................................ 60
4.4 Time and Consumer Movement ................................................................... 63
4.5 Definitions of terms – conceptions of time .................................................. 65
4.6 Findings ........................................................................................................ 66
4.6.1 Fragmentation, multiplication and disembedding ................................. 66
4.6.2 Synchronisation of activities and increased consumers’
workload ......................................................................................................... 69
4.6.3 Temporal coordinating mechanisms ..................................................... 73
4.6.4 New time structures engendered by global mobility............................. 78
4.7 Discussion .................................................................................................... 90
4.7.1 Summary ............................................................................................... 90
4.7.2 Contributions ......................................................................................... 92
5. The Networked Home 98
5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 98
5.2 Home in consumer research ......................................................................... 99
5.3 Networked and deterritorialised home ....................................................... 103
5.4 Findings ...................................................................................................... 108
5.4.1 Transnational mobility destabilises home ........................................... 108
5.4.2 Fragmentation, multiplication and disembedding ............................... 110
5.4.3 When the networked home is grounded in one main focal point:
At home with Carla and Simon .................................................................... 112
5.4.4 When the networked home is grounded in two or more focal
points: At home with Donald and Chloe, Hazel and James, Agu and
Cathy ............................................................................................................ 117
5.4.5 When the networked home is not grounded anywhere: At home
with third culture kids Vera, Collette and Morris ........................................ 124
5.4.6 Maintaining the networked home uprooted: The role of
cherished practices, rituals and routines in the performance of the
12
networked home ........................................................................................... 131
5.4.7 The empty house ................................................................................. 133
5.5 Discussion .................................................................................................. 136
5.5.1 Summary of findings ........................................................................... 136
5.5.2 Contributions ....................................................................................... 138
6. Global Cosmopolitan Identities 142
6.1 Introduction - globalisation and cultural identity ....................................... 142
6.2 Defining identity and related terms ............................................................ 144
6.3 Cultural Identity and the function of consumption practices and products147
6.4 Consumer migration and consumers’ ethnic and national identities ......... 151
6.5 Findings ...................................................................................................... 155
6.5.1 Monitoring national and ethnic identities ........................................... 155
6.5.2 Flexible and fluid identities: the global cosmopolitan identity
project ........................................................................................................... 169
6.6 Discussion .................................................................................................. 190
6.6.1 Summary ............................................................................................. 190
6.6.2 Contributions ....................................................................................... 193
7. Conclusion 202
7.1 Summary .................................................................................................... 202
7.2 Research Limitations and Extensions ........................................................ 209
7.3 Contributions and Implications .................................................................. 212
7.3.1 Consumption in late modernity ........................................................... 212
7.3.2 Global consumer culture ..................................................................... 221
8. References 231
Appendices 256
Appendix A - Ethics ................................................................................. 257
Appendix b – Fact Sheet and Interview Guide ............................................... 264
13
Appendix C – Sample Profile ......................................................................... 274
Appendix D – Conceptions of Time and Consumer Behaviour ...................... 280
Appendix E – Self-defining sentences at InterNations Profiles ...................... 286
Appendix f – How do members dress for InterNations’ gatherings?............... 293
Appendix G – Constructing a global past at InterNations ............................... 303
14
List of Tables and Figures
Figure 1- The networked home .............................................................................................. 107
Figure 2- Flag Gallery ........................................................................................................... 181
Figure 3 - How mobility affects consumption practices ........................................................ 202
Figure 4 – Internations’ Gatherings in nine countries .......................................................... 301
.
Table 1: Managing practices and new structures for time coordination................................. 93
Table 2 Practices constituting the networked home .............................................................. 140
Table 3- Self-definition through five key characteristics ....................................................... 178
Table 4- Global cosmopolitan practices ................................................................................ 196
Table 5- Summary of findings ................................................................................................ 212
Table 6– Interviewees - Key Information ............................................................................... 281
Table 7– Interviewees - Additional Information .................................................................... 284
Table 8- Conceptions of time ................................................................................................. 288
Table 9- What makes me a Global Mind ................................................................................ 293
15
1. Introduction
1.1 Research problem
The purpose of this thesis is to conduct a cultural analysis of global mobility.
More specifically, I investigate how global mobility shapes consumption practices1
Urry 2007
.
Global mobility is not a new phenomenon, as people have been moving globally in
greater numbers since mercantilism and the great discoveries of the fifteenth century.
However, what is particularly novel is the intensity, speed and volume of global
movement that characterizes late modernity ( ). Anecdotal cases of people
living in conditions of intense global mobility abound in the news. For instance, Tom
Stucker, United Airlines’ most frequent flyer had flown 9 million miles by 2009, which
is equivalent to 32 trips to the moon (Mayerowitz 2009). The evidence for global
movement is striking, with research showing how some people spend a large portion of
their life travelling (Elliott and Urry 2010; Smith and Favell 2006). In a life span,
members of the most mobile sectors of the global population may travel millions of
miles and, most importantly, encounter a multitude of cultural frameworks, languages
and social norms. Due to their global mobility, some of the informants of this research
have lived in more than eight countries, speak six languages and have five passports.
Global mobility is a growing phenomenon. Today, the world population moves
23 billion kilometres a day; by 2050 it is predicted that this number will have increased 1 In simple terms, consumption practices refer to the various ways by which people consume and
understand consumption (Holt 1995). A more elaborated explanation is provided by Reckwitz (2002).
Based on Schatzki’s (1996) practice theory, Reckwitz (2002, 249) states that a practice “is a routinized
type of behaviour which consists of several elements, interconnected to one other: forms of bodily
activities, forms of mental activities, ‘things’ and their use, a background knowledge in the form of
understanding, know-how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge”. Consumer practices, in
aggregate, create and reproduce the structure in which the actions are embedded (Bourdieu 1977; Giddens
1991; Warde 2005).
16
fourfold (Urry 2007). Global mobility includes not only the daily mobility of people
commuting to and from work, but also geographical mobility related to migration and
the search for career and educational opportunities. Evidence suggests that there are
more people living outside their country of origin now than ever before. According to
the latest United Nations’ report on mobility (Klugman 2009), the number of people
living outside their country of origin has tripled in the last 50 years (214 million in
2009), while the world’s population has only doubled in the same period. Furthermore,
the 2007 ORC Global Mobility Program Management Survey (Deloitte-ORC 2007)has
shown that multinationals are predicting significant increases in the demand for foreign
talent and increases in foreign assignments in the next years, which will increase the
number of displaced skilled professionals. Moreover, the global demand for
international higher education is forecasted to increase from 1.8 million international
students in 2000 to 7.2 million international students in 2025 (Bohm and Pearce 2002).
Overall, people are travelling further and faster (Urry 2007). In today’s world, being
mobile is not a privilege of global elites only. In developed countries, a great deal of the
middle and upper middle class have access to some kind of mobility, especially if they
are skilled professionals (OECD 2008). We are moving towards a more mobile world,
where global mobility is at the centre of people’s experience of everyday life (Urry
2000).
The global mobility of people is also closely associated with the global mobility
of things. Media, products, services and objects also move and, as they move, they
enable and sustain life in conditions of mobility. The increase in global connections—
due to advances in communication systems, technologies and global media—makes it
much easier to maintain life in conditions of mobility today than it was 50 years ago.
With satellite transmission, cable TV, superfast Internet and other new media, it is
possible to access news from many different places in a matter of seconds. Without
17
leaving their homes, people can now access images, symbols and stories from distant
lands. For the mobile population, the Internet, mobile phones and calling cards have
made it much easier to keep in touch with family and friends and to be up-to-date with
what happens around the world while travelling (Friedman 2007). VoIP software, such
as “Skype” and “Google Talk”, which cost very little and provide virtual presence
(image and voice), allow continuous maintenance of long-distance relationships and
important family ties.
Global mobility refers not only to the movements of people and things around
the world, but also to the meanings associated with those movements. Cresswell (2006,
3) has affirmed that “mobility is the dynamic equivalent of place” and that “movement
is rarely just movement; it carries with it the burden of meaning.” Thus, similar to place,
which is space with meaning (Tuan 2001), mobility is movement with meaning.
Therefore, any study that attempts to understand global mobility must also develop an
understanding of what this movement means to the people who move.
Global mobility and consumption are closely related. As people move around
the world, they encounter diverse marketplaces, they form new fields of consumption,
they buy things from suppliers in other markets and get them delivered to their houses,
and they experience social norms, rituals, customs, products and practices from other
parts of the world. They also develop new ways of developing family relationships,
sharing among family members, building community and maintaining everyday life
routines in conditions of mobility. The global mobility of consumers creates new ways
of relating to objects (Bardhi, Eckhard, and Arnould 2012) and to everyday life. Global
enterprises and IT firms are the most interested in issues involving extensive mobility.
For example, Apple Computers supports projects such as Portable Effects
(http://www.portablefx.com), which explores relationships between mobile people and
portable objects. IDEO (www.ideo.com), an American design consultancy, is involved
18
in numerous projects with other corporate partners (e.g., Procter & Gamble, Pepsi-Cola
and Samsung) to understand the effects of mobility on consumers’ lives and to create
innovative products, services, spaces and experiences for them. Motorola has a team of
researchers to study the impact of mobility on perceptions of time (Metcalf and Harboe
2006) and Intel has researchers (Ken and De Paula 2006; Zafiroglu and Asokan 2006)
working on the relationship between mobility and notions of home. In addition, many of
these firms are interested in mobility in the context of Human Computer Interface (HCI)
and the relationships between objects and humans in technological environments.
Theoretically, studying the global mobility of consumers is important for two
reasons. First, mobility is critical to understanding the production of a global consumer
culture. Consumer culture is formed by market-mediated relationships between
consumers (Arnould and Thompson 2005) and global consumer culture has been related
to the processes that unite and globalise consumer culture (Arnould, Sheth, and
Malhotra 2011). However, the way we have studied global consumer culture so far
excludes the very thing that generates it: global mobility. To date, studies on global
consumer culture have mostly addressed global consumer culture as either a mass of
homogenous culture that exists somewhere up and out there—at a meta level of the
global (Alden, Batra, and Steenkamp 1999), or as something containing differences and
antagonisms (e.g., global versus local debates), but somehow static, objectified and
bounded (Craig and Douglas 2006). Consumer research has not yet evaluated the
intrinsic role of global mobility on consumer culture: as a set of dynamic processes that
are in constant motion and constantly producing new social forms (globalised and
localised) and new markets. Thus, if we are to study global consumer culture as a
dynamic phenomenon, we need to include global mobility in the framework. In sum, the
phenomenon being studied here cannot be explained by existing theories about global
consumer culture. Therefore, this study explores the nature of the consumption practices
19
associated with mobile consumers to assess how existing theories can be expanded or
revised to account for this global mobility.
Furthermore, global mobility is also central to understanding the life of
consumers in conditions of late modernity (Nowicka 2006a). Scholars from different
fields (Augé 1995; Bauman 2000; Beck 2000; Beck, Giddens, and Lash 1994; Giddens
1990) have argued that we live in a new era, associated with the latest transformations
of capitalism in the world. In this phase, named late modernity (or second modernity,
reflexive modernity, liquid modernity or super modernity, depending on the author)
shifts have been observed in the way we relate to time and space (Giddens 1990),
develop identities (Giddens 1991) and live our lives (Beck et al. 1994). Other theorists
(Harvey 1999; Jameson 1991), who discuss this phase as postmodernity (emphasising a
rupture with modernity), also point to key differences of our times: fragmentation,
hyperreality, bricolage, decentralisation of subjects, loss of grand-narratives (Firat and
Venkatesh 1995). As Firat and Dholakia (1998) note, we might not be postmodern yet,
but we can see elements of postmodernity (e.g., fragmentation) already happening in
certain instances of late modernity, as is the case with very mobile conditions.2
Global mobility is at the centre of life transformation in the processes described
by late modern theorists (
Urry 2000). For example, the capacity to be mobile alters our
relation with space in very deep ways. Fundamental categories of space, such as “near”
and “far,” can no longer be taken-for-granted. The new near includes all that is easily
accessible. If parents in Russia can be reached through Skype, they are near; if they live
50kms from us in rural areas and cannot be easily reached, they are far. In this new
division of space, New York may be closer to London than it is to Northfield, in
2 From now on, references to late modernity theories and authors include processes discussed by
postmodernist theorists (e.g., Jameson, Harvey and Featherstone). I follow Firat and Dholakia’s (1998)
view that, although we may be seeing signs of postmodernity (e.g., fragmentation), we live in a phase of
intensification of various principles of modernity. Thus, the umbrella term used in this introduction is
“late modernity” (Giddens 1990).
20
Vermont, even if the former is 3,500 and the latter 280 miles away. Global mobility
seems to accelerate both the processes of fragmentation and the processes of
disembedding discussed by late modernists. Therefore, we can gain a much better
understanding of some of the processes that are at work in late modernity through an
understanding of mobility, which, in turn, help us understand where we are heading in
terms of a consumer society. If the mobile condition is a critical condition of late
modernity, and if we are becoming more mobile, then understanding the global mobility
of consumers might allow us to also understand how consumers of late modernity relate
(and will relate in the future, if the late modernists are correct about the direction we are
going) to markets, how market-mediated relationships are (and will be) constructed,
maintained and destroyed. In sum, in addition to extending and adapting global
consumer culture theories to account for global mobility, this study theorises a critical
phenomenon that is key to understanding the bigger picture, that is, consumption in late
modernity.
Whilst we know that mobility is fundamental to understanding consumption in
late modernity and that global consumer culture has dynamic aspects, there is very little
theory about the global mobility of consumers. The majority of consumer research
studies that discuss mobility tend to focus on the immigrant consumer, that is, someone
who uproots from one place and re-roots in another place, usually a different country.
Although immigrant consumers are an important element of global mobility, the
reduced scope of movement and the territorial logic (i.e., the immigrants want to have
roots) do not capture the features of global mobility that are most contemporaneous
(i.e., the global interconnections, flux of information, formation of networks,
establishment of a new imaginary). The remaining literature on consumer mobility
comprises various studies (e.g.: Bardhi and Askegaard 2009; Bardhi et al. 2012;
Thompson and Tambyah 1999) which, although highly relevant to the matters discussed
21
here, are insufficient to describe and explain the life and behaviour of consumers under
conditions of global mobility.
There are various issues about the global mobility of consumers that remain
unaccounted for. First, we know mobility alters consumers’ relationship with time and
space (Bardhi and Askegaard 2009) and identity (Thompson and Tambyah 1999), but
we have not developed empirical understandings of how people in constant mobility
reorganise their lives to cope with conditions of mobility. For example, we know from
existing literature that space, time and identity become destabilised in conditions of
mobility (Bauman 2000; Giddens 1990; Nowicka and Kaweh 2009). However, we do
not know what that means to consumers. More specifically, we do not know how the
disembedding of social life and the fragmentation of everyday life destabilise the
structuring of consumption activities. Second, we do not know how consumers feel
about the destabilisation that is caused by global mobility. Do they experience it as
stressful, or liberating? Third, we know destabilised and fragmented lives may become
difficult to manage (Brimm 2010; Butcher 2011) as people need centres of stability and
ontological security (Bauman 2000; Giddens 1991), and we can assume that since
globally mobile consumers exist and maintain their lives in mobility, they must be
doing something to be able to keep their lives stable, despite multiple changes in space,
time and identity. What are they doing to manage and stabilise their lives? Fourth, if
fragmentation of key stabilising structures (time, space and identity) is occurring, is it
possible that new stabilisation structures are being formed? Is it possible that, as
suggested by Urry (2003), global mobility is also producing new structures for
consumers’ lives (and consequently consumers’ behaviour) to be based upon? If so,
what are these new structures? Fifth, through the work of Benedict Anderson (2006), we
know that in the absence of time and space proximity as a principle that coordinates
social events/actions, people need to imagine their connections and their world in order
22
to develop identities and behaviour associated with this world. While Anderson’s work
is about the importance of the national imagination (sustained mainly through print
media and state efforts), we wonder how global imaginations are being formed.
Understanding the imaginations associated with the global mobility of consumers can
help us understand more about the global imaginations and global identities of
consumers, especially if these imaginations can be studied in a collective way.
Managerially, if we accept the assumption that mobility is key to understanding
global consumer culture and life in high modernity, then not understanding how
consumers’ lives are maintained in a condition of mobility (i.e., how their consumption
practices and worldviews change because of mobility) may prevent managers and
policymakers from acting most effectively. For example, the marketing fields of product
innovation, strategic marketing and consumer insights are intrinsically linked to
understanding the macro and mid-range changes experienced by global consumers in
late modernity. For instance, the launch of smartphones and tablets is a direct
consequence of understanding consumers’ need for mobility. Without knowing the
tendencies and imaginations of globally mobile consumers, it becomes difficult to plan
for the needs of the future.
Likewise, public policymakers must include the effects of global mobility in
their work. If mobility is increasing and if fragmentation is increasing alongside it,
understanding what consumers are doing to stabilise their lives can provide important
clues to future action that may protect the well-being of consumers. For example, if
consumers are having difficulties finding ways of keeping the stability of home in
conditions of mobility, policymakers can develop new instruments to facilitate selected
types of trades and exchanges that provide stability to home in conditions of mobility
(e.g., regulations over access to albums of pictures kept in clouds). Other instruments of
control, which result in instability to home, may be alleviated (e.g., rigid laws that
23
hinder the transport of private furniture across countries). In sum, knowing how
consumers stabilise their lives in conditions of mobility can also be useful to both
managers and policymakers.
1.2 Research questions and research objective
As mentioned previously, consumers’ conditions of global mobility create shifts
in their notions of time, space and identity causing them to engage in a different set of
consumption practices. Thus, the aim of this research is to contribute to current
knowledge of consumption in late modernity and of global consumer culture by
investigating the impact of global mobility on consumption practices (i.e., what they do,
how they do it, what consumption means to them). Therefore, the main research
question is:
RQ: “How does the global mobility of consumers affect their consumption practices?”
To emphasise the fact that global mobility affects time, space and identity
dimensions, which, in turn, affect the way people consume, this question can be
subdivided into two questions:
1) How does the global mobility of consumers affect their notions of time, space and
identity?
2) How do these shifts in their notions of time, space and identity affect their
consumption practices?
24
1.3 Research context
From all consumers living in conditions of global mobility, the focus of this study is
on one type, called Global Cosmopolitans. According to Linda Brimm, Professor
Emeritus of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD and specialist in identity
development and change, global cosmopolitans are “members of a talented population
of highly educated, multilingual people who have lived, worked and studied for
extensive periods in different cultures” (Brimm 2010, 4). The reason for choosing
global cosmopolitans over other types of globally mobile consumers is that their
prolonged contact with different geographies and multiple cultures provides a more
adequate context (Arnould, Price, and Moisio 2006) to study the emerging social
imaginaries created by global mobility. Social imaginaries refer to the common
understandings “that makes possible common practices and a widely shared sense of
legitimacy” (Taylor 2004, 23). They are “deep-seated modes of understanding that
provide the most general parameters within which people imagine their communal
existence [...] They are neither theories nor ideologies, but implicit ‘backgrounds’ that
make possible communal practices and a widely shared sense of their legitimacy”
(Steger 2009, 12). Through their multicultural past experiences and their mobile lives,
global cosmopolitans build new social imaginaries that support and inform their
consumption practices.
Another reason for choosing global cosmopolitans is that their position of privileged
access to resources (economic, social and cultural capital) makes them more mobile
than other groups, whose mobility may be propelled by duty (e.g., militaries), escape
(e.g., refugees) or resettlement (e.g., immigrants), rather than personal choice. More
importantly, global cosmopolitans are the group of people most inserted in the logics of
late capitalism (or flexible capitalism), with their transposable skills, service sector
25
orientation, liberal education and their use of mobility to seek opportunities in global
capitalism. It is not by chance that global cosmopolitans tend to live in globally
interconnected metropolitan areas—global cities—as these are also spaces of
hypermodernity.
In this thesis, mobility-related consumption practices and the worldview of
global cosmopolitans are studied, because these consumers are exemplars of people who
live in a new era. In the era of global cosmopolitanism, territorial boundaries are not as
important in determining behaviour as they have been historically. Multiple national
identities are not only possible but also desirable, and membership to a group,
community or cultural entity is expressed more by consumption practices than by
location. It is an assumption of this work that these consumers are now dealing with the
shifting conditions that most of us will have to deal with later, as the world moves
towards a more mobile, diverse, urban and multicultural landscape. Thus, by
investigating their world, social imaginary, problems and needs, this research offers a
glimpse into the problems and needs that are likely to become more relevant in the near
future for broader groups of consumers.
1.4 Research methods
Since mobility shifts notions of time and space, studying it requires adapting the
temporal and spatial aspects of existing methods. In conducting this study, I used a
combined approach of Extended Case Method (ECM) and global ethnography, both
developed by Burawoy (1998, 2000). The Extended Case Method selects cases that are
anomalous, that is, that are not contemplated by current theory. The “anomaly” here is
global mobility (consumers who are globally mobile) and global cosmopolitans were
26
chosen as a case because they provide the most appropriate context for studying global
mobility of late modernity.
Global ethnography is an ethnographic method that tries to examine local and
grounded phenomena (consumption practices from diverse sites, in this case) from a
different perspective, one that highlights the connection, forces and imaginations that
link the observed phenomenon with others in different parts of the world. It is a way of
looking at a phenomenon that is grounded in the local with global eyes. In other words,
global ethnography looks at the local with a different order of questions and looks for
different things. “Globalisation poses a challenge to existing social scientific methods of
inquiry and units of analysis by destabilising the embeddedness of social relations in
particular communities and places. By locating themselves firmly within the time and
space of social actors ‘living the global,’ ethnographers can reveal the socioscapes that
people collectively construct of global processes”, which demonstrates “how
globalisation is grounded in the local” (Gille and Riain 2002, 271).
To collect data, two main techniques were used. First, 41 in-depth interviews
were conducted to investigate how global cosmopolitans understand the world they live
in. While selective snowball sampling was used in the beginning, later interviews
followed purposeful sampling, using theoretical tenets and results from preliminary
analysis to guide selection of interviewees.
Parallel to that, a second method of data collection was used: multi-sited
ethnographic research for 30 months, with a community of global cosmopolitans called
“InterNations”. InterNations has online and offline features and more than 200,000
active members in 230 local communities based in large cities around the world. I chose
three sites (community in Sydney, community in Toronto and online community) that
allowed me to observe global cosmopolitans from different parts of the world in both
online and offline interactions. Two other local communities that were part of
27
InterNations were visited for comparison and contrast.
The analytic focus remained on the behaviour of consumers associated with the
changes in temporal frameworks, in their notions of home, and in the cultural identity of
globally mobile consumers. These themes are addressed through the following
analytical questions:3
1) How do consumers coordinate their activities temporarily in conditions of global
mobility?
2) How do consumers maintain a sense of home in conditions of global mobility?
3) How do consumers sustain a sense of identity in conditions of global mobility?
The iterative analysis (Spiggle 1994) and the ECM weaving with macro-theories
(Holt 2002) was done with a focus on three cultural categories that help structure
consumption: home (as a category of place/space), temporal frameworks (as a category
of time) and cultural identity (as a category of identity). Each analytical category is
reported as a separate finding chapter (Chapters 4, 5 and 6).
1.5 Summary of the main argument and contributions
This research contributes to our understanding of consumers’ life in late
modernity by showing the different ways by which global mobility shifts consumers’
notions of time, space and identity. Specifically, the findings demonstrate that global
mobility destabilises key cultural categories, such as the notion of home, time and
national identity, which normally organise and provide meanings to various
3 I call “analytical questions” those that are asked directly to the data. They are different from research
questions because of the level of abstraction. Analytical questions tend to demand more descriptive
answers. The interpretation of the answers to analytical questions in the light of theory eventually leads to
answers to research questions.
28
consumption activities. Second, the findings show the impact of destabilisation of these
categories (time, space and identity), by demonstrating the kind of feelings associated
with these processes of destabilisation and the extra workload consumers have to deal
with. Third, the findings reveal the practices consumers engage in to try to re-stabilise
the fragmentation, disembedding and multiplication of these key categories. Fourth, the
findings show that global mobility also produces new structures for time coordination,
home making and identity pursuit.
By making global mobility a key process in the production of global consumer
culture, this work furthers our understanding of global consumer culture. First, the
research expands the conceptual and methodological options for overcoming obstacles
of “methodological nationalism,” a common assumption in consumer research studies
of global consumer culture. Second, the research demonstrates how global consumer
culture is constituted of a dynamic set of processes, which has mobility as one of its
important features. Third, the research highlights the role of mobile imaginations as
capable of structuring and producing consumption practices. Fourth, the research
demonstrates how new structures are made possible by the marketplace via
arrangements and networks of tangible and intangible elements. Finally, it shows how
objects are re-signified according to their function in the network.
1.6 Research structure
Chapter 1 introduces the study, including the research problem and its significance; the
research context; the research objective and questions; the methodological approach; the
argument and contributions; and the structure of the thesis.
Chapter 2 provides the general theoretical background to this research by highlighting
29
key issues of consumer life in late modernity and of global consumer culture. It also
theoretically develops the importance of global cosmopolitans as the chosen context.
Chapter 3 explains the choice of methods, their application, the data collected and the
way they were analysed. It also explains the empirical context of the fieldwork.
Chapters 4, 5 and 6 are findings chapters. Chapter 4 deals with the first analytical
theme: time in conditions of global mobility. Chapter 5 deals with the second analytical
theme: home in conditions of global mobility. Chapter 6 deals with the third analytical
theme: cultural identity in conditions of global mobility. Each chapter is divided into
three parts. First, a theoretical part, that reviews the consumer research and marketing
literature concerning the specific issues of each analytic category (time, home and
cultural identity) and frames the research questions to fit that literature. Second, a
findings part that answers the research questions for that specific category, highlighting
how global mobility destabilises consumers’ lives, how consumers feel about these
changes, the way consumers respond to these changes, and the new structures of time,
home and cultural identity created as a consequence of that. The third part summarises
and discusses the findings in the light of the specific bibliography.
Chapter 7 summarises and discusses the general findings, highlighting how the findings
from each chapter are integrated into one explanation about how global mobility shapes
consumption practices. It also highlights contributions, limitations and implications of
this study.
30
2. Research Background
2.1 Consumption in late modernity
Global mobility is central to understanding consumer life in the latest phase of
capitalism; it is a key transformational force of late modernity. Therefore, to position
this work historically, according to the evolution of consumer society, I quickly review
how social scientists have described our era in terms of its contrasts to modernity.
Various scholars from different disciplines of social sciences and humanities
(Augé 1995; Beck 2000; Beck et al. 1994; Castells 1996; Giddens 1990; Harvey 1999;
Jameson 1991; Urry 2000) have affirmed that we live in a new era, associated with the
latest transformation of capitalism in the world and its phase of flexible accumulation.
While for some authors, the postmodernists, this new era involves a radical change from
the tenets of modernity (Featherstone 1995; Harvey 1999; Jameson 1991), others have
stated that we are not in a phase that is radically different from modernity. According to
this second stream (Augé 1995; Bauman 2000; Beck et al. 1994; Giddens 1990) we are
actually living in a phase of an intensification of modernisation processes, where the
structure of some institutions of modernity (e.g. nation-state) gets challenged by the
very radicalisation of the principles that created them (e.g. capital accumulation). This
phase has been given various names: second or reflexive modernity (Beck et al. 1994),
late modernity (Giddens 1990), liquid modernity (Bauman 2000), supermodernity
(Augé 1995), depending on the particular aspect the authors wanted to stress most.
Modernity is the post-medieval phase, associated with the rise of capitalism, and
with processes such as industrialisation, rationalisation, secularisation and the rise of the
31
nation-state. These processes became consolidated by the late eighteenth century.
According to Giddens, modernity is a shorthand for modern society or industrial
civilization. He associated it “with (1) a certain set of attitudes towards the world, the
idea of the world as open to transformation, by human intervention; (2) a complex of
economic institutions, especially industrial production and a market economy; (3) a
certain range of political institutions, including the nation-state and mass democracy.
[…] It is a society—more technically, a complex of institutions—which, unlike any
preceding culture, lives in the future, rather than the past” (Giddens and Pierson 1998,
94). Modernity institutionalised the market as the most important legitimised force in
society. It brought individual, private, alienated, passive consumption patterns into
existence (Firat and Dholakia 1998).
Since the beginning of the modernity era, travelling through the same amount of
space has been taking less and less time, which creates a “time-space compression”
(Harvey 1999), or “time-space distanciation” (Giddens 1990). Although the terms seem
to be contradictory, they actually refer to the same processes, whereby time and space—
inseparable dimensions in the pre-modern societies—split up. This time-space
distanciation leads to “disembedding,” which is “the ‘lifting out’ of social relations from
local contexts of interactions and their restructuring across indefinite spans of time-
space” (Giddens 1990, 21). Thus, in modernity, space and time are recombined in forms
that do not obey the principle of proximity and locality, which were the principles that
organised life in traditional societies. This separation worked to the advantage of
capitalism, which used it to create a more efficient accumulation of capital. A good
illustration of this is the series of measurements of time rhythms and workplace
conditions conducted in order to find new combinations of time and space to increase
the efficiency of factory workers at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of
the twentieth century (Taylor 2005). This disembedding and re-embedding of social
32
activity is characteristic of modernity, but they are processes that have intensified to a
much greater extent in the second modernity with the advent of electronic
communication and new forms of measuring risk and trust in flexible capitalism, which
is why this phase is seen as a continuation of the first modernity. Second modernity has
also been called reflexive modernity, because it is characterised by greater reflexivity,
where “social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming
information about those very practices, thus constitutively altering their character”
(Giddens 1990, 38). Reflexivity is associated with an increase in the modern principle
of individualisation. In reflexive modernity, the work of disembedding and re-
embedding and the coordination of activities that were carried by modern institutions,
such as the nation-states, are transferred to the individuals in the name of neoliberal
freedom (Giddens 1991).
Although it does not seem that we are living in postmodern times yet (Firat and
Dholakia 1998), some processes reported by researchers of postmodernity and
consumption, such as the globalisation of fragmentation (Firat 1997) and the
juxtaposition of opposites (Firat and Venkatesh 1995) are becoming more and more
common characteristics of our times. In fragmentation, consumption experiences
become multiple and disjointed, lacking the commitment to a meta-narrative or a central
theme characteristic of modernity. In addition, the juxtaposition of opposites recognises
the fragmentation as the basis of consumption and endorses pastiche and bricolage as
principles underlying consumption (Firat and Venkatesh 1995).
Urry and colleagues (Elliott and Urry 2010; Sheller and Urry 2006; Urry 2000,
2003, 2007) and other advocates of a mobility turn in the social sciences (Adey 2009;
Cresswell 2006) argue that, in order to understand current changes in society, sociology
must “abandon its original project—the study of society as a set of bounded
institutions—and switch the focus to the study of physical, imaginative and virtual
33
movements” (Urry 2000, 257). He argues that globalisation should not be seen as
substituting one region, the bounded nation-state, by another region, the global
economy and culture. Rather, globalisation involves “replacing the metaphor of society
as region with the metaphor of the global conceived as a network and as fluid” (2000,
33). Mobility is an “ontological condition and is expressed in processes as different as
global complexity and reflexive modernity: people, commodities, cultures, technologies
are all mobile and their reality is one of mobility. Mobilities are not just flows but
networked relations and are globally organised in new kinds of spaces and temporal
processes” (Delanty 2006, 32). Urry’s proposal of studying mobility with its networks
and flows seems to be the appropriate way to advance the understanding of life in
conditions of globalisation, and contribute to the ongoing debate of modifications of
consumption in late (and post) modernity.
Urry’s followers have shown that in many ways mobility challenges people’s
relationship to space and time, objects and people4 Brimm 2010 ( ; Butcher 2009a,
2009b, 2011; Nowicka 2006b, 2007; Nowicka and Kaweh 2009). However, the
understanding of the impact of these modifications on consumption practices is still in
its infancy. The few studies that exist show that mobility can engender a different
ideology of consumption (Thompson and Tambyah 1999) and a different relationship to
possessions (Bardhi et al. 2012). It is to this growing conversation about the impact of
mobility on our everyday life that this study engages in.
2.2 Globalisation of consumer culture
4 A new academic journal called Mobilities (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/17450101.asp) was
created in 2006 to explore these changes and link them to understanding societies in the 21st century. It
has achieved a considerable impact in the social sciences. For example, according to Journal of Citation
reports 2011, despite its short history, it already ranks 28/67 in Geography.
34
The literature on global consumer culture can be divided into two groups of
studies. The first group tries to understand global consumer culture from a bounded
geographical perspective, where global refers to the scope of consumer culture. In other
words, it tends to consider global consumer culture as “a culture” composed by
elements that are shared on a global scale (Westjohn and Magnusson 2011). Studies
from this group may examine the nature of the products, brands and services belonging
to global consumer culture, or the various responses people have to these global
products, brands and services. This includes attitudes and willingness to buy global
products and brands (Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra 2006; Özsomer and Altaras 2008;
Steenkamp and de Jong 2010), attitudes towards globally oriented ads (Westjohn et al.
2009), differences between global citizens and others (Cannon and Yaprak 2002), social
and world mindedness (Nijssen and Douglas 2008) and ways of segmenting the global
consumer (Dawar and Parker 1994; Holt, Quelch, and Taylor 2004).
Then, a second group of studies considers global consumer culture not as “a”
culture, but as a set of dynamic cultural processes that happen as consequences of
globalisation. In other words, the focus is more on the process resulting from
globalisation than on the content. Examples of topics of this second stream include the
formation of youthscapes as structures of common difference (Kjeldgaard and
Askegaard 2006), the development of brandscapes as processes of cultural hegemony
and resistance (Thompson and Arsel 2004) and the formation of transnational brands
and new imaginaries as a consequence of cultural globalisation (Cayla and Eckhardt
2007).
I see global mobility as a perspective that can add to our understanding of the
consequences and processes of cultural globalisation (the second group of studies).
Instead of looking at globalisation in terms of geographical places (the nations and the
globe), I want to follow Appadurai’s (1990) suggestion that we should look at
35
globalisation from the point of view of flows, and their imagination and disjunctures. In
that sense, global cosmopolitans—as a group of people who are constantly moving
across the globe—constitute a social formation that belongs to global consumer culture,
as it is produced by the process of globalisation of consumer culture. However, it is
neither part of a shared consumer culture, nor geographically separable from other
formations, such as the nation. Hence, to understand global cosmopolitans’ existence,
consumption and movement around the world, we should look at the imaginations that
their movement engenders, and at the frictions these imaginations may cause with other
flows or objects (Tsing 2005). A perspective that focuses on mobility and its
imaginations may allow us to gain much deeper and more dynamic understandings of
the processes within global consumer culture. According to Lee and Lipuma (2002,
192) if we consider mobility (or “circulation” in their language) as an analytic construct
for cultural analysis, then it “must be conceived as more than simply the movement of
people, ideas, and commodities from one culture to another. Instead, [...] circulation is a
cultural process with its own forms of abstraction, evaluation, and constraint, which are
created by the interactions between specific types of circulating forms and the
interpretive communities built around them.”
The proposed focus on mobility and its imaginations and frictions, creates a new
set of issues for understanding global consumer culture. For example, we should try to
understand how mobile consumers develop identities that are linked to these cultures of
circulation and to particular mobile imaginaries. In order to explore the tensions and
disjunctures that Tsing and Appadurai discuss, we should also try to understand how
these new forms of identification relate to other forms of identification, such as the
national identities. In addition, we should try to understand how mobile consumers
imagine and construct places (e.g. home in conditions of mobility) and how that relates
to traditional forms of place-making. We should also examine how mobile consumers
36
imagine new forms of being in time and relating to time, how they coordinate their
consumption activities in these imagined timescapes and how these temporal
imaginations relate to more modern forms of time-keeping and time coordination.
2.3 Theoretical context
Based on the critical review of the literature on globalisation, mobility,
cosmopolitanism and transnationalism (Bardhi 2004; Bauman 2000; Beck 2008;
Friedman 2007; Hannerz 1990; Nowicka 2006b; Robertson 1995; Roudometof 2005;
Szerszynski and Urry 2002; Urry 2000, 2007; Vertovec 1999), I have identified global
cosmopolitans to be the ideal context from which to understand how these global trends
are altering the relationships between consumers and space. Global cosmopolitans are a
group of well-educated, middle and upper class consumers who have lived in, and
travelled to, many different countries in search for opportunities, because of career, jobs
and education. Linda Brimm (2010, 3) has said that global cosmopolitans are “members
of a talented population of highly educated, multilingual people who have lived, worked
and studied for extensive periods in different cultures.” They are also known as world
citizens, serial expats and flexible citizens. Global cosmopolitans include travelling
managers of multinationals, consultants, global bureaucrats (e.g. members of the United
Nations, diplomats, global NGOs), academics who have moved for job positions,
students who have moved for better educational opportunities, and independent service
providers (such as architects, accountants and training specialists who shifted countries
and cultures in search of a better life). Although global cosmopolitans have diverse life
trajectories, ethnic backgrounds and mobility paths, they have the following factors in
common(Butcher 2009b, 2011; Nowicka 2006b; Nowicka and Kaweh 2009):
37
1) Exposure to multiple cultural frameworks through their experience in many
different countries;
2) Lack of identification to a single spatial unit (e.g. the concept of home or
nationality is quite complex for them);
3) De-territorialised or multi-territorialised identities;
4) Attraction to global cities and resourceful mega-regions;
5) Capacity and access to mobility (as opposed to immigrants and refugees who
have very limited control over their mobility).
Global cosmopolitans are theoretically relevant to consumer research and
marketing, because in their everyday life they deal with many tensions caused by the
altered notions of time, space and identity discussed above. Their global mobility acts as
a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it guarantees higher wages, better education,
better job offers and other incentives that accompany global capitalism. On the other
hand, it brings a number of challenges associated with being constantly on the move,
namely long-distance relationships, discomfort, fragmented identities and a sense of
displacement (Bardhi 2004; Butcher 2009b; Nowicka 2006a). For example, Bardhi
(2004) argues that they share some alienation from traditional relationships, such as
family and close friendships, due to their extremely mobile lives. Although some might
search for temporary relief in enclaves of expatriate professionals (Thompson and
Tambyah 1999), many still experience discomfort with only superficial temporary
relationships and a sense of not knowing where home is (Tung 1998). Nowicka (2006b)
explains that the confrontation with other’s differences is stressful and that they may
need to find ways to cope with those differences. In other words, mobility creates
multiple tensions in the lives of global cosmopolitans as it changes the organisation of
basic human domains, such as home, daily rhythms and cultural identity. According to
previous research on various types of global cosmopolitans (Bardhi 2004; Butcher
38
2009b; Nowicka 2006b; Thompson and Tambyah 1999), their lives are in constant
tension between the opportunities and threats caused by high mobility.
As consumers, global cosmopolitans are likely to enact the tensions caused by
global mobility in their everyday consumption practices (Thompson and Tambyah
1999). Consumer culture researchers (Epp and Price 2008; Holt and Thompson 2004;
Kates 2002; Kozinets 2002; Thompson and Haytko 1997) have shown that consumers
not only express their identity through consumption, but also use consumption to
manage identity issues and solve tensions in their lives (Holt 1997). For example, Kates
(2002) has shown how gay consumers use products and brands to express, accept,
challenge and reproduce their subculture. Similarly, Thompson and Haytko (1997, 15)
have explored the ways by which consumers use fashion discourses to “negotiate key
existential tensions.” Based on these studies on consumption culture theory, this study
hypothesises that the marketplace is an important arena where global cosmopolitans
articulate their ways of being in the world and dealing with it. As a result, consumption
is not only a way of expressing, but also of constituting their identity and of managing
differences (Butcher 2011).
Most importantly, global cosmopolitans represent a very important movement of
people, not so much for the size of their population, but mainly for their strategic
placement in the intersection of cultural borders and money. To use Appadurai’s (1999)
terms, global cosmopolitans represent an ethnoscape (a transnational group of people
constantly in flow) that seeks, and is most successful in, environments where there is
concentration of global resources (money, career opportunities, cultural and social
capital, technologies and infrastructure). Due to this, global cosmopolitans’ paths
juxtapose major finanscapes (global movements of capital), ideoscapes (global
movements of ideas), technoscapes (global movements of technologies) and
mediascapes (global movements of media images). When global cosmopolitans are not
39
in movement, they dwell in global cities and in mega-regions, the hubs of global
integration, attracted by their economic, social and cultural resources (Sassen 1991).
Consequently, global cosmopolitans’ trajectories are quite central to understanding the
world in flow and the altered temporal, spatial and identity-related dimensions of
consumptionscapes (global movements of goods and services).
What makes it interesting to study global cosmopolitans now is their relevant
role in facilitating the expansion of capitalism. This expansion is propelled by powerful
globalising forces, such as a) the proliferation of transnational corporations that demand
a mobile professional workforce (Sklair 2001); b) the spread of cosmopolitanism
(Delanty 2006); c) the increased interconnectivity in the mediascapes and technoscapes
(Appadurai 1990), which allows global cosmopolitans to have access to images and
stories from around the globe and to keep a sustained network of relationships; d) and
the culture-ideology of consumerism (Sklair 2001), which refers to “a coherent set of
practices, attitudes and values, based on advertising and the mass-media but permeating
the whole social structure, that encourages ever-expanding consumption of consumer
goods” (Sklair 1994, 177). The connections between global cosmopolitans and the
ideology of consumerism is another indication that an analysis of consumption practices
of global cosmopolitans will be fruitful in terms of helping reveal more about the
impacts of capitalist globalisation.
Furthermore, global cosmopolitans’ frequent movement drives them to learn
skills to cope with the ever-changing nature of their lives. In order to master the cultural
juggling needed to constantly adapt to new cultures and new situations, global
cosmopolitans try to develop strategies (conscious and unconscious ways of coping with
a new environment) which, once successful, might help them prosper in the global
capitalist arena of late modernity.
40
However, there is a dearth of studies that investigate the consumption practices
of global cosmopolitans. Exceptions can be found in the studies of Bardhi and
colleagues (2004, 2006; Bardhi et al. 2012) and Thompson and Tambyah (1999). Bardhi
(2004) focuses her research on developing concepts of anchoring points and anchoring
mechanisms, which help transnational mobile professionals to manage and link their
identity to places and relationships. Bardhi, Eckhart and Arnould (2012) discuss liquid
relationships to possessions as a new type of relationship to possessions that is
characteristic of liquid (late) modernity. Another study, conducted by Thompson and
Tambyah (1999) discusses the cosmopolitan aspect of expatriate lives in Singapore, by
exploring some of the tensions between dwelling and travelling faced by the consumer,
and the opportunities for self-development brought about by the consumption of cultural
diversity. While these studies are able to shed some light on the cultural dynamics of
global cosmopolitans, many questions are left unanswered, especially regarding the
links between changes in their perception of time, space and identity, their consumption
practices and the globalising logic of capitalism.
41
3. Methods and Empirical Context
To recap, the research question is “How does the global mobility of consumers
affect their consumption practices?” This is subdivided into two questions: “How does
the global mobility of consumers affect their notions of time, space and identity?” and
“How do these shifts in their notions of time, space and identity affect their
consumption practices?”
This study follows the CCT (Consumer Culture Theory) tradition, which
addresses the “sociocultural, experiential, symbolic and ideological aspects of
consumption” (Arnould and Thompson 2005, 868). Specifically, this approach is
aligned with the “mass-mediated marketplace ideologies and consumers’ interpretive
strategies” research program, which focuses on the influence that “cultural globalization
exerts upon consumer identity projects and identity-defining patterns of social
interaction in distinctive social contexts” (p. 874). Researchers in this program have
tended to use qualitative techniques, because the studied sociocultural dimensions of
consumption may not be clearly observable through experiments, surveys or database
modelling.
3.1 Methodological approach
Given that mobility shifts notions of time and space, studying it requires
adapting current methods. I used a combination of two methodological approaches: the
Extended Case Method (ECM) and global ethnography, both developed by Burawoy
and colleagues (Burawoy 1998, 2000). During the data collection and analysis, these
two techniques guided the general approach of the researcher and the questions to the
42
data.
The ECM has become the preferred methodology for “researching global
questions about markets and cultures from an interpretive perspective” (Cayla and
Eckhardt 2008, 218). The ECM selects cases that are atypical, that is, that are not
contemplated by current theory. Global mobility is atypical because it has not been
empirically investigated in marketing and consumer research (which is the argument of
the previous chapters), and the global cosmopolitans are ideal because they provide the
most appropriate context for studying global mobility of late modernity. In some ways,
they can even be considered to provide an “extreme context” of global mobility in late
modernity (Arnould et al. 2006), which is considered useful to theorisation under the
ECM. During the entire time of the research, and especially during the analysis phase,
the questions that guided the researcher’s attention were: How can these findings fit
current theories? How and when do they not fit? How do findings from the selected
context improve our understandings of larger issues?
Global ethnography is an ethnographic method that tries to examine grounded
phenomena (consumption practices, in this case) from a different perspective, one that is
not concerned with matters of locality, but that instead highlights the connection, forces
and imaginations that link the observed phenomenon with others in different parts of the
world. At each decision about the methods and analysis, the methodological questions
guiding the processes were: How are consumption practices of global cosmopolitans
connected over distances? What forces are driving them to be the way they are? Which
imaginations are they producing and living in?
3.2 Data collection and procedures
The data collection includes two sets of data: in-depth interviews and data
43
collected in a multi-sited ethnography of a community of global cosmopolitans. In the
next paragraphs, I discuss each of these two methods.
3.2.1 In-depth interviews: Understanding their global mobility from their point of
view
My first task was to familiarise myself with the worldview held by global
cosmopolitans, trying to understand how they see global mobility in their lives. To
complete this task and to avoid analytically cutting off important issues related to global
mobility, I tried to first understand it through the eyes of the people who experience it
every day: the global cosmopolitans. Therefore, I started with a loose definition of
global cosmopolitans, taken from the review of the literature (Bardhi et al. 2012; Brimm
2010; Butcher 2011; Nowicka 2006b). Based on theoretically relevant basic
characteristics (i.e. having a tertiary degree of education, having lived in at least three
different countries in the previous ten years, and having moved because of jobs or
educational opportunities—voluntarily), I selected the first group of people to be
interviewed. Using in-depth phenomenological interviews (Thompson, Locander, and
Pollio 1989; Thompson, Pollio, and Locander 1994), I interviewed seven global
cosmopolitans, trying to vary their nationality, ethnic background, life history and
mobility patterns across the globeas much as possible. By varying national and ethnic
background, I managed to create a multicultural group. Diversity of origin and ethnicity
was especially useful at the analysis stage, when I looked at the intersections between
national identities and global cosmopolitan identities of participants. Using non-
structured interview techniques, I asked them to tell me about their life history,
motivations for moving, relationships and consumption patterns. The information that
44
emerged from these interviews provided the basis for the creation of a flexible interview
guide that used their own terms and information to produce a pool of possible questions
(see Appendix B).
With a better idea of what to ask and in possession of a pool of possible
questions to ask, I interviewed 41 people in order to gain a deeper understanding of
their world. Specifically, I re-interviewed the same seven people once more, and
conducted 34 additional interviews, totalling 36 interviews with 41 interviewees (five
couples were interviewed together, in five interviews). While snowball sampling was
used in the beginning, following a minimum set of criteria (i.e. having a tertiary degree
of education, having lived in at least three different countries in the previous ten years,
and having moved because of jobs or educational opportunities—voluntarily), the
subsequent interviews followed purposeful sampling, using theoretical tenets and results
from preliminary analysis to guide the selection of interviewees. “The process of data
collection is controlled by emerging theory” (Glaser and Strauss 1998, 45); therefore, it
is based on concepts that emerged from the analytical process “and that appear to have
relevance to the analysis” (Strauss and Corbin 1990, 201). The aim of theoretical
sampling is to create opportunities to “compare events, incidents or happenings to
determine how a category varies in terms of its properties and dimensions” (Strauss and
Corbin 1990, 202). The main criteria for theoretical sampling came from the analysis on
the three analytic categories: time, home (as a subcategory of space) and cultural
identity (as a category of identity), and the wish to better understand the preliminary
findings. I also tried to increase the ethnic and national diversity of the initial sample.
The bulk of the interviews followed McCracken’s (1988b) model of the long
interview, beginning with general questions before addressing questions more directly
related to the thesis. Introductory questions address the individual’s life trajectory: “I
would like you to tell me about the different places you have lived and the motivations
45
for moving.” The role of the interviewer was to stimulate personal recall and the
narration of firsthand experience. It is a type of oral history (Elliott and Davies 2006,
246), which gives the researcher access to people’s memories about their past and its
impact on their present.
Examples of more specific questions related to the challenges of moving and
living outside the country of origin and the consumption practices associated with these
altered relationships with time-space include: “What is home for you? Where is home
for you? What were the major challenges when you moved to X? Please describe the
experiences when you arrived at Z? Have your home-making habits changed from
moving to X to Z? What does your mobility mean to you? In which ways do you think
it affects who you are and what you do? How often do you see your family and
relatives?” Examples of more specific questions related to consumption practices are:
“What are your favourite objects? How have your consumption habits changed because
of your mobility patterns? How does your experience with different cultures affect your
shopping?” The objective of these interviews was to dive deeply into the emic meanings
associated with their personal stories, motivations, worldview, and consumption
practices. A short questionnaire was used together with the interviews to collect some
demographics.
All of the interviews comprised over 55 hours of recorded dialogue. All
interviews were conducted by this researcher. They were digitally recorded and
transcribed verbatim, resulting in 1,225 double-spaced pages of text. All names and
other identifying information were changed. See the appendix for a summary profile of
research participants.
46
3.2.2 Ethnographic data
Whilst I was conducting the in-depth interviews, I simultaneously used a second
method of data collection: a multi-sited ethnographic research for 2.5 years, with a
community of global cosmopolitans called “InterNations,” which has online and offline
features, and more than 200,000 active members in 230 local communities based in
large cities around the world. The choice of ethnography as a method is explained
below.
3.2.3 From ethnography to multi-sited ethnography
The study is shaped as an ethnography (Arnould and Wallendorf 1994), in the
sense that the focus is on describing and interpreting a cultural or social group.
Ethnography was the chosen methodology, as it allows for a deeper immersion in the
others’ worlds in order to grasp what they experience as meaningful and important
(Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw 1995). It helps the researcher to explain consumption
practices of members of a collectivity according to their own indigenous concepts and
definitions. Since practices are not only described but also (and mainly) performed,
ethnography is arguably the most appropriate methodology for this investigation, as it
encompasses not only interviews (i.e. what is said), but also observations (i.e. what is
done) (Arnould and Wallendorf 1994). Sherry (2008) describes the strong points of
ethnography as the four I’s: immersion, immediacy (interactive and progressive
contextualised), intimacy (sensitised concepts) and insight (of emic meanings).
Ethnography involves “the deep understanding of the lived experience of people as it
unfolds in a particular cultural context, and the representation of that understanding in
47
ways that are faithful to that experience” (Sherry 2008, 86). Ethnographies are
“interpretations of the interpretations people make of their situations” (Miles and
Huberman 1994, 299). Traditionally, ethnography has been used to study cultures that
were somehow constricted to and by territory. Even in consumer research, it has mostly
been used to study territorially bounded groups, located in a certain area, region or
neighbourhood (Elliott and Jankel-Elliott 2003).
In recent years, ethnographic methods have developed in order to encompass not
only traditionally structured groups, but also more loosely defined groups of people,
such as the research on the Harley Davidson community (Schouten and McAlexander
1995) and youth culture (Kjeldgaard and Askegaard 2006). Due to their own nature (of
being mobile), global cosmopolitans are spread out around the world and are constantly
moving. What brings them together as a group are “practices, bodies of knowledge,
conventions and lifestyles that have developed in ways which have become increasingly
independent of nation states” (Featherstone 1995, 114). Some may even have difficulty
in calling a specific country their home. Many consider themselves more as citizens of
the world than part of a local community (Thompson and Tambyah 1999) and they
might identify with other transnational mobile professionals. Global cosmopolitans, as a
group of mobile people, complicate the task of setting boundaries to the ethnographic
study. Thus, multi-sited ethnography has helped the researcher deal with this
shortcoming of ethnography.
3.2.4 Multi-sited ethnography as a method of data collection
Multi-sited ethnography is a method that follows “chains, paths, threads,
conjunctions or juxtapositions of location in which the ethnographer establishes some
48
form of literal presence with an explicit, posited logic of association or connection
among sites” (Marcus 1998, : 90). It provides the methodological basis for this study, as
it outlines strategies of following people, objects, stories and metaphors across different
sites to construct a flexible and multiple field of research. In multi-sited ethnography,
the notion of site is highly flexible. Sites of cultural activity might encompass virtual
and physical spaces, archival and promotional material, discourses, images, objects, or
flows of information and resources. In multi-sited ethnography “objects of study are
mobile and multiply situated” (Kjeldgaard, Csaba, and Ger 2006, 527).
Although multi-sited ethnography is often a method of the global ethnography
approach (as is the case with this thesis), I make a conceptual differentiation. Global
ethnographies can be reached through other methodologies, other than multi-sited
ethnography. A single-sited ethnography can serve the purpose of solving global issues,
if the set of analytic questions are appropriately framed. In turn, a multi-sited
ethnography may never go beyond the comparison among sites. As affirmed by
Burawoy (Burawoy 2000, 39), “It is only through the study of global connections that
multi-sitedness becomes the object of theorisation.” Accordingly, although global and
multi-sited are usually the approach and the method respectively, it is worth
differentiating them, for clarity.
I conducted a multi-sited ethnography (Marcus 1995) with a community of
global cosmopolitans called InterNations. This method is the most appropriate to
provide answers to the research question since “the essence of multi-sited research is to
follow people, connections, associations, and relationships across space (because they
are substantially continuous but spatially non-contiguous)” (Falzon 2009, 2). The multi-
sited ethnography involved multiple means of data collection, which allowed for the
triangulation of findings: a) in order to understand more about their shared practices,
symbolic meanings and valorised stories, I conducted participant observation of their
49
monthly gatherings in local communities grounded in two very multicultural cities:
Sydney, Australia and Toronto, Canada, which are well-known for having a high
number of foreign-born inhabitants. A typical gathering in these two cities has more
than 100 people from at least 30 different nationalities. During the meetings, they
discuss their global and local cultural experiences and the majority of shared stories
involve the consumption of products, services, media, places and experiences. b) I
conducted online ethnography, or Netnography (Kozinets 2010), to capture consumers’
online interactions on the InterNations website; and c) I conducted in-person, informal
interviews with community members to help understand their life histories, motivations
for moving, mobility patterns, worldview and consumption practices in each location.
3.2.5 Field sites
I chose to use two grounded communities (the one in Sydney and the one in
Toronto) and one virtual community (the online overall community of InterNations) as
sites of engagement. The choice of grounded communities (Sydney and Toronto) was
based on accessibility for the researcher, and on the fact that both cities rank among the
top ten in ethnic diversity and welcome factor (Florida 2008), and both share public
policies that openly aim to attract skilled labour (Salt 1997) within national
governments (Australia and Canada) that are aligned with the cities’ policies. Besides,
both cities have large percentages of people who were not born in the country—33% for
Sydney (ABS 2007) and 49% for Toronto (Census 2006), which adds to their
multicultural character. These characteristics help to ensure that the communities are
good representatives of the intersection between global mobility and the needs of
capitalism for flexible labour, which is a key point in situating this research in the late
phase of capitalism (Jameson 1991).
50
I also chose to research the online community, because it is where one can see
the integration between the individuals from various communities (which follows the
general principle of global ethnography of focusing on connections and imaginations).
Moreover, the online/offline characteristic is akin to the experiences of blurred spaces
reported by global cosmopolitans in their interviews, and thus it allows better
understanding of how global cosmopolitans bond and reconnect across distances.
3.2.6 Participant observation and informal interviews
The monthly gatherings organised by InterNations provided rich sites from
which to observe global cosmopolitans interacting among themselves. Although they
have events happening every month in each of their city-communities, I concentrated
my fieldwork in the two field sites (Toronto and Sydney). Occasional visits to other
grounded communities of InterNations (e.g. Munich and Sao Paulo) helped to create the
basis for comparison and contrast, but they were not considered as sites of engagement
of the researcher. In the studied communities, gatherings lasted four to five hours and
took placeat a different venue each time (bar, club, restaurant, etc.). The idea of moving
gatherings reinforces the need to adopt methodologies that are not constrained by
territories or fixed boundaries.
Participant observation included immersion in the communities’ activities with
two goals in mind: to engage with global cosmopolitans’ world and to observe people,
interactions and activities. During these activities, I conducted informal interviews with
other members of the community during casual conversations. During the whole period
of contact, global cosmopolitans seemed to be happy to be asked about the places they
have lived and the challenges they have had in their lives and they engage easily with
these topics.
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3.2.7 Netnographic data
Netnography (Kozinets 2010) is the adaptation of ethnographic methodologies
to the virtual space. The purpose of Netnography here is to help the researcher’s
immersion in the world of global cosmopolitans. It is justified in this case because
highly mobile people are likely to maintain their transnational connections via the
Internet, as they have reported in the interviews. Participation in the online medium
helped to familiarise the researcher with global cosmopolitans’ stories concerning
challenges and difficulties they face, as well as with the ways global cosmopolitans
manage their relationships across borders and create new spaces. The data corresponds
to forum posts, online conversations, personal webpages and photographs, all connected
via the social media website run by InterNations (www.internations.org).
3.2.8 Access to the field sites and the role of the researcher
Before I started conducting this research, I had lived outside of my country of
origin three times for periods of over six months. Then I moved to another country
(Australia) to undertake my PhD studies and during my studies, I moved abroad
(Canada) for five months to take extra coursework and to conduct part of my fieldwork.
Thus, I can be called a global cosmopolitan myself (or I turned into one during my
doctoral research). My global mobility patterns have granted me easy access to the
people and sites under investigation, as they saw me as one of them. On the other hand,
52
when interpreting the data, there were moments when I had to look for secondary data,
interview negative cases, and talk to other researchers (who were not global
cosmopolitans) to help me get some distance from the data. For instance, in the later
stages of the analysis, I had to adopt a critical view of global cosmopolitanism, which
continuously forced me to search for alternative views to the ones offered by global
cosmopolitans. I found these in research conducted with other (non-global
cosmopolitan) mobile populations (e.g.: D'Andrea 2007) and less mobile consumers
(e.g. the immigrant literature in general), and by theoretically sampling for different
cases. For example, the last two people interviewed (number 40 and 41) were a couple
who were mobile (but not globally mobile). They lived in a mobile home (a modified
caravan) across Australia. They were not members of a group of highly skilled workers,
so they provided some contrast to the global cosmopolitan ideology, by offering a
global nomadic perspective (of those who, instead of being inserted in the logics of late
capitalist, live in the margins of it). These procedures helped me to gain the critical
distance necessary to overcome my proximity to the studied context and to construct a
sharper analysis.
3.3 Data analysis
The analysis was conducted with a focus on three cultural categories that help
structure consumption: home (as a category of place/space), temporal frameworks (as a
category of time) and cultural identity (as a category of identity). Each analytical
category is reported as a separate finding chapter (Chapters 4, 5 and 6).
To analyse the in-depth interviews, I first followed a hermeneutic approach
(Thompson and Haytko 1997; Thompson et al. 1994) in which “personal
understandings are always situated within a network of culturally shared knowledge,
53
beliefs, ideals, and taken-for-granted assumptions about the nature of social
life”(Thompson et al. 1994, 433). For that, I used InterNations as an interpretive
community, which helped me to understand and frame cultural meanings of
consumption practices as they emerge from the interviews and to re-structure the
interview guide to reflect these new understandings. The use of processes of
comparison, dimensionalisation and integration in an iterative mode (Spiggle 1994)
created the necessary conditions to compare and contrast consumers’ histories of living
in different countries and find the most relevant themes in each analytical category. For
example, when interviewees talked about time, they discussed how different mobility
rhythms affected the way they consumed. The issues raised in the interviews were then
taken to informal conversations at the community gatherings, where members were able
to comment on and agree or disagree with some of the findings. This helped to produce
more accurate interviews, which in turn, created a new set of answers, which were taken
to the community and revised. At each iteration, I was able to gain deeper knowledge of
the phenomenon and to check if the thematic categorisation I was creating was actually
sound.
As for the multi-sited ethnographic data, as is typical of ethnographic research,
data analysis was iterative and continuous (Arnould and Wallendorf 1994). Analysis
began with the analysis of discourses and practices collected in each site of engagement.
Then, it continuously moved back and forth across data from each site of engagement,
with the organisation of the data into categories and themes representing key research
themes, recurring discourses and consumption practices, identity-related practices, shifts
in spatial construction of home and shifts in time perception.
To integrate all data, I used the Extended Case Method. Burawoy’s (1998)
method was useful to conceptually move from micro to macro analysis. The method
starts out with a dialogue between observer and participants, then “embeds such
54
dialogue within a dialogue between local processes and extra local forces that in turn
can be comprehended only through a third, expanding dialogue of theory with itself”
(Burawoy 2009, : 20). Following Holt (2002), I applied ECM analysis in two steps: 1)
first, analytical reduction of contextualised data across time and space to extract the key
consumption practices and underlying narratives (micro-themes), which in this case are
the ones related to global mobility in each analytical category; and 2) the weaving of the
compacted data with macro-theories that are relevant to global consumer culture and
consumption in late modernity.
The method is useful because the stories and practices of global cosmopolitan
consumers are different from other consumers considered in current macro-theories,
forcing existing theory to be extended or modified to account for these differences. The
value of the Extended Case Method is that it re-situates the findings about the global
cosmopolitans’ world (e.g. their altered notions of time, space and identity) in the
bigger picture by asking: How do these findings challenge our current knowledge of
consumer research theories? How do they address the shifting conditions of rising
global mobility and global interconnectedness? It is the simultaneous weaving of local
results with theory on the one hand, and with macro-trends on the other hand, that
ground the Extended Case Method and provide its strength.
3.4 Ethical issues
All the necessary ethical procedures (see Appendix A) were taken care of to
guarantee that there is non-coercive recruitment of participants, that their privacy and
confidentiality are protected, and that each participant is informed about their rights to
leave the process whenever they want. The UNSW Ethics Committee has approved the
55
proposed way of obtaining regular consent forms for the interviews (Approval No:
09666) and for the ethnographic study with InterNations (Approval No. 106069),
considering them of “minimal ethical impact.” The purpose and nature of the research
are always disclosed to the participants and they were allowed to withdraw from the
research at any time, if they wished to. Feedback and access to the results of the study
will also be made available to participants at the completion of the research.
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4. Global Mobility and Time
4.1 Introduction
When one thinks of geographical mobility, one tends to focus on spatial instead
of temporal dimensions. However, global mobility has to do as much with time as with
space. Global mobility creates new relationships to temporal dimensions and distorts
old ones (Urry 2000). In this chapter, I examine the impact of global mobility on time-
related consumption practices. As a source of stability, time helps to structure
consumers’ lives. When the mobility of consumers’ lives changes their relationship with
time, what happens to their consumption practices? This chapter contributes to
answering two related questions: How does the global mobility of consumers affect
their notions of time? And how do these shifts in their notions of time affect their
consumption practices?
I argue that global mobility destabilises the customary ways time structures
consumers’ activities and behaviours, and that it does so through three different – but
complementary – disassembling processes: the fragmentation of meanings, the
multiplication of structures and the disembedding of activities. The taken-for-granted
way of organising activities around certain hours, periods, cycles and events, which is
characteristic of routine living in local contexts, becomes jeopardised by the mobile
conditions and multiple frameworks of the global cosmopolitan life.
In addition, I show that there are two important consequences of these processes.
On the one hand, consumers must engage in various strategies to coordinate the
fragmented, multiple and disembedded time-related activities and to manage the extra
workload this coordination requires (e.g. the coordinating effort someone who lives and
57
works in various countries must take in order to manage the different time structures
present in different geographies). These strategies often use temporal coordinating
mechanisms to help coordinate consumers’ activities (e.g. Google calendar). On the
other hand, new time structures and new relationships to time may be created by global
mobility. I show that these time structures and relationships (e.g. mobility cycles) can
offer alternative points around which consumers’ activities may be organised, which in
turn reduces the coordinating workload caused by mobility. In the section related to the
research findings about time, I develop this argument further and provide evidence to
support its logic.
Before presenting the findings, I first provide an overview of the issues about
time in late modernity. Next, I quickly review issues involving time in consumer
research, and then I present some conceptualisations of time that guide the interpretation
of findings.
4.2 Time in modernity and late modernity
Time must be understood as a product of human construction and history.
Durkheim (2001) argues that time is a social institution and that the category of time is
not natural but social. According to him, only humans have a concept of time, and time
in societies is impersonal and abstract and not simply individual. Besides being social,
time is also historical, as notions of social time have changed along with the different
phases of human history (Lash and Urry 1994). British historian E.P. Thompson (1967)
argues that an orientation to time becomes the critical characteristic of industrial
capitalism and that pre-modern societies had notions of time very different from the
ones that developed during modernity. Whereas pre-modern societies were task
oriented, modern societies are time oriented. Whereas cycles of nature organically
regulated life in pre-modern societies, the clock is the main metaphor for the way time
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coordinates social activities in modernity. Thompson claims that “as the seventeenth
century moves on, the image of clock-work extends, until, with Newton, it has
engrossed the universe” (1967, 67). With modernity and industrial capitalism, the
measurement of time becomes a crucial activity. Benjamin Franklin’s 1748 sentence
“time is money” exemplifies well the growing Protestant ethic and its emphasis on the
idea that time is a resource not to be wasted, something to be frugal with and to be
managed with the utmost diligence (Adam 1990). Scientific management principles
(Taylor 2005) have their origins in the search for efficiency in factories through the
measurement and control of time.
Giddens (1991, 17) explains that “the wide-spread use of mechanical timing
devices facilitated, but also presumed, deeply structured changes in the tissue of
everyday life – changes which could not only be local, but were inevitably
universalising. A world that has a universal dating system, and globally standardised
time zones, as ours does today, is socially and experientially different from all pre-
modern eras”. Giddens’ comment refers to a number of characteristics that were pivotal
to the functioning of life in modernity; these characteristics were a consequence of time-
space distanciation, namely the disembedding of time from meaningful practices (time
became abstract), the breaking down of time into precisely measured and invariant
units, the widespread use of various means of measuring and showing the passage of
time (clocks, bells, schedules, deadlines, calendars), the synchronised measures of time
across distances (e.g. national territories and even the globe), the use of time as a
resource to be managed and the commoditisation of time (Lash and Urry 1994; Urry
2000).
With time-space distanciation, spatial mobility becomes both “the pre-requisite
for and the consequence of social interaction” (Beckmann 2001, 597), because time-
space distanciation involves people developing the ability to perform their social
59
obligations and maintain their ties and networks over a much more extended span of
space (Giddens 1990). Similarly, mobility is also seen as a key ingredient in the
compression of time-space, which is discussed by Harvey (1999). The compression of
time-space refers to the “incremental rate at which transportation has continued to bring
places together by gradually shortening the amount of time it takes to get between
them” (Janelle 1968). The growth of nineteenth-century railway networks and
twentieth-century automobile and airplane networks “established the material
foundation that enabled one to speed their body across space, while altering one’s sense
of it as they did so” (Adey 2009, 198). Therefore, time-space compression “pushes
places together” by making it easier for people to go from one place to another (Adey
2009). This compression also has consequences for human relationships, as distance
becomes less and less important in structuring them, and for capitalism, given the
“considerable pressure to accelerate the velocity of circulation of capital, because to do
so is to increase the sum of values produced and the rate of profit” (Harvey 1999, 86).
In sum, both Harvey and Giddens, through the articulation of different concepts, show
that mobility, as a key force of modernity, establishes different relationships among
people: in conditions of mobility, relationships need temporal coordination and are less
dependent on space.
In late modernity, mobility is intensified to a much higher degree. In the era of
the Internet we approach a period of what Urry (2000, 126) calls instantaneous time, a
period of new informational and communication technologies based upon
“inconceivably brief instants which are wholly beyond human consciousness”. This
period has the “simultaneous character of social and technical relationships which
replaces the linear logic of clock-time” and involves the “widespread significance of
exceptionally short term and fragmented time, even when it is not instantaneous and
simultaneous”. Urry (2000) highlights some of the characteristics of instantaneous time:
60
a) a collage effect: once events have become more important than location, their
presentation in the media takes the form of the juxtaposition of stories, which have in
common only the fact they are newsworthy. This serves to abstract events from context
and narrative; b) a global present: distant events intrude in everyday life; c) a
throwaway society: products, jobs, values and personal relationships are markedly
temporary, and products, places and images are increasingly disposable; d) dissolution
of the future in an extended present: people no longer find certainty in the future and the
new generations do not seem to have “long-term plans or dreams of the future” (p.129);
and e) de-synchronisation: the time-paths of individuals are often desynchronised.
Although the social sciences have suggested that time in late modernity
possesses characteristics different from time in modernity, caused by the increase in
time-space distanciation and compression, discussions are usually held on the
theoretical level. The dearth of empirical work exploring time in late modernity has
probably to do with the scope of the subject (macro) and the nature of time (intangible).
Nevertheless, I believe global mobility can illuminate the ways late modernity produces
different ways of relating to time and the consequences of these new relationships for
consumption.
4.3 Time in Consumer Research
Marketing scholars and consumer researchers have long been concerned with
issues involving time (Jacoby, Szybillo, and Berning 1976). Many products and
services, such as bank loans, travel and life insurance, are closely linked to time
considerations. Many consumption processes depend on time as an input (e.g. fast food
vs. home cooking), buying decisions are situated in a temporal frame and various
consumption situations are embedded in time.
Although time has been discussed through many different lenses and in many of
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its dimensions, two major ways of looking at time are distinguishable. On the one hand,
some studies have considered time as an objective variable. Rooted in economics, these
studies have looked at time as something that can be objectively measured. The main
“focus in the ‘commodity’ paradigm of time was on time-use patterns and how
consumers spend time on activities relating to consumption such as information search,
acquisition, purchase decision, and consumption itself (Usunier and Valette-Florence
2007). Researchers in this stream have investigated the relationships between
consumption and the duration of various activities (e.g. shopping, watching TV
commercials, waiting in queues, planning a purchase, trying a new product). They have
also looked at the way shopping patterns vary depending on the time of the day, season
of the year, family life cycle and other cyclical dimensions of time. In economics, time
is understood as a utility that can be measured in countable units and traded. It is scarce,
and for that reason it has exchange value and can be spent or saved (Hornik 1984;
Nickols and Fox 1983; Strober and Weinberg 1980).
On the other hand, since the 1980s many marketing and consumer researchers
have begun to consider time as a subjective framework that shapes behaviour.
Consumers’ perceptions of time inform their attitudes, actions and decisions regarding
what and how to consume. For example, researchers have developed the concept of
timestyles to refer to the perceptual time patterns that consumers develop (Usunier and
Valette-Florence 1994). Timestyles “are the customary ways in which people perceive
and use time” (Cotte, Ratneshwar, and Mick 2004, 333). They express the different
orientations consumers have in terms of the way they deal with time in their everyday
lives. For example, Cotte et al. examine timestyles through four different dimensions:
social orientation (time for me, time for others); temporal orientations (past, future,
present); planning orientation (analytic and spontaneous); and polychronic orientation
(monochronic, or one-thing-at-a-time, and multitasking styles). Usunier and Florence
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(2007) also elaborate on timestyles, although they use slightly different dimensions,
which include not only temporal orientations, but also other timestyle dimensions such
as preference for organised or unorganised time, compliance with time (i.e. time
submissiveness and time anxiety) and motivational aspects of time (i.e. tenacity and
preference for quick return). Timestyles are a useful tool for creating typologies and
segments of consumers of time-loaded products and services such as banks.
Subjective time can be understood not only as a psychological and individual
experience, but also as a socially and culturally constructed phenomenon. Sociology and
anthropology tend to view perceptions of time as notions that have developed culturally,
through socialisation and sharing. According to Usunier and Florence (2007, 333),
“individuals have their own attitudes to time and time management, which result from
their personality traits but also from the particular national/cultural group in which they
have been raised. Consequently, they have developed a view of what time is and how it
should be managed in terms of ‘synchronization with others’ within the native group”.
Usunier and Florence add that “synchronization, which in Greek means developing a
common time framework, is the key learning process through which people develop
beliefs, attitudes and behaviours in relation to time. Time-loaded activities display both
cultural and individual variability”.
The authors have conducted studies in various countries to test their timestyle
scale, showing that timestyles vary also at the national level.
In the same vein, Graham (1981) discusses three perceptual models of time, each
of which corresponds to a cultural legacy. In the linear-separable time, or Anglo time,
the past is gone, the individual must be prepared for the future, there is an idea of
progress and time is money. In the circular-traditional, or mañana model, individuals
want to live for the day, time is abundant and there is no clear idea of progress. Finally,
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in the procedural-traditional model, the model of traditional tribal societies, there are
ethical prohibitions against haste, and rituals and cosmic time are important. These
studies emphasise that time is not just an individual perception, but a collectively shared
notion. The latter concept of time is the one I use in this dissertation. Thus, I look at
time’s social dimension, its “social function in so far as it allows people to have a
common organisation of activities and helps synchronize individuals behaviours”
(Usunier and Valette-Florence 1994, 220). Following Bergadaà (2007, 388), “time is
not considered here as a variable, but as a framework for action”. Each time framework
organises a number of behaviours and social activities (e.g. eating, cooking, shopping
and playing). Consequently, changes in the framework are likely to affect the way social
life is organised.
The literature review on consumer research has shown that studies rarely
historicise time. In other words, the way the literature analyses time tends to follow a
modern frame and fails to acknowledge its own compliance with certain tenets of
modernity that assume time is a resource that must be managed and controlled. Since
the purpose of this study is to use the concept of mobility to provide insights into late
modernity, historicising becomes a condition of understanding the changes we are
observing now.
4.4 Time and Consumer Movement
In order to understand the role of global mobility in restructuring time-related
activities, it is also important to review the studies that have discussed relationships
between time and movement, that is, studies that are part of the literature on consumer
migration and acculturation. In this literature, two time-related issues tend to be
emphasised: differences in time perceptions between homeland and host culture, and
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feelings of nostalgia towards the homeland. For instance, Askegard et al. (2005) discuss
the differences between Danish time (of punctuality and velocity) and Greenlandic
“natural” time. The tempo of life is considered a major difference between the two
cultures. For example, Greenlandic time is dependent on natural conditions and
spontaneity; Danish time is planned and scheduled. In natural time, one celebrates when
there is food, instead of having food when there is leisure and socialisation, as in Danish
time (Askegaard, Kjeldgaard, and Arnould 2010).
Another central time-related theme in this literature is nostalgia, that is, the
longing for the past, which for some immigrants is also a longing for a past, generally
constructed as ideal, that is located somewhere else (i.e. in the homeland). Consumer
nostalgia has been defined as a “preference towards experiences associated with objects
(people, places or things) that were more common (popular, fashionable or widely
circulated) when one was younger” (Holbrook and Schindler 2003, 108). Various
studies in consumer research have shown how nostalgia may result in consumers buying
products and services to feel closer to their roots (Schindler and Holbrook 2003) or to
feel that they belong to a group (Loveland, Smeesters, and Mandel 2010), such as an
immigrant community. Similarly, consumers may long for the time framework itself.
For example, Peñaloza’s (1994) informants contrast the “run, run” time of Americans
with the much-missed “enjoyable” time of Mexico. They are nostalgic for the Mexican
way of perceiving time. In this case, ethnicity is also a mode of being in time (e.g. the
mañana attitude) because time orientations also help to define ethnic belonging.
Both themes (i.e. differences between the homeland and host culture and
nostalgia for the homeland) are deeply related to perceptions and feelings towards
symbolic properties of territoriality. If late (liquid) modernity is challenging consumers’
relationships to territoriality (Bauman 2000), it is also likely to challenge consumers’
needs for territorial comparison and feelings of nostalgia for the homeland. However,
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we have little understanding of the contours of these changes. More empirical studies,
such as the one that follows, are necessary to advance knowledge in this area,
4.5 Definitions of terms – conceptions of time
Scholars tend to discuss time using a handful of concepts: clock time, events,
genesis, cyclical time, life cycle, and present-past-future relationships. Appendix D
provides a review of the meanings of each conceptualisation and provides examples that
demonstrate how these conceptions of time help structure consumers’ lives. Despite the
existence of many conceptions of time and individual timestyles, social life is possible
because individuals share temporal frameworks, which refer to the set of assumptions,
conceptions and practices related to time. Shared temporal frameworks are important
because they allow the coordination (i.e. synchronisation and ordering) of various time-
loaded social activities such as eating, playing and shopping. Many consumers’
activities are assembled within specific time frameworks. Christmas, for example, can
be seen as a sequence of consumers’ activities such as shopping, sending cards,
travelling, exchanging gifts, eating and drinking, and taking and uploading pictures.
These activities are organised by a shared time framework. In other words, Christmas
(as a consumption event) is possible because people share a number of assumptions
about what Christmas is, what it involves and how it should be celebrated. Thus,
temporal frameworks organise consumers’ activities.
I now present the findings, where I argue that when consumers move globally,
their temporal frameworks are challenged. Due to global mobility, consumer activities
may disassemble through processes of fragmentation, multiplication and disembedding.
I argue that this disassembling of activities places an extra workload on consumers, who
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must engage in various strategies to manage disassembled activities and rearrange them
within new time frameworks. The findings section provides support for this argument.
4.6 Findings
4.6.1 Fragmentation, multiplication and disembedding
I: So, how does the family get together? So, normally, it’s Christmas in Argentina or Uruguay. We go normally to Punta Del Este and it’s hard, especially for my sister [who lives in London]. She’s a freelance theatre set designer and puppeteer, so she normally has work, she can’t come this Christmas, which is a shame. But my grandparents, they are the ones that are still alive, living in Argentina, so they can go to Uruguay, and my parents rent a house, and we all come together there. Then we try to get my brother [who lives in Switzerland] and sister to come, but it’s always a bit difficult with managing different times. I: So Christmas is always the time to get together? Yeah. I: And you go to Uruguay because your family used to go? Yeah well that’s where we like to go. My dad . . . a lot of my dad’s friends are there and that’s where a lot of my friends go as well and it’s safe, it’s a good alternative in Latin America, like a safe alternative. It’s the Switzerland of Latin America right? So we are safe, yeah. (Vera)
Although Vera’s family is spread around the world, Christmas is a moment of
synchronisation of their activities. Some are able to travel from diverse regions
(Argentina, Australia, the UK, and Switzerland) once a year to spend Christmas
together. Others cannot participate physically but find ways to connect to their family
via telephone or online channels.
I find that global mobility interferes in the way time coordinates consumer
behaviour and social activities through three different – but complementary –
disassembling processes: fragmentation of meanings, multiplication of structures and
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disembedding of activities. Before proceeding to other topics, it is important to clarify
and differentiate these three processes. Fragmentation of meanings refers to processes
by which the meanings of activities once coordinated around a single time notion are
fragmented due to global mobility and separation. For example, if all the members of
Vera’s family cannot come together (and there are always some members who cannot)
their original idea of how to celebrate Christmas is compromised. If Vera cannot join
the others, she will still try to contact them via Skype or email and “celebrate together”,
but the meanings and activities associated with that event become fragmented. In Vera’s
case, to celebrate Christmas is to get together with the extended family. In conditions of
high mobility and distance from family, Christmas may change to gathering around a
computer and talking happily to the screen. This new way of celebrating Christmas may
not hold the same meanings as Christmas did before. At a macro level, Vera and her
family are still living according to the meta-narrative of Christmas. However, mobility
sometimes makes it impossible to celebrate as they used to. Although talking to a screen
might still contain fragments of her “original” idea of Christmas, it does not have the
same meaning. The problem with this fragmentation of meaning is that it is hardly
experienced as liberating (as proclaimed by postmodern theorists). Consumers like Vera
expend great effort to maintain unity of activities and of meaning (e.g. crossing the
world to meet in Uruguay for Christmas to avoid fragmentation). Global cosmopolitans
seem to have modern minds (or to follow modern myths/rituals), seeking coherence,
unity and stability of meaning in a world that is fragmented.
Multiplication of structures refers to processes by which access to different
temporal frameworks multiplies the ways in which activities can be organised around
time. For instance, in Vera’s case, if she decides to stay in Australia for Christmas, she
may celebrate it according to multiple temporal frameworks. She can contact her family
in Uruguay via Google Talk and through telepresence participate in that (fragmented)
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Christmas experience. After talking to her family there she can join her boyfriend to
celebrate a completely separate Christmas with him and his family. The time differences
and the separation of cultural frameworks allow her to celebrate Christmas in these two
ways. Although related to fragmentation of meaning, multiplication of frameworks is a
consequence of mobility and the exposure to multiple ways of life. It generates options
and the potential for more activities. Multiplication is generally framed as a good thing
by informants, who in general valorise having options. However, as the next section
demonstrates, it may be stressful and may demand synchronising efforts.
Disembedding of activities refers to the dissociation of certain social activities
from other activities that were once embedded in the same process or routine and
coordinated around the same notion of time. Or, to use Giddens’ (1991, 21) words,
disembedding is the “lifting out of social relations from local contexts of interaction and
their restructuring across indefinite spans of time-space”. Vera, for example, lived in
Switzerland for many years. Christmas was associated with snow, ice-skating, skying,
drinking hot chocolate and various other consumption activities. Now, her Christmases
are split between the years she is able to go to Uruguay and the years she stays in
Australia. In both countries, winter activities are disembedded from Christmas, since
the holiday occurs in the summer. Vera has learned to associate Christmas with going to
the beach, outdoorsy activities and barbeques. Winter activities have become
disembedded for her notion of Christmas. At the same time, Christmas has become
abstracted from the idea of local activities. The more she moves and the more she
replaces activities, the more Christmas will be dissociated from local activities to
become a deterritorialised abstract event. The disembedding of time-space, which is a
phenomenon of modernity, tends to be even more common in conditions of mobility.
The radicalisation of disembedding is consistent with the assumption that mobility
emulates conditions of late modernity (a period of radicalisation of modern principles).
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4.6.2 Synchronisation of activities and increased consumers’ workload
When consumers move globally, they are exposed to multiple temporal
frameworks. Unlike immigrants, who may deal with two different temporal frameworks
only remotely or psychologically, global cosmopolitans must manage activities that
have to be synchronised across various temporal frameworks. This may increase
consumers’ workload. A simple phone call, which usually demands little effort from
participants, may require attention and coordination if consumers’ social networks are
spread around the globe. When Vera, who lives in Australia, contacts her sister in the
UK, she has to be aware that they are in very different time zones (nine hours apart).
This requires planning and synchronisation for both parties. For instance, in order to
avoid calling her sister in the middle of the night or during her sister’s working hours,
Vera must be constantly aware not only of time differences but also of differences in the
temporal organisation of social life in these two distinct contexts. Similarly, Maria, a
top manager of a global corporation, and Sandra, a Canadian designer, engage in
temporal coordinating activities that demand their time and effort.
There was a project going on in India at the time. So that there just was no point
to do in that project out of London, so I needed to relocate to India for few
months and then come back again. [. . .] I lived in Hong Kong for a while as
well. [ . . .] Three to six months usually on these projects depending on how
complex there and in Chicago as well in the U.S. It was actually really an
uneven time, so I know you can obviously see that it does have an impact all the
time. But at the time it was very accelerating, very exciting, very stimulating
especially when you are, still quite fresh to the industry. [. . .] But over time, yes
it does impact on your ability to maintain close contact with your relationships
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in a regular basis. You just have to try and manage as best as possibly you can. I
used a lot of technology. So Skype and all the others, I have telecom and
facilities usually at my disposal. So I use them quite lot as well also if I am
travelling. [. . .] I use whatever spare time I have waiting in airports, or flying, to
actually write letters to people. And then post them whenever I actually touch
down or spend a few days in a location: to my parents, my sister and my close
family, as well as my partner at the time. So yeah, I spend a lot of time doing
that. (Maria)
In my last job I went to the UK and it was one of those things: I left out on a
Sunday, I had a red eye, I’d go into the office, the London-based office of my
company, I had to go in on a Monday morning, it was like my job, I don’t live
there, you know, I had to check-in in the hotel [. . .] you act like it’s not a big
deal, you get on this plane and you get off , and you are like ‘oh, you’re here?’
No, my world is back home, you know, like my hair dryer doesn’t work here,
that’s a big deal you know? But people act like it’s nothing. ‘Well, it’s just a six
hour flight’. No, it’s more than that. I’ve tried very hard to remind people that –
travel takes a lot out of you, so don’t expect me to [think it is fine] – don’t
schedule things first day Monday morning, that’s not going to happen, Don’t
expect me to feel like I can leave at 5 o’clock Friday and be happy with that,
because it’s going to take me six hours to get home, minus three time zones, I
am in a plane for whole the night and I don’t get the Friday night. ‘So I’m going
to leave at 12 on Friday, not 5, right?’ That’s when you get the weekend. So I do
make a point of saying it does, it is a big deal! (Sandra)
Maria and Sandra provide vivid descriptions of the stress that managing
activities across temporal frameworks causes. Mobility disrupts habits and routines,
forcing consumers to leave the security of their rhythms and engage their attention and
emotion with what they must do to coordinate life. It is not only the coordination of
social networks that puts an extra burden on consumers. Various activities such as
shopping for, storing, using and disposing objects and services may also require extra
coordinating efforts from globally mobile consumers. For example, Maria prefers to use
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“local” Internet pages when sending gifts, because she feels they are more reliable than
global firms in terms of managing delivery times.
So I notice that increasingly with travel, I had to look for different forms of actually doing my shopping. So I do not have the time to go in, as I used to do when I was younger, and browse and enjoy and grab different things; I do most of it via the Internet. And I have been given much more exposure to certain Internet pages, and so forth, through my travels. [. . .] So, exposure, and also the lifestyle, sort of forces you to explore different avenues for it. I: Which avenues? Well, Internet shopping mainly. So I use it for my grocery shopping and for most of my purchases. It’s mostly Internet based. Sending gifts to my various friends and family members I will do via the Internet. And I actually have got Internet pages appropriate for most of the locations rather than using Australian Internet pages. So for my friends in Germany I’ve got German websites. For my friends in Spain I have got Spanish websites and so forth, because locally I know that I can actually rely on them delivering the product at certain times to the households for me. (Maria)
For Maria, gift giving becomes an activity that is segmented by location. She
enjoys it because she can use the knowledge she has about products and countries to
provide the best product and best delivery. While Maria evaluates this multiplication of
ways of gift giving as a positive thing, it also forces her to apply more energy to
coordinate what gifts are sent as well as to whom and where. Her mobile life has
connected her to the Internet, which, in addition to saving time, allows her to avoid the
commoditising and impersonal nature of gift giving and instead to customise her gifts
by furnishing webpages appropriate for each country. Regionalisation, the “zoning of
space and time in relationship to routinised social practices”, has been observed by Lash
and Urry (1994, 232) and Giddens (1984) as consequences of modernity, but what is
interesting here is that the consumer plays along with this zoning and, instead of
breaking with it, emulates the zoning itself. This is notable because the literature on
liquid modernity (Bauman 2000) and postmodernity (Featherstone 2007) usually
presents consumers as liberated to construct new modes of consumption due to the
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multiplications of possible choices. However, her “new mode” of consumption emulates
the zoning and regionalisation characteristic of modern ways of managing time.
It is also common to see global cosmopolitans postponing the purchase of goods
in order to get a better deal somewhere else. Global cosmopolitans’ strong knowledge
of the uneven distribution of resources around the world makes them aware of the
benefits of withholding a purchase until they are able to make it somewhere else. For
instance, when Khaled and Lara were living in Qatar they made recurrent trips to
Canada to visit Khaled’s family. Since products in Canada were much cheaper, they
tended to use these trips to make up for the shopping they avoided in Dubai. Similarly,
global cosmopolitans can wait until they are able to use services located in other
countries because those services are reliable or represent a better deal for them. Here
again, consumers are acting according to modern principles of rationality, adapting to
flexible capitalism. They are gaining value or saving money by identifying the right
time to purchase. And the right time is associated with being in the right place. Mobility
becomes a divisor between here and there, and consequently between the right and
wrong time for purchasing. Thus, consumers are computing their future mobility in their
decision processes not just for money saving, but to find the appropriate time for getting
the most out of a situation.
So in Switzerland I remember every time I would go to Argentina, I would go to the gynaecologist there because I knew him already and he had my records and I only needed to go once a year and it was cheaper because I had the insurance that wasn’t the best in Switzerland. Also because just going to it in Argentina would be cheaper anyway and you don’t need to have health coverage or anything, you just go and pay up front in Argentina. So I did that with the gynaecologist for like a couple of years. (Vera)
Like Vera, many globally mobile consumers use their mobility and their
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knowledge about various places in the world to save money, get better deals or get
better products and services, which seems a very rational way of experiencing the
effects of mobility on consumption. While postponing consumption until a better
opportunity arises provides positive outcomes for consumers, such postponement also
puts an extra burden on them; that is, they must increase their temporal coordination of
these activities to decide what consumer actions to perform, when and where.
4.6.3 Temporal coordinating mechanisms
In order to facilitate the coordination of multiple temporal frameworks,
informants employ various temporal coordinating mechanisms (Massey, Montoya-
Weiss, and Hung 2003), which include strategies, processes, routines or objects that aid
in the effort of synchronisation, scheduling and allocation of time-loaded resources. For
example, some global cosmopolitans keep multiple clocks on the wall, each showing
the current time in a different time zone. While this is a common practice in commercial
business and public spaces, it was interesting to observe it in people’s homes. A
Brazilian-American couple, who are members of InterNations, had three clocks on the
wall of their living room: one showed the time in Sao Paulo, the second the time in Los
Angeles (US) and the third the time in New England (US). These are places where the
couple has extended family, residences and work interests. In the same vein, it was very
common to find informants with multiple clocks on their smartphones and computers.
These were usually places where they had some kind of ongoing social interaction (e.g.
places where the family lived) or places they had lived before. Assembling time-
keeping objects from different time zones is a commonly used practice among
cosmopolitans and has increased with the coupling of mobile technology (e.g.
smartphones) with functions that allow consumers to see the time and weather in
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multiple places of interest. Mobile technological devices that displayed time from
various places were commonly used by the participants in this study.
Certain routines can also be considered coordinating mechanisms. For example,
Carla works as a journalist for an American multinational financial news corporation.
Her job is to follow the stock and commodity markets around the world and provide
financial reports about them.
You look at the stock markets, you look at the commodity, the main commodity indexes, you look at whatever the top news was. The system is set up in such a way to make it easy for you to do all of these things, so you can create a calendar of events throughout the region, so I have a calendar of events through the European Union, US, Australia, China, Japan [...], so it just gives me a table of what's coming out, so you know if you have labour data coming out which is very important, if you have manufacturing data coming up which is very important. You watch for those numbers, you figure out whether it was better than expected, what was worse than expected, what kind of impact they had in the market. So you know you are going to look at the US when you are coming in the morning and throughout the day you are going to figure out what's happening in Australia and then after that and you know the rest of Asia and Europe. So that’s basically how you look at it. (Carla)
Carla has developed a routine that allows her to manage her attention to the
various temporal frameworks of financial markets around the world. In addition, her job
provides her with an electronic schedule of important global financial events that allows
her to track these events and organise them within her local temporal framework. Both
her routines and the electronic organiser she uses to organise the routines are
illustrations of temporal coordinating mechanisms
Global cosmopolitans use temporal coordinating mechanisms to help them
synchronise diverse temporal frameworks (as in Carla’s example), but they also use
disengaging mechanisms to maintain their mobility (i.e. to coordinate activities while
moving). For example, some global cosmopolitans develop portable routines that can
travel with them and that can be performed anywhere, irrespective of local temporal
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frameworks. Sandra explains:
I get up early and work out in the gym, go to work, come back. It’s a routine. I have actually developed my whole routine as not place-dependent, you know. So when you get up in the morning, a kind of routine is good for your body. It’s kind of good for your soul. It can be oppressive at times, but if there’s a healthy balance for the routine, it’s good for you, right? It’s relaxing. [. . .] It also will be the sequence of tasks, the sequence of activities, so like get up, go to the gym, run on the treadmill and do some weights and then go back to the hotel, then have a shower, then put on the nasal, then do my makeup and then my hair, then have breakfast. None of those are dependent on my house or this café; I carry all of those variables with me as I go. So I’ve got my iPod, I’ve got my external speaker, I’ve got my work out gear, I know exactly how to change my workout depending on the gym, once every gym has a cardio machine and some form of weights and so I can like change it depending. It’s very helpful when I keep that kind of routine. (Sandra).
Sandra’s portable routines work as disengaging mechanisms because they allow
her to be independent (to a certain extent) from local routines and frameworks. There
are a number of objects that facilitate portability and disengagement. These objects can
either be portable (e.g. iPod, speakers, makeup) or easily replaceable by similar objects
with identical functions (i.e. she can execute this routine as long as every hotel has a
gym, an energy plug, a shower and a treadmill).
Sandra and Carla show how consumers may use temporal coordinating
mechanisms to organise individual activities across temporal frameworks or while
moving. However, synchronisation may also occur on a collective level, since many
activities performed by one consumer are related to activities performed by other
consumers in different temporal frameworks. For example, Sandra and her husband are
constantly apart because of their travelling. They must find ways of coordinating their
calendars in order to follow each other’s lives.
We have a shared calendar, so I can see his calendar and he can see my calendar. So he knows when I am going to places, I’ll put it in and he can look and find out where he is going. It’s a calendar and it’s actually a shared calendar. He’s got his and I’ve got mine and they export to each other. So I can see his. It’s on my iPhone. So I set that up on purpose so that he can see where I am. For
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example, he bought a couple of tickets to two concerts, one on a Sunday and the other right the next day, on a Monday, and these were coming up. I had to travel and I said, “oh, no, I’m going to miss your concerts, when are your concerts?” And he is like “oh, I don’t know, they are on this day, and the next day. I just wrote it on the calendar, I don’t know when they are”. And I thought I was going to miss him because I thought I had to travel for a client meeting. It turned up I didn’t have to. I had the Monday off, which is good. But I mean, if I had to go, I had to go, I wouldn’t go to the concerts. (Sandra)
During the data analysis, it became clear that, like Sandra, other informants use
various technological devices to help them coordinate multiple temporal frameworks
and their activities while travelling or when living in different temporal frameworks.
Shared calendars (e.g. iCalendars, Google Calendars, and Microsoft Outlook) are
frequently used as tools for temporal coordination of collective activities. These objects
represent a special category of temporal coordinating mechanisms that the management
and information literatures have named “temporal boundary objects” (Sapsed and Salter
2004; Yakura 2002). A boundary object exists at the boundaries between interpretive
communities and allows the calibration of perspectives. Boundary objects “are both
plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the constraints of the several parties
employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites” (Star
and Griesemer 1989, 393). They provide a reified answer to the question “How do
heterogeneity and cooperation coexist?” They have different meanings in different
social worlds, but their structures have enough in common to make them recognizable
and useful as coordination mechanisms. Building on the notion of boundary objects,
Yakura (2002, 956) refers to certain project management tools – such as timelines – as
temporal boundary objects, because they are “visual representations of time that are
both interpretively flexible and robust” and provide the basis for negotiations over
interpretations of time. Timelines “make time concrete and negotiable for various
groups of participants” (p. 956) in different social worlds. Like timelines, shared
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calendars (such as the one used by Sandra) are temporal boundary objects because they
provide a common basis for negotiation of activities that may belong to different
temporal frameworks. For example, when Sandra is in the US and her husband in
Canada, having a shared calendar allows them to coordinate their activities, despite the
fact that they are operating in different contexts and sometimes incompatible temporal
frameworks.
Temporal boundary objects have become very useful as temporal coordinating
mechanisms for global cosmopolitans. For example, the online platform that hosts
InterNations’ website (www.internations.org) is a temporal boundary object, as it allows
the online and offline activities and the various events of the community to be
articulated and organised in time. It allows the community to exist through organisation
of practices happening in different temporal frameworks. Although the social network
of global cosmopolitans may continuously exist in the virtual world, it is through the
synchronisation of concrete distant events and activities that the cosmopolitan
community materialises in everyday life as an integrated collectivity. Albums of
pictures shared on the Internet, through Picasa, Flickr or Facebook, are also examples of
temporal boundary objects, because the individuals are able to share and calibrate
representations of past events collected in different temporal frameworks that are
nonetheless part of a communal reconstruction of the past.
Temporary boundary objects are especially meaningful to this study because
they also serve as frameworks for action. Shared calendars, pictures and online
platforms allow synchronised consumer activities to occur. A good illustration of the
power of temporal boundary objects to generate synchronised actions can be found in
“tuángòu”, early forms of collective purchase which later inspired business models such
as the one used by Groupon or LivingSocial. Created in China by savvy local web
forum users, tuángòu allowed various participants to coordinate their purchases by
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securing bulk purchases for less (Economist 2006; Khoshnampour and Nosrati 2011).
While bulk purchase decisions at Groupon and LivingSocial are now centralised and
pre-offered as deals to consumers, the early forms of collective purchasing like tuángòu
used online forums to synchronise consumption activities and bulk buying, and, for this
reason, the forms of tuángòu acted as temporal boundary objects.
4.6.4 New time structures engendered by global mobility
4.6.4.1 Embodied mobility rhythms
Mobility has its own events, rhythms and cycles that can interfere with or even
replace consumers’ temporal frameworks. For example, public transportation services
are supported by a series of routines that allow these services to be consumed
collectively. A typical illustration of the rhythms imposed by mobility are the routines
people follow in long-haul flights, from check-in and boarding to receiving safety
explanations, eating meals and watching movies. Standardisation of procedures
guarantees that people sharing different cultural backgrounds, coming from different
temporal frameworks and flying through different time zones are able to coordinate
their various consumption activities during the flight.
In order to use these mobility services, consumers must engage in provisional
routines that tend to overshadow their customary temporal frameworks. Some
consumers even develop complementary personal routines that enable them to
experience a better fit with the imposed mobility rhythms.
I don’t check it, if I can, I will avoid it, I don’t check it. I once went for nine days without checking the bag, that’s extreme, you really have to be hard core to do that. So I have my carry-on, and I have my briefcase, so my laptop goes in
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there. I move all the things around. I’ve got headphones. I used to keep them in the front pocket of the carry-on, but before I get on the plane, I put them in my briefcase because often times they will take your carry on and they will measure it, they will put it in that thing, where the carry-on has to fit in. If my headphones and my umbrella are in the front pocket, it is not going to fit, so I move them, it’s the same with my laptop case. It’s very systematic like I move things around at certain changes of the security check-in and the check-in process, I change things around. Sometimes they make you weigh when you check-in, and if you don’t check-in online, so if you have to talk to anybody when you check-in, it’s problematic because they can just make you weigh things. And you are never going to make it, it’s like 10 kilos! And you’re never going to make it, right? If you’re going for five days, you’re not going to make it to 10 kilos. So if they make you weigh things, you may be screwed; so avoid talking to people if possible, check-in online, get your boarding pass and just go right in, don’t talk to anybody! Sometimes I’ve checked it, but if I can avoid it, I will. The reason you don’t want to check your bag is because you don’t want to wait on the other side. Really, when you get there isn’t a big deal. It is when you get home. All you want to do is get home, you don’t want to wait for your bag, and it takes so long to get bags unpacked from the carousel. I just want to go that’s what primarily I want to go home. I have done it, and every time I’ve done it, I am like “oh, it’s real credit because I just want to go home now”. So I am very systematic, I have got a system. (Sandra)
As in Sandra’s case, mobility rhythms may become so habitual that consumers
will develop a different set of personal (embodied) routines for the sole purpose of
coping with their mobility rhythms. While Sandra’s routines facilitate short-term
recurrent travel, global mobility also involves much longer time spans, as is the case
with serial expatriates (e.g. diplomats) and their “mobility cycles”.
4.6.4.2 Mobility cycles
Globally mobile consumers may develop new frameworks for cyclical time. The
novelty about these new frameworks is that they are structured around patterns of global
mobility. Thus, some informants, especially those who have moved many times, seem
to perceive their lives in part through recurring cycles of mobility. It is common for
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informants to refer to these phases when explaining their actions and emotions. They
use expressions such as “whenever I arrive in a new place . . .” or “we have done this
before so . . .” and “it is always hard to leave” to indicate their familiarity with these
mobility cycles. Moreover, mobility cycles organise consumers’ activities by phases:
movement, arrival, stay and departure. For example, Vera comments on the activities
associated with the “arrival” and “leaving” phases:
Yeah, I have to do all the paperwork, open a bank account, register in all the different consulates; probably find a place to live, do things like driver’s license, then paper work. When you first arrive it’s like “admin”, and yeah that’s what I do when I arrive and when I’m leaving the same thing, you have to go and de-register everything, close the bank accounts, pay your taxes or recover the taxes (Vera). As consumers go through each phase they can compare them with previous ones
and use their experience as a guide for action. For example, Donald has lived in South
Africa, Canada and Australia. Through his movement he has learned that some
challenges belong to the arrival phase (e.g. looking for a new home, understanding the
geography of the new place, meeting new circles of friends, understanding where the
supermarket is and when the shops are open), some belong to the stay phase (e.g.
getting to know what is valorised by local culture, getting used to the local assortment
of local and global retailers, products, services and brands, evaluating consumption
options, prioritising certain friendships, understanding the status hierarchy and cultural
symbols of the new cultural context), and some belong to the departure phase (e.g.
choosing what to do with possessions – carry now, carry later, throw away, give to
friends, sell). Donald can make decisions for the future based on the framework of
mobility cycles. Because of his awareness of these cycles, he can refrain from buying a
house and car to avoid having to dispose of them later, or he can rent a furnished home
to avoid having to deal with the furniture in the future. Becoming aware of mobility
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cycles allows consumers to compare the practices and outcomes of each phase, so past
happenings, contextual variables and even errors made in the past can be used to
calibrate and assess actions in the present. In some ways, consumers are monitoring
themselves (Giddens 1991) through cycles of mobility.
To provide another example, Luca, a diplomat, faces the constant problem of
choosing a place to live every time he needs to take a position in a new country. Before
the Internet age, finding a house was something that required a great deal of time and
effort. He had the help of embassy staff, but deciding on a house was a personal
decision and required him to set aside time to search. Now, this process is much easier,
not only because the Internet allows him to search for a number of houses even before
moving to another country, but also because he has learned from his past moves and
knows what to look for in a temporary house. Similarly, Suzy (an informant from the
InterNations’ gathering) used the Internet to find a place to live even before she moved
from India to the US. She was happy to have a place to stay when she arrived, but she
quickly realised she was stuck with that apartment for six months (the minimum lease
period) before she could move to another. Over the years, she developed a system in
which, before moving, she finds a place to stay for the period of a month only. Her main
criteria are accessibility (i.e. proximity to main transportation hubs) and the existence of
furniture. After arriving, she uses a list she had produced before moving to search for a
more permanent apartment. The permanent apartment is selected by other criteria that
are important for her, such as cosiness, level of sunlight and proximity to entertainment
and shopping areas – criteria that are more difficult to verify through the Internet. She
believes that she has optimised her search system over the years. However, what is
important to observe is that Donald, Suzy and Luca have internalised mobility cycles as
part of their decision making (i.e. they have come to take them for granted). Developing
cultural heuristics (Peñaloza and Gilly 1999) to deal with cycles of mobility is an
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important way of minimising the extra decision effort caused by mobility’s disruption
of cultural frameworks.
Knowing that he will move in the future and having moved in the past has also
helped Simon make practical decisions about what and what not to purchase. After his
move from Arizona to New York, Simon was more cautious about “collecting stuff”
again, because he knew he was not going to stay there for a long time.
I lived in Arizona for nine years where I had a wine chest at that time, because I had a bigger house, but I sold it, I gave things to charity, I gave a lot away to charity and gave away to friends. Then I moved with like two suitcases to New York. In New York I collected a bit of stuff again – but I never really collected too many things and never really spent a lot of money on furniture or really heavy things or stuff that I would want to keep in the long term because I always had this feeling that I am not going to be there for too long. (Simon)
Like Simon, many interviewees opted for buying less because they knew they
would move again (eventually) and that would mean further expenses or having the
trouble to dispose of them. It was interesting to observe that even when consumers did
not know much about when and where their next move would happen, they seemed to
have internalised these mobility cycles, embodying them in some of their daily
consumption practices. They acted as if they knew they would move again and that the
movement would require either transporting or disposing of possessions; this
knowledge affected many of their present decisions.
All of my furniture is from IKEA and it’s the cheapest furniture I could possibly get because we don’t know when we are going to have to move next. You know and if we move to Australia I don’t want to have to pay a $15,000 moving cost to be able to move a $100 dining table you know, I am going to throw out that dining table when I leave. It completely changes what you buy you know, even when we go to places. One of the things that we used to do is to buy some sort of piece of art in every place that we visited, so we have all these really cool things from trips through Southeast Asia. We have like these beautiful quilts and
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paintings, but we don’t buy that stuff anymore because we don’t know [when we are moving next]. (Diva)
Like Simon, Diva avoids buying expensive furniture and even souvenirs,
because they may create a future problem. Similarly, Hazel and James rented all their
furniture because they knew they were going to be in Canada for a short time before
moving to Spain. Donald and his family took many possessions to Canada because the
firm paid for the move. They also bought a house in Canada because they anticipated
staying there. However, when they later moved to Australia and realised they might
move again, they decided to rent furniture for the rented house. They maintained
ownership of the house in Canada because of their possible return.
Sometimes mobility cycles are so ingrained in consumers’ way of thinking and
feeling that they interfere in the way consumers evaluate products and services. For
example, Vera explains how cycles of mobility affect the way she buys clothes:
I always think I’m not going to have this for a long time so I normally don’t buy really expensive things and because I know I might just throw it away. [. . .] Even this top, you could probably buy the same one in a designer shop but a bit better quality and spend more money on it and it will last a bit longer and it will look a bit better but I know that I probably won’t use it for that long, or I won’t have it for that long so I’ll just buy the cheaper version [. . .] anything that’s big and heavy I won’t think of buying it, because of travelling and having to carry it with me and I’d rather buy something at the destination and instead of buying one and then thinking “oh I’m going to take this with me for the rest of my life”. (Vera) Cycles of mobility challenge traditional marketing notions of the family life
cycle. The marketing literature has used the notions of life-cycle stages (children,
teenagers, bachelors, newly married couples, full-nest families with younger children,
full-nest families with older children, empty-nest families) to infer expenditures and
preferences for consumer goods such as food, durables, housing and vacations (Wagner
and Hanna 1983; Wilkes 1995). However, mobility cycles and the need to constantly
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dispose of and re-acquire objects break with these conventional models. Mobile
individuals are constantly adapting to new food, avoiding buying non-portable durable
goods and postponing the purchase of property to a future moment in which they expect
to settle down (i.e. they generally rent property, unless the purchase is made for
investment purposes). And due to their constant travelling, global cosmopolitans’
vacations may take on different symbolic properties, such as time to visit their relatives
and former countries or to simply enjoy staying put. Therefore, the family cycles of
global cosmopolitans follow patterns that depart from traditional models and are
coordinated through cycles of mobility.
In addition, cyclical notions of time allow consumers to understand future as
well as past moves and to somehow be emotionally or physically prepared to move. For
example, June, a self-proclaimed cosmopolitan, explains how her knowledge that she
would move in the future made some aspects of her current life easier:
It just made it easier in a way if you know that you [are moving], I liked the idea of the three to four years, because that’s long enough to really build a life and to make friends but it never had that “forever” attached to it so there was always the opportunity if you don’t really like it then it’s only for three to four years. (June)
And when asked if knowing that she would move affects her life, she replied:
Of course but that’s the whole point, if you go and you don’t miss them and nobody misses you then it’s a waste of time so you should always miss something about it when you leave. And you should always, I think you should always leave people behind who are going to miss you but then you can meet again. I mean, this is really global! (June)
June adjusted her philosophy about how friendships should happen in order to
valorise the positive aspects of leaving people behind and missing them. While she may
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suffer feelings of loss, her philosophy shows she has found a way to justify and cope
with the separation from friends in the future. She endorses this view by linking it to
“being really global”. Being able to leave people behind, miss them and reunite with
them is a symbol of global identity for June. Interestingly, I observed that this
phenomenon also occurs in relation to material objects. For many, being a global
cosmopolitan is associated with the ability to leave things behind.
I have a friend in Switzerland who’s Argentine but she listens to the radio from Argentina, she’s looking at the news from Argentina, she’s watching the TV or streaming. She is basically in Switzerland but completely connected to Argentina, she is just very nostalgic all the time and misses it incredibly like if you move country; you move country you are in that country, so get over the other one or go back, right? (Vera) Through a comparison with her immigrant friend, Vera reaffirms her
commitment to a cosmopolitan ideology that, like June’s, is centred upon being able to
leave things behind and move on. Global cosmopolitans avoid feelings of nostalgia, as
such feelings may compromise their survival in a mobile world. Even when global
cosmopolitans admit they find it difficult to move on, they are quick to emphasise the
importance of developing the competence to do so readily. Thus, while Luca admits that
leaving things and people behind is not enjoyable, he underlines the fact that it is not
difficult for him.
Since my whole life I’ve been living abroad I don’t find it difficult. I find every time I have to move, and part of my work is moving as I have to do that as my work, is not nice. You only get to know the people and the country and you appreciate that and sometimes it’s not really nice to leave a country and leave friends and go to another country that you don’t know anybody and it’s a whole new process again then you have to leave again. But I don’t find it difficult (Luca).
A cosmopolitan ideology that devalues nostalgia contrasts sharply with previous
literature in consumer research on immigrants, which has identified nostalgia as a key
factor in their lives (Hirschman and Holbrook 1982). This literature has documented
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immigrants’ preference for objects that connect to their past (Mehta and Belk 1991).
However, unlike immigrants, global cosmopolitans tend to forsake nostalgic objects in
the pursuit of flexibility and mobility. Only a few cherished and irreplaceable objects
manage to endure the cosmopolitan counter-nostalgic ideology.
4.6.4.3 Future orientation and reconstruction of the past
The devaluation of nostalgia does not mean that global cosmopolitans lack a
sense of the past. On the contrary, they have a well-developed sense of past, which is
generally organised by the different places they have lived. Thus, it is common for
global cosmopolitans to talk about the past as places where they have conducted their
lives. They refer to the time they lived in place A, the time they moved to B, the time
they stayed in C. Or they may think of a place first, before identifying the time period
associated with it, as Alice does in this passage.
When you try to remember which year for a great memory, you have to remember the environment, which brings back the country you lived in at the time, which narrows down the year of that event, the year it happened. Like in: oh that time I ate grilled crickets, it was in Cameroon, therefore it can only have been in... 1994. (Aline Morreau, InterNations’ thread: “Re: You know you're a TCK when . . .”, posted on 02/06/2011)
This way of organising the past is also expressed concretely in the way global
cosmopolitans organise their physical and electronic photo albums. Some informants,
like Irvin, Hazel and James, keep their old personal pictures in shoeboxes or in albums,
classified by places instead of dates. Most of them have managed to scan their old
pictures into some kind of electronic format. The more recent albums are stored in pen
drives, computers or virtual archives (clouds). Interestingly, even informants’ e-albums
are ordered by places. In conditions of mobility, place and time seem to be
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interchangeable in terms of ordering the past. Last year means life in Canada to Hazel,
and the three years before means living in Luxembourg. Since place offers memory
much more materiality than does abstract time, it seems a natural way to organise
personal memory. In Harvey’s time-space compression and Urry’s instantaneous time,
time disappears and everything becomes a juxtaposition of places. If cosmopolitans
want to tell a story about their lives, which requires ordering, organising their
biographies according to time or place gives the same results, as is revealed by Aline’s
statement above. This phenomenon is ironic as, in pre-modern societies, time was also
inseparable from place, but in a different way. In those societies, near and soon were
similar concepts (Thompson 1967). As everyone walked from one place to another, the
nearest meant the soonest. In late modern societies, near and soon are very different
things due to time-space distanciation (Giddens 1990). However, the ordering of
activities in space can still be similar to ordering them in time, as the example of
photograph albums illustrates.
Consistent with this view, global cosmopolitans sometimes refer to a trip to their
parents' places as a return to their past. Such time travel is possible when parents still
live in the same town where informants grew up. Periodic visits to their original
homeland have the flavour of travelling back to their origins, not only spatially but also
temporally. Note how Donna, when discussing her travels back to her parents’ village
(her homeland), refers to it as a place that has never changed.
[My home] is a place that so far has never changed. I know it’s always been the same halls, I know they are never going to move away from their village, so yeah you kind of go back to find same places, the same shops, the same neighbours. It’s quite nice, it’s something, something that you know that you don’t have set up to, but I also know I wouldn’t live there. [. . .] So that’s nice you know, you go back, everything you know, everyone, and it’s also nice to be going away. But I would go crazy if I had to stay there longer. Such a thing is not going to happen (Donna).
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For Donna, going back in time by travelling to her place of origin can be
enjoyed sporadically, but most global cosmopolitans dread the thought of going back
permanently to their origins. Conversely, the research revealed that most informants’
lives are marked by some kind of anticipation for the future. The future is also
somewhere else, a “place” that will eventually come. As seen above, this affects
purchases to the extent that the certainty of a future move (even when its date and
direction are unspecified) hinders the accumulation of non-transportable goods because
cosmopolitans want to avoid the hassle of having to get rid of them when it comes time
to move again. For example, Paul Kim, a Korean-German-Canadian medical researcher,
receives a good salary and could easily have purchased apartments in the various
countries where he has lived. But he only rents places to live, because buying property
would create the need to resell or lease it when moving again, and he wants to avoid the
hassle. For the same reasons, he looks only for furnished apartments or, when they are
difficult to find, he buys his furniture at IKEA (i.e. at an inexpensive store) because he
can easily get rid of it when he needs to.
Interestingly, global mobility facilitates the reconstruction of the past. Without a
neighbouring social network to legitimise their past, global cosmopolitans may engage
in the construction of a new past. Through storytelling and personal narratives, they are
able to depict memories and distant places in a way that others in their local context –
that is, those who did not share the same moments – will find it difficult to verify. While
not sharing a common past with others in the local network may endow global
cosmopolitans with a certain power to re-create any past they want, it also has its
drawbacks. This lack of a shared past may cause feelings of loneliness, as reported by
Chen Li, Irvin and Maria.
Kind of tiring, just moving along, you just see different furniture every year and you’re sometimes lonely. (Chen Li)
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It just felt like I lost contact and I lost, although I liked it there because, sometimes I felt like crying, alone, but I had friends but they had their own family, they had someone to take care of. (Irvin) I am not alone because I have got 50 people around me, but it’s not the same friendship obviously as to people who you, who knew you when you’re very child running around and doing all these sort of things. (Maria)
However, the sense of a shared past can be fostered when global cosmopolitans
meet. During InterNations gatherings, I observed that global cosmopolitans can spend
long hours with one another sharing the experiences they have had in various places.
They seem to deeply enjoy this activity, especially when the members of a group with
whom they share stories have all lived in the same country for a certain time.
Interestingly, talking about places held in common (or similar kinds of experience)
seems to give them a sense of a shared past, even if they lived in the same country
during different periods and therefore did not experience the same “national” events
(e.g. the fall of a specific political regime). As happens with people from traditional
local communities, the sharing of information about a “common past” seems to
strengthen the bond among members. Having experiences in common is a powerful
way of bonding among InterNations members.
The construction of a common past through storytelling about places and past
experiences happened not only during the monthly InterNations gatherings, but also
continuously, at a more global level, in discussions mediated by InterNations’ online
platform. For example, in 2011, the organisers of the website, in a conjoint effort with
the TV network CNN, promoted a campaign for discussing the thirty most important
global events of the last thirty years. The list included events very diverse in nature: the
fall of the Berlin Wall, the invasion of Iraq and the death of Michael Jackson, to take a
few examples. Members who wanted to participate were asked to select the three global
events that had the greatest impact on their lives and to write three short texts describing
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how each event affected their lives. This initiative had a much higher level of
participation than others, even though it demanded time for writing (see Appendix G for
a thank you letter with some examples of personal stories, sharing and voting related to
this initiative). More than 4,000 personal memories from thousands of members coming
from more than 140 different countries were generated. This is a large number of
responses, especially compared to most InterNations’ online threads, which do not have
more than 30 postings. Participants managed to classify the most impactful global
events, but independently of the results, it is important to notice that these kinds of
action, which aim at constructing and organising a global past, are greatly valued by
global cosmopolitans. Contrary to a local past, which does not have much utility for
consumers moving to a new environment, the global past is a common point of
reference and a means of integration for them. Further, the global past is transposable (it
works in different parts of the globe) and therefore useful for the needs of their mobile
lives.
4.7 Discussion
4.7.1 Summary
In the findings, I first demonstrated that global mobility challenges the
customary ways time structures consumer activities and behaviours through three
destabilising processes (i.e. fragmentation, multiplication and disembedding). These
disruptions tend to be experienced as a burden and as stressful by consumers, who must
make extra effort to coordinate their everyday activities. These coordinating efforts may
include diverse temporal coordinating mechanisms: regionalising, or zoning,
consumption practices (e.g. having different shopping websites for each country),
projecting themselves into the future by using mobility to determine the appropriateness
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of a consumption practice (buying now or later has to do with the period when the next
move will happen), assembling time-keeping objects in a single place (e.g. a wall of
clocks), developing time-management routines, developing disengaging mechanisms
(e.g. portable routines) and using temporal boundary objects (e.g. using InterNations to
relate to communities that are inserted in different temporal frameworks, or using sites
for collective purchase, which organise the moment of purchase independent of the
temporal frameworks associated with each person/society). All these temporal
coordinating mechanisms and temporal boundary objects help coordinate time-related
activities and ease consumers’ extra coordinating workload.
Additionally, new time structures are created by global mobility: mobility
rhythms, mobility events, mobility cycles and a new relationship to the future and past. I
show that these time structures can offer alternative points around which consumers’
activities may be organised, which in turn reduces the coordinating workload caused by
mobility. Some consumers, for example, develop careful routines that allow them to
cope with constant travelling. In many ways, they internalise the rhythms of those
routines and incorporate (embody) them into their everyday life (see Table 1).
Table 1: Managing practices and new structures for time coordination
Consumers’ managing practices New mobility-related
structures
• Zoning (grouping activities per time-zone or culture)
• Projecting themselves into the future
• Assembling time-keeping objects in one place
• Developing time-management routines
• Developing portable routines
• Using temporal boundary objects
• Temporal boundary objects
• Embodied mobility rhythms
• Cycles of global mobility
• Reconstructed global past
• Future orientation
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Mobility cycles are also very important in structuring the life of global
cosmopolitans. Phases of arrival, stay and departure provide points of stability for
consumers, something they may count on when planning their purchases and
consuming. For some consumers, these cycles are so embodied that they will
automatically refuse to buy anything that may be difficult to dispose of in the future or
that may hinder their future mobility. In addition, mobile consumers seem to organise
their past (e.g. photographs) on the basis of places they have lived instead of using dates
or other temporal classifications.
Additionally, global cosmopolitans seem to be oriented towards the future,
putting little value on nostalgic objects and great value on objects that are portable and
can facilitate future mobility. This orientation does not entail a lack of interest in having
a past, but global cosmopolitans do seem more interested in reconstructing their past
from their present than in preserving the past they already have. The “new” past seems
to be organised in terms of global rather than local events.
4.7.2 Contributions
The primary contribution of this chapter is its delineation of the processes by
which global mobility shapes time-related consumption practices. First, the global
mobility of consumers destabilises their lives by fragmenting, multiplying and
disembedding time-related consumption activities. Second, these disruptions are
experienced as an extra workload by consumers, who then engage in various time
management practices to coordinate their lives in conditions of fragmentation,
multiplication and disembeddedness. Besides using time-management practices, global
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cosmopolitans also seek stability through an alignment with new time structures that are
produced by mobility itself.
These processes are very different from the ones lived by immigrants. As shown
in the literature review, the mobility of immigrant consumers is related to time most
strongly through two territorial factors: nostalgia for homeland and the management of
temporal frameworks from two different lands. While nostalgia plays a central role in
the consumption practices of immigrants, it is not a dominant theme in the life of global
cosmopolitans. As noticed by Thompson and Tambyah (1999), global cosmopolitans
adhere to an ideology that favours travel over home. Therefore, nostalgia, as a feeling
that may discourage travel, seems to be suppressed. One could argue that informants
may in fact feel nostalgic about places they have lived, but if that is the case, they were
careful not to demonstrate that feeling in their interviews or in their interactions at
InterNations. This discursive practice only reinforces the view that they espouse an
ideology that undervalues nostalgia (one only hides what one does not wish to show).
At the InterNations gatherings, it became clear that this group is always forward looking
(and very modern in this respect), My observations during the meeting and about the
online posts confirmed that they regard nostalgia as a weakness, something that may
hold them back. Thus, objects associated with nostalgia are not collected by these
consumers. Further evidence of this practice is provided in the next chapter, about
home-making practices.
Nevertheless, being future-oriented does not mean that they exclude the past. In
fact, having a past is also a need for this group, because it provides a sense of
continuity, which authenticates the group and provides them with meaning and a
collectively shared history. Thus, they engage in an active production of the past, one
that supports their vision, customs and way of being (e.g. their engagement with sharing
personal stories about 30 global events). In “The Invention of Tradition”, Hobsbawn
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(1992, 9) explains that traditions can be invented and that they perform three functions:
a) establishing or symbolising social cohesion of real or artificial communities; b)
legitimising institution, status and relations of authority; and c) inculcating beliefs,
value systems and conventions of behaviour. As with national traditions, which were
promoted to help institutionalise the sense of nation (Braun 1975), it seems that global
cosmopolitans are developing a shared global past to establish symbolic cohesion,
legitimise their own existence and promote a new set of beliefs (one that favours them).
Since members of this group belong to the upper part of the world’s social pyramid
(upper and middle classes of developed countries and upper classes of emerging
economies are in positions of power when compared to the rest of the world
population), these changes of beliefs seem to create more than a subculture of
consumption (Kozinets 2001; Schouten and McAlexander 1995). Cosmopolitans seem
to be producing and leading the way for the “new beliefs” of global consumer culture
associated with the need to reconstruct a global past. These new beliefs might be at an
early stage of formation, where reconstruction of a global past has not yet created many
traditions that are particular to this group (the monthly meetings can be considered
rituals but they have not lasted long enough to be considered traditions). However, the
findings from InterNations suggest that the reconstruction of global pasts might become
a trend of global consumer culture in late modernity. For example, from the 1990s to the
year 2000, we saw a formidable example of reconstruction of the past on a global scale,
when thousands of books, documentaries, TV programs and films were launched in an
attempt to revise the history of the discovery of the Americas, re-telling the Columbus
story from multiple points of view, and challenging then-dominant views.
Other groups, such as the Steampunks (www.steampunk.com), who try to create
an alternative post-Victorian time, also deal with the active re-creation of the past. A
characteristic of global cosmopolitans, however, is to produce a past that is a function of
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their present and of their mobility, instead of being a function of Victorian time as with
the Steampunks (Onion 2008). This is interesting to consumer research because, in
contrast to the nostalgic strategy seen in retro-branding efforts (Brown, Kozinets, and
Sherry Jr 2003), the construction of the global past by global cosmopolitans serves to
authenticate their mobile lifestyle (not to revive the past). Classifying the 30 most
important global events is a way of making sense of the present through the ordering
and construction of a past that authenticates the present and allows recollection in
conditions of global mobility. The created past legitimates global cosmopolitans’ own
existence as a collectivity, “for all invented tradition uses history as a legitimator of
action and cement of group cohesion” (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992, 9). This has
important implications for consumer research, as it shows that global cosmopolitans
may be open to products, images and brands that help them create and tell a story about
the global past. The “truth” or “authenticity” of the story is arguably of minor
importance. It is more important for the story to resonate with cosmopolitans’ mobile
ideologies and philosophy of life (see Appendix G for an illustration of how narratives
of the past underscore their global mobility).
It is also interesting to observe that global cosmopolitans are able to gain
stability in their mobile lives by trusting new temporal structures provided by mobility.
Mobility cycles, for example, provide a sense of security to the hectic mobile lives of
consumers, which seems to work as a shield against the ontological insecurity of second
modernity, the “risk society”(Beck 1992). Knowing they will go through similar phases
again and again allows cosmopolitans to be prepared for the constant adaptation that life
in mobility requires (e.g. as shown in the way they develop cultural heuristics to deal
with the needs of each phase). The need for stability and structure is so intense that
many global cosmopolitans internalise/embody these cycles and believe in the certainty
of mobility, avoiding decisions that may prove undesirable in future cycles (e.g.
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avoiding the purchase of large pieces of furniture that are difficult to transport, even
when there is no future move scheduled). Research in behavioural decision theory has
affirmed that people often fail tests of self-control by making decisions that result in
greater immediate gratification but greater long-term costs (Liberman and Trope 1998;
Loewenstein 1996; Soman 2001). However, this valorisation of the present over future
outcomes does not seem to correspond with the practices of global cosmopolitans, who
avoid purchasing things in the present for the sake of future benefit. A possible
explanation for this dissonant behaviour is that global cosmopolitans are so sure of their
future mobility that the future weighs favourably the present.
The findings point to an interesting blend of modernity and late modernity. As
Urry (2000) argues, the informants are living in a world of excess, de-synchronisation,
intrusion of distant events into everyday life and multiple temporal frameworks.
However, their way of handing their problems and hopes and managing their lives
seems very modern. They seek stability, perform regionalisation, desire progress and
want to be able to make sensible, rational decisions based on the information they
receive. These are essentially modern strategies being applied to periods of great
instability. Cosmopolitans cling to mobility for an answer, have faith in the future and
strive to construct a past that is consistent with their present. Most importantly, they
seem to expect that the market, through its coordinating mechanisms and devices, will
help them to manage disruption, fragmentation and disembedding. On the surface, they
seem to be playful consumers making their creative bricolage through postmodernity.
However, adopting a cosmopolitan ideology (a discourse that equates mobility with
creativity and freedom) is a strategy, a way of coping with the destabilisation that
mobility (and late modernity) creates.
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5. The Networked Home
5.1 Introduction
The objective of this chapter is to demonstrate how the mobility of global
cosmopolitan consumers shapes the way they relate to notions of home and to introduce
the concept of the networked home. Past work on consumer research has shown that
many consumption practices and objects are strongly attached to the notion of a fixed
and grounded home. This notion of a territorial home structures consumption, as it
establishes relationships and provides meanings to the practices and objects that occur
inside the house and that are carried by members of the family.
The global mobility of consumers, a growing feature of globalisation, has
challenged the way consumers organise their everyday lives. Given the number of
studies placing home as a central concept for consumer research, it is surprising that not
much research attempts to understand changes in the notions of home in conditions of
global mobility. Very little is known about how mobility changes home-related
practices. Consumer research has explored relationships between movement and
consumption, but research on transnational mobile people suggests that consumers
under conditions of constant mobility may have different constructions of the notion of
home and that these different constructions may result in, and be a result of, a different
set of practices (Nowicka 2007). Despite the growing amount of research about the
relationship between migration and home, rather less attention has been paid to mobility
as a recurrent condition.
I argue that globally mobile consumers (i.e. global cosmopolitans) maintain a
strong notion of home; however,their home is not seen as a physical building that
provides shelter to the family, but rather as a network of various elements that may be
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grounded or uprooted. While my general research question is: “How does the global
mobility of consumers affect their home-related practices?”, it translates into more
specific questions: How do consumers maintain a sense of home in conditions of global
mobility? In particular, how do consumers maintain the coordinating and stabilising
functions of the networked home when its components are not associated with one
specific territory? By answering these questions, the research findings contribute to an
understanding of consumer life in conditions of mobility and, more specifically, of the
transformations of home in conditions of mobility. The findings uncover important and
emergent consumer practices that tend to become ubiquitous as consumers become
more mobile.
The text is divided as follows. First, a brief review of the literature about home
in consumer research is used to pinpoint key issues. Second, recent literature on the
influence of global mobility on notions of home is discussed, and the concept of the
networked home is introduced. Third, findings of this research are introduced, according
to the type of networked home or the practices used to maintain it. There follows a
summary and a discussion of the key findings, highlighting where they contribute to
extending the marketing and consumer research literature.
5.2 Home in consumer research
Home is a central concept in consumer research. Various angles have been used to
explore the notion of home in consumer research, each favouring one of home’s diverse
meanings and functions. First, as a place, home can be the site of various consumption
practices such eating, drinking, playing, sharing, planning, storing and disposing
(Jackson and Moores 1995; Wilk 1989). Second, home can assume anthropomorphic
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characteristics and be seen as “the shell of the self” (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-
Halton 1981), for its capability of expressing the personality and mood of its owners. As
such, it can been considered part of the extended self (Belk 1988). Third, it is the
container of possessions, a shelter of material things, especially the valuable ones (Belk
1988). Possessions “are homey when they have a personal significance for the owner
(e.g. gifts, crafts, trophies, mementoes, family heirlooms)” (McCracken 2005, 26).
Fourth, home is also the site of memories (Marcoux 2001) and biographies. People
telling stories about objects they have in their homes are also telling stories about
themselves (Hurdley 2006) or about others who are part of their past. Fifth, home is not
just a place of safety for material things, it is also a storehouse of signs, sheltering those
things that provide meaning to consumers’ lives and help them make sense of the world
and its cultural categories (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981; Douglas
1991). Sixth, it is the site of negotiation of identity within a network of relations,
harbouring family life and identity interplay (Epp and Price 2008). Seventh, home is the
site of feelings of comfort, familiarity, safety, intimacy and warmth (Hill 1991). Eighth,
home is also the prime site of the private, in contrast of anything outside home, which is
considered part of the public (Richins 1994). Finally, home is the site of the sacred
(Sherry 1998). It is separated from the outside world by “careful attention given to entry
thresholds” (Belk, Wallendorf, and Sherry 1989, 10).
Additionally, home can also have structuring properties. McCracken (2005) explains
that as much as home is organised and derives meaning from social relations and
activities, home can also have agency, by reproducing these social relations and
activities by the way it organises material culture. Thus, home “creates the stage on
which all life of the domestic developments of self and family can be undertaken”
(McCracken 2005, 39). The same logic that organises each object in the house (e.g. a
big stove in the middle of the kitchen symbolising the role of cooking in a specific
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home) is reproduced and reinforced when these objects are used (e.g. the more one uses
the stove, the more one reinforces its prime position in the kitchen). Besides
reproducing social relations and activities, home can also be an enabling context within
which other meanings become possible. Many objects seem to gain different meanings
once they are within the boundaries of home. For example, a chair, a doll, a broom can
de-commoditise and gain singular meanings once inside home (Diamond et al. 2009).
Objects and people may gain specific roles and meanings in the home according to their
relationships to other objects and people in the house (Epp and Price 2010). In that
sense, home can work as a “marketplace corrector,” especially useful as a means of
stripping possessions of their commercially assigned meanings (McCracken 2005). In
addition, home may have the paradoxical functions of status marker and status
corrector. The way home is constructed, designed, decorated, located and put to use
sends a number of signals about its inhabitants and its objects. Curiously, as pointed out
by McCracken (2005), creating a homey environment, or using homey objects, may be
a strategy to relieve certain burdens created by other status strategies. For example,
objects that are engaging, disorganised, warm and playful, such as a piece of tourist art,
may be used to counterbalance the formality and calculated charm of an interior
designed to mark status.
Home has also been explored in connection with consumers’ movement. The
literature on immigration and acculturation discusses home as the site of negotiations
between immigrants’ culture of origin and host culture. On one hand “to lose a home is
to lose a private museum of memory” (Hecht 2001, 123), as one must deal with
symbolic losses that are critical to consumers’ lives. The immigrant attempts to recreate
the old home in the new territory, through usage of objects, re-enactment of social
relations and the reproduction of practices. In times of transition and in an unfamiliar
landscape, consumers may desire dearly familiar products. These transitional objects
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may be perceived as part of a coping strategy “that provides a solution to the
undesirable effects of change, such as uncertainty, cognitive load, or emotional fatigue”
(Wood 2010, 52). Transitional objects may act as a security blanket, creating the
conditions for identity preservation and home reconstruction (Mehta and Belk 1991).
Interestingly, sometimes losses are praised, instead of being repaired. Belk (1992)
provides examples of cases when losses by Mormons in migration, reframed as
sacrifices, helped to turn the moving into a sacred journey. On the other hand, the new
home is also a place that can help consumers to engage with the host culture. For
example, Peñaloza (1994) describes how immigrants engage with the host culture
through diverse brands and products that come into the house, as well as through their
children and more settled relatives, that help with the translation from their culture of
origin into their host culture. Hence, home is at the same time a site for the preservation
of the culture of origin and a site of intercultural tensions and intergenerational
mediations, where memory and identity are dynamically reconstructed (Marcoux 2001;
Oswald 1999).
Although considerable research has been devoted to the link between home and
consumption for non-immigrant (rooted) and traditional immigrant consumers (i.e.
those who might move only once in a lifetime), rather less attention has been paid to
mobility as a recurrent condition, one that affects and is affected by consumers’
construction of home. In particular, little has been written on the effects of transnational
mobility on altering consumers’ notion of home, despite the number of consumers who
live in some level of constant mobility (e.g. diplomats and top level global executives).
This is surprising, given that research on transnational mobile people suggests that they
may have different notions of home (Nowicka 2007). For example, some studies
suggest that unlike immigrants, transnational mobile professionals do not seem to seek
to create roots and reproduce the old home in the host culture. They are aware of their
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constant moving, and consequently they know their stay in a new country is not
permanent. This may limit the emotional effort they have to undergo to re-create home
(Nowicka 2006b). Other studies have suggested that Third Culture Kids (i.e. people
who have moved a lot and spent a significant part of their developmental years outside
the parents’ culture) may have never formed an idea of a traditional home and thus the
idea of reconstruction might not be part of their life goals. Their notion of home may be
shattered from a very early age (Pollock and Van Reken 2009). Given the importance
that the notion of home has to consumption and given that the notion of home is altered
under conditions of mobility, it is imperative to understand how home is understood,
experienced and maintained by individuals who are living in mobile conditions and the
implications of these understandings, experiences and home-making strategies to
consumer behaviour.
5.3 Networked and deterritorialised home
Although not much has been written about the idea of home in conditions of
mobility, early studies on transnational mobile professionals suggest that, in conditions
of mobility, the notion of home is decoupled from the idea that it must have a physical
territory. Bardhi and Askegaard (2009) found that globally mobile professionals hold a
portable notion of home, which they define as home-as-order. The home-as-order
concept defines home in terms of three types of orientations: spatial, temporal and
socio-cultural. They argue that as long as consumers can reproduce these orientations,
they are also able to recreate home somewhere else. For example, they find that through
the reproduction of home-as-order consumers are able to transform hotel environments
into home-like environments.
Drawing on the works of geographer Doreen Massey (2005), Nowicka (2007)
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reaches similar conclusions about the decoupling of home from physical territory.
Furthermore, she contends that home is not seen by transnational mobile people as a
particular location. Instead, “it is defined by the relationships connecting the mobile
individuals with people and objects” (Nowicka 2007, 82). In other words, it is a
network—comprising people, objects and relationships—that is not grounded
permanently anywhere. According to Nowicka, this network can be manifested in one
particular territorial location or in many. In conditions of mobility, the place where one
grows up might be different from the place where relationships are. The most familiar
place might not be the place where one lives at the moment, and the place where one
feels comfortable might not be the place where most of one’s possessions are.
Nevertheless, they are part of the same network. These local manifestations are called
focal points, which are points where the contingencies bring the network to ground
itself in a particular territory. However, an important point to note is that a specific
territory is not part of home for Nowicka. Therefore, when transnational mobile
professionals move, home might anchor itself in a different territory. Home will be
home somewhere else, but the relationship between the elements that constitute home
may remain stable and may still be conveyed through the notion of home.
Following Nowicka, I argue that home can be better understood in mobile
conditions if it is conceptualised as a network of elements. The notion of home
traditionally comprises a variety of physical objects (e.g. the building, the furniture,
appliances, grocery products, books, electronics), social relations (e.g. family ties), daily
practices (e.g. eating, showering, sleeping) and emotions (e.g. attachment, comfort,
security, familiarity, dependence, conformity). Home establishes stable relationships
between those elements, that is, it connects physical objects to social relations, daily
practices and emotions into a symbolic ensemble (Epp and Price 2010; Miller 1998). If
one imagines an object that occupies a place in the house, one also imagines other
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surrounding objects, some of the daily practices involving that object and some
emotions associated with it. For instance, a bed occupies a place in a bedroom; it has
pillows, a doona (duvet), a mattress and linen. It takes part in the daily rituals of
sleeping, love making and intimate sharing. It provides a sense of intimacy and comfort.
A table might be used for dining and be associated with table cloths, napkins, plates,
cutlery, family relations, eating, sharing and controlling. Table and bed are also
connected in various ways and the sum of all relationships contributes to creating a
sense of home. All elements in a house are connected to one another in diverse
relationships of congruence and dissonance. The notion of home captures all that in a
single signifier.
As a signifier of an ensemble of relationships between these elements, the notion
of home also assembles diverse meanings. For example, Marsden (2001, 81) lists a
number of meanings associated with home: it can be the safe place that provides
protection from the outside world; it can be the centre for relationships with family; it
can be a place of choice in regard to lifestyle and entertaining activities; it can be the
territory of control; it can reflect personal identity; it can be a place that protects one’s
privacy; it can be an expression of achievement or social status; it can be a place where
one is born or where one wants to die. In addition, the various meanings of home share
the property of homeyness, which is the quality of things that resemble or are suggestive
of home. McCracken (2005, 46) has demonstrated that homeyness has a number of
symbolic, physical and pragmatic properties that are important to understand
consumption. Most importantly, “homeyness supplies the template for construction of
an environment and a family [...] It also supplies some of the meaningful coordinates
according to which the family and the home are to be discriminated from other domains,
especially the work and public life”.
This notion of home as a network of elements and meanings has gained the
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attention of scholars and practitioners from the technological industry. For example,
Williams et al. (2008), in a partnership with Intel aimed at studying the effects of
transnational mobility, discuss the concept of distributed home, “in which kinship,
affinity and exchange are used to create home” (p. 327). This concept emerged from an
ethnographic research focused on the transnational mobility of Thai retirees. The
researchers found that the idea of home was associated with families and households,
instead of houses as built structures. When home is where the family is, one needs to
consider “the ongoing practices by which that group bind themselves together” (p. 328).
Williams and her colleagues contend that by repeated behaviours (practices) of
exchange, home-as-kinship can be sustained even in conditions of transnational
mobility. They provide examples of their informants maintaining social bonds through
exchange relationships, in which “food, cell phones, labour, support during illness,
gardening supplies, transportation, and computer use were all given and received” (p.
327). They also noticed that participants frequently “transported goods such as food,
clothing, cosmetics, souvenirs, or brand-name items” (p. 328) from one country to
another, to give as gifts. These practices of exchange establish, constitute and display
kinship and closeness, and consequently the distributed home.
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Figure 1- The networked home
Objects
Social relations
Daily practices
Emotions
Meanings
TERRITORIAL HOME NETWORKED HOME
Thus, in mobile conditions, although the notion of home is not a stable physical
place where domestic life is realised (Douglas 1991) and although it comprises an array
of multiple sites that might symbolise different expressions of home, it may still
preserve its stabilising and coordinating functions. I call it the networked home. The
networked home (Figure 1) has a coordinating function because it establishes a network
of relationships among its components (e.g. physical objects, social relations, daily
practices and emotions). The networked home also has a stabilising function, because
this network of components tends to last for a period of time even during conditions of
mobility. This network maintains the meanings and properties of home even when these
elements are decoupled from territory and spread out through diverse territories. I argue
that to understand how transnational mobility shapes notions of home and their
respective consumption practices, it is essential to understand how consumers
understand, experience and maintain the networked home in conditions of mobility. In
particular, it is important to understand how the networked home is able to function as a
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coordinating and stabilising cultural category that assembles diverse elements and
relationships into a bundle that is meaningful to consumers in conditions of mobility.
5.4 Findings
5.4.1 Transnational mobility destabilises home
The questions “Where is home for you? And what does it mean?” seemed to be
particularly complex for informants. It became clear it was not the first time they had to
answer to themselves or others questions about the meaning of home. Some smiled
before answering the questions, others seemed to pause and search internally for an
answer, but most had a prompt—but complex—answer to the question, showing that
they had thought about that before. It seems that home is such an important concept in
all cultures and such a common issue with globally mobile consumers, that they seemed
very familiar with the troublesome issues of home associated with mobility. They also
seemed to know that their answer would differ from the traditional answer and that
made most of them more talkative when addressing the issue. The same interest was
demonstrated by members of InterNations (the studied community of global
cosmopolitans), both during the gatherings and through the various postings in forums
on the website. It became clear that home was a complicated concept for them. The
totality of the answers suggests a reason for the concept of home being so central and
troublesome to globally mobile professionals. Home, as it is traditionally perceived, as a
stable unity which conflates various elements (e.g. physical objects, social relations,
daily practices, emotions, functions and meanings in a single signifier and in a single
geographic place), can no longer exist. Their transnational mobility had produced a
number of conditions (e.g. constant moving, friends spread all over the world,
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temporary houses, shifting jobs) that made it impossible to keep its unity and stability.
Globally mobile consumers seem to struggle with the notion of home, sometimes
fascinated by it, sometimes dismissive of it, but always engaged with it.
The three passages below, taken from the InterNations website, show members’
engagement with home, as well as the different views on home. It is interesting to
observe their high level of self-reflexivity, performativity and over rationalisation over
the theme. The performativity is a characteristic of all data coming from InterNations,
and this is discussed further in Chapter 6, about cultural identity. Here, the focus is on
the different ways the notion of home is articulated.
The longer I stayed in Thailand, the more I felt at home there. I felt some connection while riding my bike with others to work and the daily life of buying food for dinner at the market. The more that I knew the names of people who I dealt with on a daily basis while living in Japan, the more I felt home there (the bouncer at the door to my favourite club, the woman at the movie store, the mail carrier, the man who made soba noodles near my work!). I think that by knowing the names of people at the places you go to, it can help make a person feel like he or she is living in more of a community. My intellect and passion is alive and at home in Boston and Toronto; my aesthetic heart and soul is most at home in Italy and France. My home is dynamic and in the process of being created on a daily basis. I agree with John [another member] that you create home by being comfortable with yourself but I think it definitely helps to have a great husband and family who can help maintain some happy constant while in a state of flux (Alessandra Visconti, InterNations’ thread: “Where is home?”, posted on 05/08/2008).
Everybody has a different understanding of such an abstract word "home". Yes, the feelings that one should have there are the point. Anyway, I feel quite lost. Many people are around me, but I am lonely. Many countries I have lived in, but I feel without roots. My family is now spread in four countries...It is not always possible to live there where one feels the best, is it? You cannot always choose, sometimes you just must move on. And if this "must" happen several times, you feel lost. (Claudia Green, InterNations’ thread: “Where is home?”, posted on 01/08/2008).
K: Home is where my bed is. J: Karen, love your statement :) What if one keeps switching beds, though? Home everywhere? What about the bums and their beds under Paris' Pont Neuf? Do they feel at
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home? Maybe. K: I am a job-related globetrotter, moving around the world every couple of years...so yes, I feel everywhere at home or try to make out of it a "home". (Karen and Joseph, InterNations’ thread: “Where is home?”, posted on 05/08/2008)
These three passages show that although each informant has a different notion of
home, they all struggle to make sense of where and what home is. For Alessandra, home
is dynamic and fragmented. Different things and places may be home, but none of them
is entirely home. Similarly, Claudia reports feeling without roots, which in her case is
associated with a sense of being lost. For Karen, home can be anywhere, as she seems to
accept it. Nevertheless, she subscribes to the online forum that discusses home-related
themes, showing that the notion of home is not a settled one.
5.4.2 Fragmentation, multiplication and disembedding
Findings reveal that transnational mobility destabilises home through three
complementary processes: fragmentation, multiplication and disembedding.
Fragmentation occurs at the level of the signifier (i.e. fragmentation of meaning). It
means that home as a signifier ceases to be composed of all the traditional elements
(tangible objects, relationships, practices, memories, emotions). Informants who used to
have a fixed home and engaged in a mobile life tend to describe this process of
fragmentation with a feeling of incompleteness. For some informants, something seems
to be missing; the new homes are never as fulfilling as their former traditional home.
Instead of occupying the same place, the components of home become disaggregated
leaving a sensation of fragmentation. While the unity of home is fragmented, its
physical locations and its elements may become multiplied. For example, Alessandra
feels at home in Thailand when riding her bike, in Japan when knowing people by
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name, in Boston and Toronto when using intellect and passion, in Italy and France when
using her aesthetic heart. Multiplication is seen by the number of geographic sites that
can now be claimed as home. Thus, while the traditional home is rooted and fixed in a
territory, Alessandra’s homes occupy multiple sites. For example, Karen’s homes are
felt in every single bed she has to sleep in. Finally, transnational mobility disembeds
home from its source, surroundings and original meanings. For example, Claudia feels
lost, detached from her friends, family and the warmth of a traditional home. Although
fragmentation, multiplication and disembedding are sides of the same triangle for most
informants, some of them tended to emphasise one of the processes over the others.
The disassembling of the elements (e.g. family and close relationships, cherished
possessions, the house and its objects, daily practices) that for most informants were
once co-existing in the same space leads to them having to face the risk of losing the
stabilising and coordinating functions of home, that is, the ability of home of
concentrating all these elements together and in some kind of relationship to each other
in a way that is meaningful to them. To avoid this loss and to maintain the totality of
benefits provided by home (i.e. its meanings and functions), consumers increase the
amount of symbolic work in order to produce home as a network of linked elements. If
home has to be re-constructed as a network of linked elements, consumers must become
the primary agent in creating this network. Therefore, individuals may engage in various
consumption practices to reconstruct home as a network of elements—the house,
cherished objects, family life and daily habits—and to reconnect these elements in a
way that can recreate the meanings and feelings of being at home (i.e. comfort, security,
familiarity, intimacy and warmth). These practices are related to the way the elements
of networked home are grounded and interconnected. They can be grouped into four
categories: practices related to accessing the networked home, practices related to
grounding the networked home, practices related to linking the networked home and
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practices related to keeping the networked home uprooted. These practices are discussed
throughout the paper and summarised in the end.
In the next sections, I introduce three cases of networked home: a) with one
stable focal point, which tends to be the type of home found with informants who are
new to the mobile condition; b) with two or more stable focal points, which tends to be
found with informants who have lived in a few countries; and c) one with no stable
focal points, which was the case of the home of some people who have been mobile
from very early life (e.g. Third Culture Kids). Although the four practices are
constitutive of each type of home, accessing practices are highlighted by the first case;
grounding practices are highlighted by the second case and linking practice are
highlighted by the third case. The practices that keep home uprooted are treated in a
separate section as they are not directly related to the focal points.
5.4.3 When the networked home is grounded in one main focal point: At home
with Carla and Simon
Carla and Simon were both born in Bombay, India. Simon moved to the United
States to attend university when he was 17. After graduation, he moved to New York,
where he met Carla, who was undertaking a master degree. The couple lived in New
York for some years and decided to move to Australia “for a change.” They do not
expect to live in Australia for many years. Carla eventually wants to return to India,
while Simon, who is now also an American citizen, wishes to move back to the US.
However, they expect to move to other places first, before creating roots.
Although Simon shows less signs of attachment to his home country than Carla,
the main focal point for both—that is, the main grounding site of their networked
home—is their neighbourhood in India, because that is where their parents and most of
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their friends live, and memories are concentrated.
I: What represents home for you? Carla: My mom. Simon: For me home is just being more of like the resting place; but I kind of feel like I know I am going to move on from that place. So to somewhere I can be a little comfortable. Carla: We don’t have one static idea of home. Simon: Not really, we don’t. Carla: Takshila. Simon: Well, for me on a day-to-day basis home is where I am living like, this is home, but I know we are not going to be here forever. So I don’t settle into one place—if you are talking about home in that sense. But what I consider as home would be like Bombay where I grew up, in Takshila. Carla: It’s the name of the colony he grew up. Simon: It’s a neighbourhood where we grew up like a whole bunch of our friends, like our common friends, we all grew up in this like common area. Carla: And most of them still live there. Simon: A lot of them, yeah still live there …So we have—actually I have fond memories of that area. So that’s always going to be like home for me. But as far as where I am making home as I am moving to different countries, that’s more like a temporary kind of thing to me […] (Carla and Simon).
Takshila seems to be the source of comfort, familiarity, intimacy, warmth and
memories for Carla and Simon. They have lived in the US before and they have made
friends there, but their history there was not enough to make the US a strong part of
their networked home. Most components of home are found in the same place, in
Takshila. Their current home is seen as temporary. Because the components of home
are so concentrated in one place (Takshila) and because this place is distant, their
strategy to feel at home revolves around accessing that one focal point (i.e. site where
some of the elements of the networked home become grounded). They need to create
different ways of accessing home so they can enjoy the emotional benefits that come
with it. Most of the time, these ways are market-mediated, that is, the market provides
the resources (i.e. products and services) they need to access the networked home.
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The most direct way of accessing home is through periodic travel to India. Both
of them travel to India at least two times per year. Their travels put them in contact with
the land, relatives, memories and friends. This involves having a budget for those trips,
reserving part of their yearly holidays to go there, taking a number of gifts, and many
other consumption practices, which are developed to be able to physically access home
in its pivotal place and take advantage of it. Despite its effectiveness as a link to the
networked home, this strategy is expensive and cannot be realised too often.
During the rest of the year, they need other ways of accessing home. For
example, Carla has a very close relationship with her brother and she thinks he is an
important element of home. For her, home is “sitting on the couch, standing in the
kitchen; talking to my brother.” Therefore, she can access that feeling and image by
replicating it using products and services found in the market:
For instance, my brother calls incredibly frequently on Skype and we can sit and have conversations with him for hours where he is just sitting there and we are doing what we have to do like working in the kitchen or reading or talking on the phone and is similarly doing whatever he wants to do with his life and he will just stay online for stretches of hours. So to me that would be home because his life is sort of part of mine, does that make sense? My life is more about relations; my idea of home is more about relationships. So that seems like home, that process where he calls and then sits there and does his thing and I do my thing. I suppose that bridges the distance (Carla).
Skype is not just a means of communication, where information is exchanged
between siblings. It is also a form of sharing, of being together, of experiencing that
moment. Turned on for hours, Skype works as a window that connects the two houses.
Similar to a traditional home, where members of the family may perform different
behaviours while sharing the same roof, the networked home allows for the siblings to
experience home, despite the geographical distance. Simon and Carla have other ways
of accessing home, as the market may provide them with elements that they miss. For
example, when they cook at home, they always cook Indian food, prepared in the same
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style they are used to.
Carla and Simon illustrate globally mobile people who still have most
components of home in their place of origin. This is a particular case of networked
home, because the elements are still organised by proximity to the place of origin.
While home remains elsewhere, in the place of origin, consumers’ task is to find ways
to access home, not to re-create it. For this reason, their ways of accessing distant home
are very similar to other ways found in the consumer immigration literature (Mehta and
Belk 1991; Oswald 1999), which includes travelling, using means of communication
and engaging in consumption practices that are characteristic of the original home.
However, unlike immigrants, they do not try to re-ground their Indian home in the new
place, and they do not show feelings of nostalgia towards home either. Simon says, “We
don’t hang out [with other Indians], we don’t watch so many Indian movies, and we
don’t do a lot of Indian get-togethers and stuff.” At this stage of their lives, the home-
as-a-network is a matter of access, not of reproduction (re-grounding) or invention (re-
creation).
So I don’t really think about home that much, it’s always like I am always thinking about new places I want to go or something to do, but I don’t really think about home really. If I do—I mean if I do think about home—or if I am going to go to India then I get excited because then I start thinking about, okay. I am going to meet my friends, my family or have good food and like I am going to go back to where I grew up, yeah so it’s like I am going to feel like comfortable and I am going to feel good over there. That’s usually when I am just like—when I am planning a trip or when I am going to there. But the normal course of time, I don’t really sit back and think about it, so I don’t really miss or think about home that much (Simon).
Despite the fact that their networked home is concentrated in their place of
origin, there are signs that they are beginning to develop a new focal point for their
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networked home. The new house is not yet a stable part of the networked home, but it
may increasingly become so, if they stay there longer.
Carla: So I have always been through the transitional thing. It’s just home is more people than it is places. Simon: And things yeah, although it doesn’t seem like we are not attached to things as much. Carla: But it seems we are much more attached to all the things in this house than in the past. I: Why? Carla: This is my first apartment on my own, without a flatmate, which wasn’t furnished. So we actually bought everything here ourselves. So to that extent this is the first time I am buying my own furniture and things. So it’s a lovely house, so I think we already have really good memories and it’s only been a few months. Simon: Yeah we bought it together. Carla: Yeah and I mean we spend a lot of time thinking about it—we spent a lot of time thinking about that table for instance. Simon: We like the lamps and even the furniture. Carla: Yes. So everything in this house is a symbol of our lives together and this is the first sort of space that we have created for ourselves. So in that sense this furniture will be more missed than at other points. I: So you are not taking the furniture when you move? Carla: I don’t think so, I would like to take the table but—I don’t know what it is about the table. I suppose everything—most of the furniture we bought from someone who was leaving the country. So we sort of picked between what they had and then we added to it. But that’s probably the one thing that we bought—we had rented everything else and then we needed a table. So we went out looking for a table and then we saw this one. And we spent three hours in the store looking at all the different things and finally sort of bought this table (Carla and Simon).
Buying furniture for the house, and especially doing it together, putting time and
effort into this practice, creates certain conditions for the new house to start becoming
part of their notion of home. In the same vein, they described the process of deciding,
searching and purchasing a 42-inch TV, which is now a source of attachment to the new
house. The effort and time and long discussion involved in purchasing the TV helped
create conditions for the house to become a second focal point for the networked home.
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The couple was interviewed twice with an interval of a year, and it became clear that
after their first year in Sydney, they had more attachments, more memories and more
history associated with the new house. The house was much emptier the first time, than
the second time. Most furniture was bought second-hand and the styles did not match.
Besides some photographs, there were no decorative objects from India. They seemed to
not care so much about furniture. Nevertheless, the table and the TV are things they will
miss when they move again (their moving again seems to be a fact to them, although
there is no real plan for that at the moment). As explained by Carla, this place will be
missed more than others, because it symbolises a cherished phase of their lives.
Simon and Carla represent the case of a consumer moving from the stage of
having one focal point, to the stage of having two focal points. Their new house is not
yet grounded enough to be a second focal point. If they keep investing their time and
money into buying things for the house and increasing the amount of home-making
practices, they will create a second focal point for their networked home, which will
share with Takshila the main functions and meanings of home. However, if they keep
moving, their current home will be another temporary home, whose importance and role
will depend on a number of factors. The next section discusses cases of people whose
networked home is grounded in two or more focal points.
5.4.4 When the networked home is grounded in two or more focal points: At home
with Donald and Chloe, Hazel and James, Agu and Cathy
Donald and Chloe left Johannesburg four and a half years before he was
interviewed in Sydney. They had always wanted to have the experience of living
abroad, and as financial accountants it was not difficult for them to find jobs in one of
the global accounting firms that could guarantee that their plans would be fulfilled.
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When they started their jobs, they already knew they would eventually move to Canada.
They said they really enjoyed their lives in Vancouver. However, after two and a half
years, they moved temporarily to Sydney, “to check things out.” They had left their
furniture in Vancouver.
Where is home? We, if I talk about home I usually refer to South Africa, which is our home and our families and a lot of our history is there, but I think that is more colloquial discussion and referencing as opposed to where it really is, because I think home is probably Canada Vancouver. Because we know we are here for a time and the plan is to go back to Vancouver, and our home is where we are living practically, as opposed to where the heart is. […] Where do we feel at home? Yeah it’s becoming a bit grey or a little bit vague I suppose because we have been away from our country of birth for almost four years. [...] But I think it’s a mindset as well because if you have the mindset that you are travelling now and its temporary and you are definitely going back to South Africa then that will definitely be home. Whereas my wife and I, we are quite indifferent or ambiguous, we haven’t decided where we will actually live for the remainder of our life, or places. So that’s why home is not well defined in our household. [...] at the moment this [Sydney] is just a temporary contract. So that’s when you say “Where is home?” that’s a tough question, we are not 100% sure ourselves. Our country of birth home is South Africa, our current home to be honest—probably our current home is Canada because our furniture is there, because of our existing life that we have moved from South Africa to Canada is there, that’s where we have our PR [Permanent Residency], the existing jobs are there. But if you are asking well, psychologically in your heart where’s home, that might be the same, yeah probably it’s the same at this stage. Sorry I don’t know if that’s confusing (Donald).
Donald struggles when trying to define where home is. This is partially due to
the fact that the elements that comprise his networked home (i.e. relationships, house,
possession, practices) are grounded in more than one place. Different from Simon and
Carla, who are only beginning to ground home in a second focal point, Donald and
Chloe have already created more than one focal point for their home. Home in
Johannesburg harbours the heart, memories and family. Home in Canada contains their
belongings and their most important work relations. Sydney is only the place where
they are living at the moment, which may become a third focal point. Similar to Simon
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and Carla, buying furniture was an important grounding step for Donald and Chloe:
We took some things from South Africa, but most of them, 90% of it we had bought in Canada to furnish an apartment there that we rented. I: Why did you choose to rent a furnished house here but not in Canada? So when we signed work agreements to go to Canada from South Africa it was for a two-year commitment, and when we went over, financially, we looked at how much it would cost us to refurnish as opposed to un-furnish and furnish and accommodation and the latter was the better option. So it’s cheaper to buy furniture if you are going to be there for an extended period of time and there’s also things you like and you can choose, whereas here because it’s only a short timeframe financially it doesn’t make sense to buy furniture. [...] if we are going to come in for two years, we would likely have shipped all our furniture over here and rented an unfurnished apartment and put that furniture in there, or sell some of it and ship some of it and buy here or sell all of it and buy new here and that would be a purely a financial decision. I: So you can abstract yourself from attachments to your possessions? Except for a few select items; absolutely! I: Which items would you save? We would save our clothes, I think our clothes would make sense because there’s no resale value on clothes and you want to have a wardrobe, that’s difficult to replace and so that we keep. We have got some personal items like a tea set, a South African tea set that was bought, so that’s quite special, we have got some wedding presents that we took to Canada with us that we bring here, some cutlery and crockery and linen, I think we would want to bring over here. I suppose because it’s smaller and it’s easier to transport than big pieces of furniture. Again if we had to come for two years we would want to come with the company. So the company would pay for the transporting and then it makes sense to bring it. If we are coming on our own, completely on our own and we had to pay for everything, we would look very hard at what it will cost us and then we would bring as little as possible, you know maybe bring those special items that we could not replace, like the South African tea set, and our clothes we would definitely bring. I: What is there in the tea set? It’s an African design, it’s an African prince and handmade in South Africa. I: Was it a gift? Yeah it was a gift from my wife’s grandmother. But, we are living out of a suitcase here. So it’s just clothes, some books, iPod and the camera and those kinds of things, yeah. I: How does that feel? Yeah it’s okay for now, but if we are to be here longer we would—like we do miss our stuff, we do miss our things, which we like and we are comfortable with (Donald).
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This part of Donald’s interview illustrates a number of interesting issues about
the role of objects in grounding home-as-network. First, there are some kinds of objects
(such as furniture) and houses that help to ground the networked home in one of its
focal points. The first reason Donald provides for calling Canada his current home is the
fact that his furniture is still there. However, he explains that, if his stay in Sydney
required him to stay longer, he would have shipped his furniture to Sydney. Supporting
the practical logic of saving and financially grounded decisions, which tells him when
to take furniture and when to rent it, there is a symbolic role of furniture that signals that
home in Canada is still more permanent than in Sydney, reminding us that possessions
are “good to think with” (Douglas 1992). His logic suggests that if Sydney becomes a
more permanent home one day, furniture will then be shipped (or purchased) and it will
become a third grounding point for Donald’s networked home.
I found a number of global cosmopolitans who had moved to another country,
but kept their furniture in storage until they decided where they were finally going to
settle down. Furniture seems to have an important function in keeping the networked
home grounded at a focal point. To illustrate a more extreme case: Gruber, a financial
consultant from Germany who had lived in the UK for most of his adult life, confessed
he had been keeping his belongings in storage in the UK for nine years. When he moved
to Sydney, he put all his belongings (including heavy furniture) in storage, because he
did not know how long he was going to remain in Sydney. As the years went by, it
became clearer that he was not going to go back soon. He bought himself an apartment
in Sydney, and decorated it with new furniture, and he even got his Australian
citizenship. He does not plan to go back to the UK in the near future, but he still pays
for his belongings to be kept in storage. When asked to explain the reasons for keeping
it there and spending so much money on that, he replied:
I know I will probably never go back, but I would have to find time to go there and sort things out. Having everything sent here is too expensive and I probably
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do not need most of the things there anyway. But, for some reasons, I can’t let it go either. I must find time some day to go there and sort things out (Gruber, field note taken at InterNations gathering).
This suggests that keeping his furniture in the UK, and paying for it, has had a
symbolic function to him of keeping the ties to that geography. In other words, it has
allowed the networked home to keep one of its focal points in the UK. Similarly,
another informant, Agu, has kept an apartment in Johannesburg for its symbolic
functions. Agu is from an Indian community in Durban, South Africa, and he has lived
in many different places in the world due to his job in a high-paying consulting firm.
Durban is a natural focal point of his networked home because his family, relatives and
childhood memories are there. However, for him, home is even more associated with
Johannesburg, which is the place where he went to university and started working. He
lives in Canada at the moment, but he plans to be able to go back to Johannesburg some
day, after living in some countries in Asia. His way of grounding home in Johannesburg
is to possess an apartment there. Because he rents his apartment out, he cannot keep his
furniture there, so the furniture is in storage in Johannesburg.
I: What is the feeling of having an apartment in Johannesburg? It makes me feel bit more stable in the sense that I know that there’s a place, even though I have rented it out for lease to someone else. Makes me feel like there’s always a place that I know I am going to go back and my stuff is not all over the place. It's—even the stuff I’ve collected over the years, it's there and I will always go there. It's in storage. It is some of the stuff, but all the big stuff is there. So I know that, when I go home, I just go right into it (Agu). Owning a home or even keeping a pied-a-terre—i.e. a small house or apartment
kept for occasional use somewhere else—are common ways for global cosmopolitans to
ground themselves (Ong 2007). Furniture and heavy objects seem to mimic that
property. The findings suggest that furniture is especially relevant when consumers
need to ground their networked home in a place where its other elements (i.e. social
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relations, current house, daily practices) are not present, as is the case for Agu and
Gruber.
The second issue that can be drawn from Donald’s quotes, and from other
similar cases, is that cherished and irreplaceable objects may also be able to ground
home. Similar to what happens with furniture, they mark the existence of a focal point
of the networked home. Thus, Donald keeps his tea set in Vancouver (focal point) and
mentions he would bring the African tea set if they decided to stay in Australia longer,
as it would become an additional focal point. However, cherished and irreplaceable
objects follow a different logic: the logic of safety. Unlike furniture, which can be sold
and re-purchased, these objects are irreplaceable, and consequently they must be kept in
safe places. Since transnational mobility entails risks, it is common for global
cosmopolitans not to carry their most cherished possessions, even when the place where
they live is already part of the networked home. They keep the cherished and safe
possessions in the safest of all focal points.
In the research findings, the most commonly mentioned place for keeping
cherished and irreplaceable possessions is at their parents’ house.
I: So what did you do to all of those things? Well I sold, I moved something back to China because my company was paying relocation, but I didn’t—well couldn’t take everything, so I got rid of some stuff, and the rest was moved back to China. So when I moved here [Toronto] I still had a lot of things at my parents’ place. I mean that’s—because I know my parents will always be there and I would rather leave the things with them. (Cathy)
Cathy is originally from Beijing. After leaving China, she moved to Finland and
other countries and then returned to China, where she lived for a couple of years. Then
she moved to Canada, where she has been living for four years. Home is a word that she
uses to refer to her parents’ house, to Finland and to her current house in Canada.
Among the three places, her parents’ is the most stable and the safest. For that reason, it
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is the chosen place for cherished objects. Similarly, Hazel and James also have many
homes. She is from Scotland; he is from Spain. They have both lived in Scotland, Spain,
Luxembourg and Canada, where they were interviewed.
I: What are three of your favourite objects? Hazel: Three favourite objects. I don’t know, do you? James: I don’t know. I don’t have much attachment for objects...Oh, my coin collection. Hazel: Oh, yeah, your coin collection [...] I: Where is your coin collection? James: Here, I mean, part is here, and part is in Spain at my parents’. I: Have you brought your collection here? James: No, I was collecting Euros, so that one is still in Spain, and when I moved over here I started collecting Canadian dollars; the different coins and all that kind of stuff. Hazel: Three objects that’s difficult. James: I don’t think there are many things we ... Hazel: ... really need. I would say something really stupid about my teddy bear but it’s not even here, it’s at home but I’ve had it since I was born. I: At home, where? Hazel: At, sorry, Scotland, that’s true, bad use of word. At Scotland, with my parents, in my parents’ house. I got it when I was born so it grew up with me and I always felt like he was the same age as me. My sister was never allowed to touch him. I used to try and bribe my sister with my teddy bear, like you can sleep with special ted if you do XYZ. And then when I went to university I didn’t take it because I was scared of anything happening and so special ted lives in my parents’ house because I am too scared of anything happening to him, which seems ridiculous but I would say that’s one of my precious objects. I: Anything else that you can think of? James: I can’t think of the object I would like to have, but then you know it doesn’t have to be like that one, like, I love driving [sic] bicycles so I’d like to have a bicycle but my bicycle is not here right now, it’s in Spain.
This passage clearly illustrates the role of safer places in keeping cherished and
irreplaceable possessions. For these consumers, their parents’ house is also part of their
networked home. For example, although Hazel calls her current place home, she
constantly refers to her parents’ house as home, even though she left her parents’ home
many years before. These slip-ups suggest that her networked home has many focal
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points and that one of them is at her parents’ house.
In sum, where the networked home is distributed across various geographical
regions, consumers may use objects and consumption practices to ground it in multiple
focal points (as is the case with Donald’s furniture). Moreover, irreplaceable and
cherished possessions may mark where the safest (and usually the most stable) focal
point is. This extends the literature on cherished and irreplaceable possessions (Curasi,
Price, and Arnould 2004; Grayson and Shulman 2000) by showing that besides indexing
a specific time or person, cherished and irreplaceable possessions can ground the
networked home and mark its safest focal point.
Grounding home in stable focal points helps to stabilise meanings and provide
safe places for depositing emotions and cherished possessions. However, some people
do not have the opportunity to ground home in stable points. They must rely on other
strategies to stabilise meanings and assemble the components of home. The next section
discusses these cases.
5.4.5 When the networked home is not grounded anywhere: At home with third
culture kids Vera, Collette and Morris
I once heard someone say ‘I'm a citizen of the world,’ and I admit I feel the same way. Home for me is where I currently live, with my husband and my belongings. But nevertheless I feel home in every country I lived, because there are always good memories and friends attached to it. Lots of people use the expression "back home", referring to the country they were born in. It never occurred to me, even if I feel very much at home there too. (Rosanna Lorna, InterNations’ thread: “Where is home?”, posted on 28/07/2008)
Similar to Rosanna’s home, some informants’ networked home never really
grounds itself anywhere. The elements of the networked home (i.e. tangible objects,
relationships, daily practices, emotions) do exist, but they are not anchored for long in
any location. These elements are never in a site long enough to turn it into a stable focal
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point that global cosmopolitan consumers can count on to support their networked home
for longer periods of time. For example, third culture kids, individuals who have
circulated from a very early age, tend to lack stable focal points for their networked
home. Thus, for many of them, it is difficult to point out a single place of origin, as they
have lived in so many places that the place they were born bears little significance to
them. In addition, for many, the place where their parents live at the moment is not the
place where they were born or one of the various places where they grew up. For that
reason, they may feel home is everywhere, or that home is nowhere. For example,
Collette sees only the here and now. For her, anywhere can be home.
I: Where is home for you? It’s where I am at any point, I mean, when I say going home, I say going to where my family are. But if I can—I feel if I can make anywhere as my home. I: You think you can live anywhere... Almost anywhere. I: So when you think about home? What is home for you? My room, my things and friends and maybe family as well. Just feeling comfortable being around—being in a place that I feel comfortable and with people that I care about. I: So do you—what nationality do you carry? Citizen of the world. You know, I am British, I consider myself British, not Scottish, I mean, I am Scottish, I guess, that my parents were English, are English, so I don’t feel, you know, patriotic about being from Scotland, from Europe (Collette).
Collette claims that her home can exist in any place she feels comfortable with
people she cares about. However, the elements of her networked home are so spread out
and so uprooted that it is difficult from them alone to provide some of the benefits of
home in the same way the focal points do. She longs for a more condensed and
grounded network. For example, when asked about her biggest dreams, Collette referred
to the ability of having her social network altogether in the same place.
I: What are your biggest dreams?
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Dreams, I wish everyone that I have met all over the world could be in one place at one time, that would be a dream come true because the downside of travelling so much is that you have to move on—that you eventually leave and then everyone I know is all over the place. And I just have small pockets of friends everywhere and so, I guess, my dream would be to have them all in one place at one time (Collette). Collette’s confession provides an illustration of the emotional burden that global
cosmopolitans carry as a consequence of not having their lives concentrated in only one
place. Consistent with Thompson and Tambyah (1999), global cosmopolitans also seem
to live in the constant tension between the dreams and advantages of a mobile life and
the backdrops of the lack of unified home and community. Thompson and Tambyah
explain that the “cosmopolitan ideology” tends to dismiss home as unimportant and to
over valorise mobility. However, unlike Thompson and Tambyah’s informants, those
who participated in this study seemed to be able to “solve” these tensions by building a
networked home. In other words, the networked home is more than an ideological move
to privilege mobility over home. Global cosmopolitans seem to actively engage in
various practices to create a different structure for home in conditions of mobility: the
networked home. The networked home helps to resolve this tension by providing
temporary relief for mobile people as it grounds itself in many different focal points.
However, some global cosmopolitans, such as Collette, do not have their networked
homes strongly grounded in any focal point, making them poor surrogates for home.
Collette wishes she could have her social network in “one place at one time.” Since
stable focal points are not there to assemble and stabilise the components of the
networked home, these elements must be assembled through other ways, such as the
linking practices.
Consumers use linking practices to help weave the components of home
together. Linking practices can involve the movements of goods (e.g. gift-giving) and
people (e.g. travelling). The importance of linking practices is even higher in situations
when there are no stable points, as is the case with third culture kids. Morris, for
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example, provides an interesting example of how he connects the various sites of his
networked home. He first shows that no focal point is really stable. Morris has travelled
extensively from a very early age. Born in Hong Kong, he was first brought up in
Taiwan, then Japan, and then he moved back to Hong Kong, the USA, Canada and the
UK, where he joined the navy and was sent to work in Iraq for four years. He does not
feel strong attachment to any place. He has friends, family, memories, possessions, and
engages in daily practices but none of these elements are grounded in any specific place.
Friends, family and memories are spread all over the world. His daily practices are
associated with here and now, and they change all the time. His possessions are at his
many friends’ houses.
I: So where is home for you? M: Home is wherever I feel like home. The thing is: I really do mean that. There is no one place that is home [...] When I was in Iraq, it [home] was wherever I could feasibly rest my head without danger of getting shot or bombed or whatever, right. So at that moment it would have been like home, that’s temporary [...] and Japan feels like home, but a lot of places feel like home too (Morris).
Although the elements are not grounded for long anywhere, they are connected through
various linking practices conducted by Morris. For example, Morris enjoys skiing,
mountain climbing and diving. His sporting equipment is kept at his friends’ houses in
different parts of North America, Europe and Asia. When he needs them, he must either
collect them at these friends’ houses or ask them to send them over. Getting in touch
with friends and visiting them strengthens social ties and consequently the networked
home. It also creates new memories, which further interconnects these possessions and
friends. Similarly, Heidi, an American-born global cosmopolitan and member of
InterNations, comments on her teddy bear Osito:
In 2000, my friend whom I became really close to in Ecuador bought me a bear
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to help me get over my boyfriend whom I thought I would marry. Osito has travelled with me to most of my countries and I lend him out to friends—no matter the age—when they are homesick, or have lost a loved one, when they cannot return to their country to be with them (Heidi Tall, InterNations’ thread: “Where is home?”, posted on 28/07/2008).
Similar to Morris’ objects, Osito moves around among Heidi’s friends. Both
objects play an important role in connecting the elements of the networked home and in
stabilising its meanings, but they work in a different way from the objects described
previously. Unlike Hazel’s teddy bear, Osito is not kept in a focal point that represents
the safest place in the networked home. On the contrary, Osito moves within Heidi’s
networked home offering comfort to its members. Unlike Donald’s furniture, these
objects do not help ground the networked home in a focal point. Instead, their function
is to link the various elements of the networked home via movement. They may move
with their owners or independently within the networked home. According to Williams
et al.(2008), a distributed notion of home is constructed by practices of exchange. They
found that transnational ties are formed between friends and relatives who “frequently
transported goods such as food, clothing, cosmetics, souvenirs, or brand-name items
from one country to another” (p. 328). Because commodities make categories of culture
stable and visible (Sherry 1983), the circulation of goods among focal points can help to
make the networked home more tangible. Thus, similar to the Kula circle (Malinowski
1929) and the system of total prestation of the gift (Mauss 2002), the circulation of
objects may strengthen the ties between the components of the networked home,
contributing to the stability of its meanings and guaranteeing their place in it.
In addition, the notion of home itself may be unfamiliar for some of them. For
example, Vera has lived in many places since she was very young and, among passports
and documents of permanent residencies, she is a citizen of five countries. She struggles
to understand the question about the meaning of home. Despite insistence from the
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interviewer in getting an answer from her, she explained she understood home as being
here and now:
I: So when people ask ‘Where is your home?’, how do you answer? I say it’s here, now it’s here or I say I don’t really have a home. I: When you move to a new country what do you have to do to make, to feel at home? I try and make friends… and where I have a bed I guess, a place, like a bed, that you call bed, like your bed. But more like the people aspect I think. I: Okay. Yeah, so where I have like a support network or a like a social life or something I don’t know yeah. I: Okay, so what’s home for you then? So at the moment it’s here. I: Yeah but what does it mean to you? What does home mean? I: Yeah. Here, where you are at the moment. Right? (Vera)
Vera may consider the place where she is currently living as home, but this does
not warrant her any access to feelings of familiarity and safety that characterise home.
Thus, with this objective, she may engage in practices that connect her and the other
deterritorialised elements of home. For example, parents and siblings, as in most third-
culture-kid families, are spread around the world. For Vera, they are not associated with
specific places, because they are also as mobile as she is. Nevertheless, they engage in
practices that connect them and keep them as a family, such as celebrating Christmas
together every year, travelling to each others’ current places and exchanging gifts.
Technology (e.g. Skype and other connecting applications) are key connectors in
maintaining a functioning networked home. However, unlike Carla’s usage of Skype,
Vera’s use of technology does not provide her with access to a distant focal point of the
networked home. On the contrary, technology is used to create temporary performances
of the networked home that is not grounded anywhere. For example, here Vera explains
how she keeps in touch with her brother in Switzerland and her sister in the UK.
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I: So how do you keep in contact [with your siblings]? We’ll Skype or WhatsApp […] so we video each other. It’s like oh you are on Skype let’s talk or it’s like oh I’ll message you I need to talk to you, it’s all over the place, so it’s not like a schedule or… it’s when we can, how we can and it’s not very often. So like my sister I’ll talk to her. I talked to her the other day it was like it probably been a month I hadn’t talked to her and she was in Norway travelling but then when we talk, we’ll talk for like an hour or two hours, and just [we] can talk random… we’ll talk about everything it’s not like, I don’t know. It’s not like the relationships been in a problem because we haven’t talked for a month, it’s fine… I: Okay. And WhatsApp how do you use that? We’ll take pictures and send it to each other like things that make us think about each other. So typically if my brother and sister see something marketing related they’ll take a picture and send it to me and if I see something design… my brother is an industrial designer so if I see something design related I’ll send it to him and my sister is in the arts and theatre so I see something I’ll send it to her or just really random like ‘hey how are you?’ [...] WhatsApp is a texting system. It’s an app that you use on your phone so you can use it if you have an iPhone or if you have an Android and you can also send recordings and voice recordings sometimes you send recordings like with my parents we do a lot of recording updates, yeah. I: Before all this technology like Skype, how did you keep in touch with them? Through letters or postcards. I was friends with a girl from the UK when I was between eight to 13, and when I left there, we were like... it was an all girls school and we had a band, we were like a group of… we almost got expelled because we were the bad girls, it was not even high school, it was middle school, and I left and then some of them stopped seeing each other, some of them didn’t, but now we are friends on Facebook and she just wrote me a text on Facebook saying that she’s found the letter I wrote to her from 1997 and said something about having a boyfriend for two weeks. Yeah so we used to write or call I guess but probably more write than call. I: And do you think Facebook is substituting that or…? With those relationships that are now not as close yes. Well I’m probably using it with the close ones as well but not really because I won’t really Facebook my sister. I’ll Facebook my sister and brother, but again just to send them links that are interesting for them or like a music video that made me think of my brother I know he’ll like I’ll send it through that. But it’s definitely more it’s better to Skype and talk or even WhatsApp because it’s like right there right in the moment than an email or a Facebook (Vera).
It is clear from this passage that Skype, WhatsApp and Facebook are more than
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communication tools to Vera. They help construct and maintain the links between
herself and members of her networked home. She can exchange ideas and all sorts of
immaterial possessions, such as pictures, photos, gifts and music. The networked home
takes full advantage of new technologies, bringing even the memories of her childhood
back through the revival of old time friendships.
5.4.6 Maintaining the networked home uprooted: The role of cherished practices,
rituals and routines in the performance of the networked home
Certain objects and practices that are part of the networked home may move
with consumers. As long as consumers can use or perform them, they are able to
simulate the sensation of being at home. Beyond their functional value, they provide
sensations of familiarity, safety, comfort and warmth. For example, objects that can fit
in a suitcase—such as Donald’s clothes, books, iPod and camera—allow him to keep
doing activities he likes to do and which provide him with a feeling of homeyness, no
matter where he is. With a few exceptions, global cosmopolitans do not value these
objects because they are cherished and irreplaceable. They are valued because they
allow consumers to engage in practices and routines that are dear to them, that are
homey. Global cosmopolitans seem to be more attached to practices than to singular
objects, as practices tend to be more mobile than the objects themselves. For example,
Luca, a diplomat who has now lived and worked in many countries has developed a diet
that he can apply almost everywhere. He explains: “I have the same food, steak, rice and
beans, or rice and potatoes, perhaps pasta. It’s the same what I have in every place.” The
daily practice of eating the same food every day provides him with the familiarity of
routines and daily practices. He has developed a way of adapting to different places by
attaching himself to what remains constant. He is attached to the practices of eating rice
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and potatoes, not to a specific piece of potato.
Even when not using the same objects to engage in home-related practices, the
practices themselves may be the same or similar in different places. It is the familiarity
that confers the practices with a “homey” feeling. For example, Sandra is proud of
having developed a routine that is capable of being executed anywhere. Likewise,
Victor and Tom have routines that are transportable and therefore capable of simulating
home.
Well, actually this place [a local coffee house] that we’re in right now is part of my routine, I live just over there, I come here and I do my writing in the morning and I have a coffee and I have my music, which is great. I’ll enjoy that, on the days I go to the gym or work out or come home, get ready and shower. Now what I created is a new routine that I can do when I am out. So I have my iPhone and my music on my iPhone and I have an external speaker that I carry with me and take with me in my bag. I have my gear, I have my laptop, all my data is there and so I get ready in the hotel in the same way regardless of what hotel it is, so I got my music with it and I plug it in and I play my music and I get ready, have my work out, my work out is now not dependant on my own gym, but dependant on a generic gym. So I have my music that I bring with me to my workout (Sandra).
I have a passion that I can take with me everywhere. Because it is there. The sky. I’m a skydiver and will always take my parachute with me so I can find a proper drop zone and manage to jump as much as I can. …skydiving is my sacred thing, my ritual. It is the action that gets the best of me. And the sky is the sky, no matter where you are. Then I feel “home.” (Victor Marinelli, InterNations’ thread “What is sacred for expatriates”, posted on 19/12/2011)
The thing that is sacred for me whenever I go abroad for a longer period of time is to be able to ride the bicycle every day to work. I know that might sound crazy (and very cheesy since I am Dutch), but I have been doing that for pretty much all my life, except when it's pouring, in which case I am forced to take the car (Tom Van Buren, InterNations’ thread “What is sacred for expatriates?”, posted on 19/12/2011)
Victor and Tom explained that these daily rituals are sacred to them. Rook
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(1985) has described the importance of rituals to consumer research in bringing order
and understanding. Here, these rituals gain a special function: to preserve the sacredness
of the networked home. Through repetitive action, consumers are able to maintain part
of the sacredness reported in the traditional home (Sherry 1998). In addition to
individual rituals, consumers who travel with their families can also count on collective
rituals to create a sense of home. Carla and Simon for example tend to cook Indian food
together as a way of maintaining home (and its sacredness). As emphasised by Rook
(1985, 255), “ritual practices cement relationships and foster joint participation in the
household activities.” It is interesting to observe that these rituals also have the same
function in maintaining the networked home.
This transportability of routines to other places has been noticed before by
Bardhi and Askegaard (2009), when they investigated home-making strategies of
business travellers in hotels. They found that the practice of following certain habits and
doing activities in a certain order, or using the same physical objects, can simulate the
feeling of home in the hotel space. I extend their findings by showing that some
elements of home are reproduced and linked through routines and ritualised action, even
when home is not grounded in a focal point (i.e. in a hotel). Their routinized activities
can help them feel at home, momentarily, during their performance, no matter where
they are, as long as they can replicate the practices and their related objects.
5.4.7 The empty house
Some of the interviews were conducted at participants’ dwellings, others were
conducted at cafes, but informants brought pictures of their houses. It became very clear
from the first interviews that their houses tended to have more empty spaces than a
more traditional house. The rooms, especially the living rooms, seemed empty and a bit
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too functional. Understandably, people who had just moved would not have had the
time to accumulate possessions and buy furniture, but the “empty house phenomenon”
was also observed in the dwellings of global cosmopolitans who had been settled for
longer periods of time. These houses were not carefully decorated houses with plenty of
little details to explore, as are the houses usually described in consumer research (e.g.,
Üstüner and Holt 2010).
As the interviews unfolded, it gradually became clear that when the components
of the networked home are distributed among many focal points, the house where
consumers are currently living may become like an empty shell, which is not only
devoid of objects but also devoid of its homey meanings. This seemed to be particularly
true for global cosmopolitans who were single or divorced. Global cosmopolitans who
travelled with their spouses and more so with kids seemed to have a less detached
relationship with their current dwelling, which is understandable as family life
strengthens a focal point by concentrating its elements in a single site (see Carla and
Simon above for this argument). Nevertheless, even the houses of married global
cosmopolitans were emptier than the houses described in the consumer literature. Apart
from a few objects that transmitted character and singularity (McCracken 2005), the rest
of the objects seemed common and replaceable. This observation was confirmed by the
interviewees, who seemed to hold a relationship of instrumentality with these household
items.
It is possible that the lack of objects expressed the lack of investment of
individuals’ time and energy in their house. Houses are mostly rented as they are
transitory. The ones who purchased a house did it for speculation purposes. When the
house is only a building, consumers may only develop a relationship of instrumentality
with their houses. The furniture of this house is part of a functional decision.
I: Do you rent your house or own it?
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I rent it. I: Is the furniture there rented or owned? It’s owned. I: Is what you did the same in the US? What? I: In the US, did you also buy things? Yeah, yeah, I always […] actually I sold it to the next tenant. So, yeah, I think that’s a sort of importable. I think as a normal guy, right, I don’t really care so much about the quality or style of my furniture. So I basically go and take whatever is the easiest, if not completely horrible, but it was like ‘that’s fine’. And so the last few places just happened to be that it was convenient to just take over the furniture from the former tenant. I: Okay. So you’ve bought furniture from them. Yeah. And then I gave it on to the next tenant. That’s like one model, that’s—and you both you buy and sell for about the same price. So it’s only basically, since it’s already old and in another couple of years, it will reduce the value too much. It’s basic. I: So was it easy to find a place to live where someone wanted to just sell their furniture? Yeah. I: Did you look for a furnished place or you didn’t? No. Furnished places are—tend to be somewhat expensive. And if you are there for more than a year, I think it’s not worth it. I: Was it the same here in Toronto? No, in Toronto I rented a place and I bought furniture. So it was just the easiest way. I: Did you buy there things little by little or just…? I just went to IKEA and bought them at once. (Paul Kim)
Paul Kim has a high-paying job as an important researcher at a medical centre in
Toronto. He could have purchased more expensive furniture, if he wanted. However, it
is not important for him which furniture he is putting in the house, as long as it solves
his problem. In one place, he purchased the furniture from someone else and passed it
along. In the other, he went to IKEA, a store known for having very affordable prices,
and purchased it all at once there. Paul attributed this lack of attachment to the furniture
to the fact that he is a man, but the same behaviour was observed in female global
cosmopolitans. For example, Vera explains how she is not attached to things in her
house. As a third culture kid she began moving very early with her parents.
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Well also I think the thing is when you move I remember we would only get like four boxes for your room and my parents would be like this is it, so throw stuff away and both of my parents do not like to accumulate, well my mum, I’m not so sure about my dad not liking to have a lot of material things. I don’t, we don’t accumulate. I don’t accumulate a lot of things so I don’t; actually I am not like tied to objects. I find it easy to throw things away. So I don’t have much except for pictures (Vera).
In short, while consumers engage in practices of accessing, grounding, linking
and maintaining uprooted the networked home, their current houses may become
symbolically devoid of meanings that are traditionally associated with home. For some
global cosmopolitans, therefore, their current houses are not the container of memories,
extension of the self, storehouse of personal signs, provider of safety and privacy, or the
site of privacy. This is reflected in the lack of furniture and other elements that are
normally in the house. This is an interesting finding because it sets up a case that
diverges from descriptions of previous research on the symbolic relationships between
consumers and their houses. Past work has depicted how material culture (e.g. furniture
in the house) symbolises the rich relationships between consumers and their houses
(Epp and Price 2010). This work points to the emptiness of the houses as a result of the
same logic: the lack of rich symbolic relationships between consumers and that space,
as houses may be just a temporary place of dwelling.
5.5 Discussion
5.5.1 Summary of findings
This research demonstrates how global cosmopolitans manage to maintain a
sense of home in conditions of global mobility. It shows that global mobility
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destabilises consumers’ sense of home through three different but complementary
processes: fragmentation, multiplication and disembedding. These disassembling
processes challenge the stability of home and its ability to provide its various functions
and meanings (e.g. to provide safety, comfort, familiarity, intimacy and warmth; to
protects one’s privacy; to provide a sacred place; to embody family relationships, to
embody individuals’ lifestyle, to reflect personal identity, to be the territory of control,
to be an expression of achievement or social status).
Additionally, it is shown that, to avoid the destabilising of home and to maintain
the totality of its meanings and functions, consumers increase the amount of symbolic
work to maintain home as a network of connected elements (i.e. physical objects, social
relations, daily practices, emotions). Global cosmopolitans engage in four main
practices to keep the networked home stable: a) practices related to accessing the
elements of the networked home; b) practices related to grounding the elements of the
networked home; c) practices related to linking the elements of the networked home;
and d) practices related to keeping the networked home uprooted (see Table 2).
In addition, the findings show that the networked home can have different
structures, based on the number of focal points (i.e. grounding sites of one or more
elements of the networked home) and their stability (temporary or stable). Accessing
practices allow global cosmopolitans living in a temporary focal point to have access to
focal points that are more stable or that concentrate most of the elements of the
networked home, allowing them to also access the meanings and functions of networked
home. Grounding practices allow global cosmopolitans to create new temporary focal
points and to turn temporary focal points into more stable ones. Linking practices
connect the elements of the networked home, giving them unity and thus demarcating
the boundaries of the networked home. Uprooting practices are practices that allow
global cosmopolitans to experience meanings and functions of home even when there
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are no focal points, or when they are only temporary.
Table 2 Practices constituting the networked home
Practices constituting the networked home
Content
Accessing practices The actions, routines and objects used to access stable focal points
Grounding practices The actions, routines and objects that help to create or stabilise focal points
Linking practices The practices of circulation involving the movement of people and objects across multiple focal points
Uprooting practices Transposable home-related rituals, routines and associated objects that can be performed anywhere
Interestingly, as happens with territorial homes, the findings reveal that
consumers tend to put their cherished possessions in places they consider as being safe.
In territorial homes, safe places can be an actual safe, a sacred place, a private place, a
hidden place, or any place with limited access or reduced risk (Belk et al. 1989; Ger and
Yenicioglu 2004). However, in the networked house, this place is usually the most
stable focal point in the networked home, which may be very different from where
consumers live.
5.5.2 Contributions
This work contributes to the literature on globalisation of consumer culture by
showing how an important socio-cultural institution (i.e. home) shifts its structure for
consumers in conditions of global mobility. Specifically, it shows transnational mobility
destabilises territorial notions of home for consumers by fragmenting the unity of home
as signifier of diverse meanings and functions, by multiplying the number of grounding
(focal) points and by disembedding its components from their original social structure.
Furthermore, it shows that consumers engage in various practices to keep the benefits of
home in mobile conditions. The proposed concept of the “networked home” offers a
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way of examining the permanence of home in conditions of mobility. On the one hand,
it agrees with postmodernist claims that “the experience of the consumers’ in today’s
market is fragmented” (Firat 1997, 79; Firat and Venkatesh 1995), which reflects a
“globalisation of fragmentation.” On the other hand, it shows that certain cultural
categories (e.g. home) are able to survive fragmentation and keep their meanings in
mobile conditions. In order to capture the stability in fragmentation, new research
approaches, techniques and conceptualisations are needed. By following consumers’
construction of home, it is possible to see how consumers manage to stabilise home and
extract its meanings even when territory is not there anymore.
This chapter also contributes to consumer research on home by providing
empirical evidence of and conceptual formulation for the networked home across
geographical distances. Past work has already shown that home is a dynamic network of
elements that are weaved together in complex relationships. For example, the study on
family identity by Epp and Price (2008) has shown that family identity is actually
composed of a series of individual, relational and collective enactments that are in a
dynamic and constant interplay. Similarly, Epp and Price (2010, 821) examine the
“biography of a singularized household object over time as it interacts with and
transforms a network composed of the focal object, family practices, spaces, and other
objects.” These studies have acknowledged the networked nature of the household.
However, they still consider the household as territorial. This research extends this
growing body of work on networks and addresses its limitation by showing that
networked homes and networked households can also exist across transnational spaces
that do not require a singular point of territorialisation.
Moreover, the concept of the networked home allows researchers to overcome
potential limitations that the territorial thinking may impose on their analysis and
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conclusions. The networked logic of home allows understanding of consumer actions
that were not able to be explained by current theories. For example, it helps researchers
to understand the reasons for Osito, the teddy bear, to circulate within the network of
friends and relatives of its owner. Osito’s travels have a symbolic purpose: to help
construct the networked home by linking some of its focal points. Similarly, the concept
of networked home offers alternative explanations to consumer phenomena associated
with movement. For example, past work on mobile consumers has affirmed “that
consumers form strong and enduring object attachments that fix them to culture, place,
time, and enduring identity projects” and that in conditions of mobility, they develop
other kinds of relationship to possessions (i.e. liquid relationships to possessions),
which are “temporary and situational; possessions are appreciated for their instrumental
value and their immateriality” (Bardhi et al. 2012, n/a). This work has demonstrated that
mobile consumers are not necessarily engaged in instrumental and functional
relationship to objects, even when they are using these objects to keep being mobile. To
maintain the networked home, there are various objects whose functions are mostly
symbolic (instead of instrumental), and that are not related to territorialising home. The
framing of home as a network allows researchers to see beyond the instrumentality of
the object and to focus on a new (networked) symbolic dimension.
Another contribution of the work is to advance the body of work that views new
technologies, such as Skype and WhatsApp, as more than just communications tools. As
these technologies evolve and become an integral part of everyday modern life, it is
important to understand them as constitutive parts of practices that are meaningful to
consumers. For example, Williams et al. (2008, 329) have explained that “contemporary
communication technologies allow migrants to more easily maintain links and
participate in family life from a distance.” Furthermore, Epp and Price (2008, 59) have
affirmed that “technologies can play an important role in re-creating altered rituals and
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everyday interactions across geographically dispersed family members, such as having
breakfast together using Webcam-based software.” It is only when these elements are
seen at work within the web of practices that they can reveal their real meanings. This
work has contributed to this literature by showing that these technologies can help
construct the networked home in different ways: in some cases these technologies help
consumers access the networked home (e.g. Skyping family in a stable focal point
abroad), link the networked home (e.g. exchanging pictures via WhatsApp) and uproot
the networked home (e.g. files kept in Dropbox).
This chapter suggests that home is still very important to consumers in late
modernity. However, in conditions of mobility, home gains new contours. It leaves the
territorial logic of the house and stretches itself over the transnational spaces consumers
circulate. This networked home is a valuable construct for consumer researchers,
because the various nodes (focal points) of the network tend to rely on the market and
on the actions of consumers to remain connected. This study suggests that without the
new technologies, intense exchange, and consumers’ actions to uproot, link and
reground the various fragments of home, the networked home could not exist.
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6. Global Cosmopolitan Identities
6.1 Introduction - globalisation and cultural identity
To recap, new relationships to space and time are being formed in late modernity.
Globalisation processes are “shrinking the world” through a time-space compression
(Harvey 1999) caused by increased technological and human interconnections among
points that are physically distant. In a matter of hours, products and people cross the
Atlantic and reach Europe. In one second, images of an earthquake in Japan or of the
NY stock exchange circulate and are shown on screens throughout the world. People in
different countries can “get together” and have similar experiences at the same time. In
turn, mobile people such as the global cosmopolitans studied here become continually
exposed to multiple cultural frameworks and social systems.
However, if global cosmopolitans are continually exposed to different kinds of
social systems, how can we understand their individual and collective sense of
identities? Under conditions of increased mobility, culture becomes increasingly
detached from territory (Hopper 2007). As a consequence, cultural identities – the sense
of self derived from being from, belonging to, or wanting to belong to a cultural group –
also change (Tomlinson 2003). A number of social scientists argue that globalisation,
and technology in particular, is transforming traditional notions of cultural identity from
stable and fixed to flexible and mobile (Bauman 1992; Clifford 1992; Turkle 1995; Urry
2000). Despite that, we hardly understand how this flexibility and mobility empirically
shapes (and is shaped by) consumption practices. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to
understand how global mobility affects notions of cultural identity, and how these
notions affect consumption practices.
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Cultural identities are coordinating structures in consumers’ lives, as they shape
the way consumers interpret meanings of objects, consumption practices, places, and
other symbolic resources.5
Dong
and Tian 2009
An extensive body of literature in marketing has shown how
national and ethnic identities represent key structuring categories in consumption (
; Peñaloza 1994; Zhao and Belk 2008). As Canclini (1993, 13) affirms,
“having an identity meant – above all – having a country, a city, an area: an entity
where all that was shared by the inhabitants of a place was identical or interchangeable.
Those who did not share this territory, who had neither the same objects or symbols nor
the same ritual and customs, were the others – those who were different”. However,
globalisation – and the global mobility of people in particular – seems to challenge the
unity, stability, and territoriality of cultural identities, which affects the way these
identities structure consumption. Thus, it is important to understand in which ways
global mobility changes the structuring role of traditional cultural identities (i.e. national
and ethnic identities). In particular, it is essential to understand how consumers engage
in various practices to manage their national and ethnic identities in conditions of
mobility and how multiple, flexible, and mobile cultural identities become the new
organising structures in consumers’ lives.
The present chapter is structured as follows. First, some key identity-related
terms are defined and discussed. Second, a review of the marketing literature that
discusses the various ways by which cultural identity has shaped consumption is
presented. Third, research findings are presented in two different sections. In the first
section, the focus is on how global cosmopolitans manage their multiple national and
5 I follow Holland’s (2001) perspective on identities as capable of providing support for agency. Drawing
from Bakhtin, Bourdieu, and Vygotsky, she argues that identity is the space of authorship. “Authorship is
a matter of orchestration: of arranging the identifiable social discourses/practices that are one’s resources
[...] in a time and space defined by other standpoints in activity, that is, the social field conceived as the
ground of responsiveness. Human agency comes through this art of improvisation” (p.272). Cultural
identities structure consumers’ actions by providing guidelines for behaviour and organising the “space of
authorship” in which consumers’ practices (and improvisations) occur.
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ethnic identities; in the second section, the focus is on how they develop new identity
structures (i.e. their global cosmopolitan identity projects) based on non-territorial
principles. The processes of managing identities and seeking new identity projects entail
a number of consumption practices and objects, some of them quite surprising. The
overall aim of the present chapter is to highlight the key contributions to an
understanding of how consumers’ cultural identities change in conditions of global
mobility and how these changes help us understand the collective building of fluid
identities, a key process of global consumer culture and consumer life in late modernity.
6.2 Defining identity and related terms
Identity is a concept that has been used in many different ways. For present
purposes, identity is a “self-referential description” of an individual (i.e. it describes
“who I am”) or a collectivity (i.e. it describes “who we are”). It refers to “the myriad
labels that people use to express who they are” (Reed II and Bolton 2005). Identity
includes various aspects such as “core beliefs or assumptions, values, attitudes,
preferences, decisional premises, gestures, habits, and rules” (Scott, Corman, and
Cheney 1998, 303). Closely related to the notion of identity, identification is the process
of “viewing a collective’s or role’s defining essence as self-defining” and “the
perception of oneness and of belongingness to some human aggregate” (Ashforth,
Harrison, and Corley 2008, 329). Thus, when a girl says “I am American”, she is saying
that she thinks of herself as (cognitive identification) and feels herself to be (affective
identification) a member of a group of people called Americans. In this case,
“Americans” refers to a group of individuals who share features that are characteristic
of the American identity. When framed through the conceptual framework of
structuration theory (Giddens 1984), identity and identification are aspects of the same
overall process. Although identity is continuously changing, the concept of identity is
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used to capture a snapshot of this process, and, as such, it communicates a sense of
stability. In turn, identification depicts the process itself, the process of becoming,
denoting variation. In other words, using structuration theory, identity represents the
structure that describes the set of beliefs, assumptions, values, attitudes, preferences,
gestures, habits, and rules that individuals have or want to have; while identification
represents the systems, or the processes involved in maintaining or pursuing those
identities (Scott et al. 1998).
Social identity theorists have discussed the importance of groups in defining in-
group and out-group categorisations (us/them), underscoring that the individual’s sense
of who he/she is sometimes better defined in terms of “we” than “I”. Drawing on
Tajfel’s social theory (Tajfel and Turner 1986) and Giddens’ structuration theory
(Giddens 1984), Ashforth, Harrison, and Corley (2008) contend that there are a number
of ways in which identification can typify an individual as a member of a group (e.g.
group A). At the core of identity, the process of identification (being a member of A)
includes self-definition (I am “A”), importance (I value “A”), and affect (I feel about
“A”). The content of identity also includes identification with values (I care about what
“A” cares about); goals (I want to be part of “A” and I want the same that “A” wants);
beliefs (I believe in what “A” believes); stereotypic traits (I generally do what I believe
“A” does); knowledge, skills, and abilities (I have the knowledge and skills to be “A”);
and behaviours (I do what “A” does). Thus, individuals can identify with groups
through one, some, or all of these different ways. According to Ashforth et al., these
different aspects of identity are “the central, distinctive, and more or less enduring
attributes that constitute identities […] – what it means to be A – such that identification
implies an acceptance of those attributes as one’s own. The more an individual actually
embodies those attributes, the more prototypical he or she is said to be” (Ashforth et al.
2008, 330). Moreover, Ashforth et al. distinguish between situated identification, which
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is temporary, unstable and triggered by situational cues, and deep structure
identification, which represents a more permanent and fundamental connection
between the individual and the collective. These definitions are important for the
development of a clear argument about the way global mobility shapes identities.
Additionally, social identity theorists affirm that a person has not one “personal
self”, but rather multiple selves that correspond to various circles of group membership
(Tajfel and Turner 1979, 1986). Thus, the same individual can simultaneously be Asian,
Japanese, Christian, a biker, and a consumer researcher. It is important to note that
multiple identities are not always compatible. Individuals can have identity conflicts
when there is “an inconsistency between the contents of two or more identities, such as
a clash of values, goals, or norms” (Ashforth et al. 2008, 354). For example, a Muslim
woman in France may face identity conflicts, if membership to the Muslim community
requires her to wear the veil and membership to the French nation prohibits her from
wearing it. To try to resolve these conflicts, individuals may engage in various strategies
of negotiation (see Kleine, Kleine III, and Allen 1995, for an explanation of how this
works).
One type of social identity is especially relevant to this research: cultural identity,
which refers to the core beliefs or assumptions, values, attitudes, preferences, gestures,
habits, and rules of a cultural group or of an individual, as far as one is influenced by
one's belonging to a cultural or ethnic group. Collectively, cultural identity refers to the
features that define the cultural group. Individually, it refers to the sense of self derived
from being from, belonging to, or wanting to belong to a specific cultural group. The
most commonly known forms of cultural identity are national and ethnic identities.
While national identity refers to the key characteristics defining a nation (i.e. the
defining characteristic of the inhabitants of a country), ethnic identity refers to the key
characteristics defining an ethnic group (i.e. a group of people that are considered to
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have common origins). Despite differences between ethnic and national identity, these
concepts often overlap; for example, “American” can refer to the nationals of the United
States of America or to individuals that have come from the USA. However, when
nationals of one country move to another and become a minority cultural group, their
national identity is generally referred to as an ethnic identity (e.g. Mexicans in the
USA).
6.3 Cultural Identity and the function of consumption practices and products
Cultural identity is relevant to consumer research as it structures consumers’
beliefs, assumptions, values, attitudes, preferences, gestures, habits, and rules. In the
consumer research literature, identity is generally discussed from three perspectives:
internalised characteristics, contextual characteristics, and idealised characteristics.
Although these perspectives are not exclusive, each underscores different way in which
possessions, products, brands, and consumption practices are structured by identity.
According to the first perspective, which sees identity as a result of “internalised
culture” (i.e. internalised cultural values, for cognitive psychologists, or embodied
cultural practices in the more anthropological approach), individuals who grow up in a
country or in an ethnic group tend to think, feel, and behave in a way that is congruent
to the culturally constructed aspects of a specific national or ethnic identity. In these
cases, consumers are said to have a national/ethnic identity because they express values,
attitudes, and behaviour learned through processes of socialisation that tend be seen as
characteristic of that group. This is the premise behind the argument that says Italians
will consume in A, B, and C ways and Americans will consumer in F, G and H ways,
and behind cross-cultural research that compares attitudes, preferences, and values of
nationals countries, assuming that these nationals carry the “essence” of their culture
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(see Nakata 2009, for a critique). Although, this view tends to be preferred by cognitive
psychologists because of its dispositional tendencies (Triandis 1989) , it can be useful to
shed light on cultural identity as a result of embodied practices and tastes (Bourdieu
1984; Holt 1998). Therefore, in this perspective, possessions, products, brands, and
consumption practices are expressions of embodied cultural memberships. Following
this assumption, if global cosmopolitans have characteristics that express their
embodied membership to a global cosmopolitan culture, it is important to understand
what these characteristics are and how they interplay with other cultural identities, such
as ethnic and national identities.
According to the second approach, in which identity is discussed as a set of
contextual characteristics, identity is situational and relational. This means that,
although identity is a label associated with the set of attributes and behaviours that
defines the members of a group, it may vary in terms of which behaviours it underlines
because of the other elements in the context. Identity serves to highlight differences
between two or more sets of characteristics. Identity is constructed through difference
(Hall 2003). According to social identity theory, this happens because part of what we
are (“us”) depends on what we are not (“them”).The same group of people may be
labelled as hard-working or as lazy, depending on the comparison group. Due to this
situational and relational aspect of identity, the meanings of identities may also vary.
Thus, being (and behaving) in an American way may mean different things (and
underscore different behaviour) for people in the Canadian/American border and the
Mexican/American border, since meaning associated with Americaness is derived from
the contrast with the identity of other groups. Consequently, groups of behaviours
associated with the various identities may also vary depending on the context. People
diverge to avoid communicating undesired identities (Berger and Heath 2007) or
converge to stress common characteristics and integrate. In this context, possessions,
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products, brands, and consumption practices are markers of integration and of
differentiation. If we think in terms of social identities, the question to global
cosmopolitans become, how do they differentiate from the “Others” (i.e. those people
and things are culturally different from them)? If they cannot use nationality as a basis
for differentiation, how do they identify similarities and differences between themselves
and others? If identity is relational, what is the nature of the social dimension of identity
for people who are constantly shifting the boundaries of the social?
Finally, in the third approach, cultural identity may refer to an ideal set of
characteristics (i.e. core beliefs or assumptions, values, attitudes, preferences, gestures,
habits, and rules) that consumers try to pursuit or maintain. These ideal consumer
identities, known as consumers’ identity projects, are seen as undergoing continual
construction. Many articles in consumer research portray the conflicts consumers face
as they try to pursue (and maintain) their identity projects. These studies view identity
work as structured in terms of a narrative. Key episodes in one’s life are linked together
to form a story (Bruner 1991; Shankar, Elliott, and Goulding 2001; Thompson 1997). It
is this story that allows people to make sense of who they are, and provides “a
connected identity from past, to present, and into possible imagined futures” (Ahuvia
2005, 172). In this perspective, tensions may arise either because consumers’ try to be
something they are not yet (an ideal), or because something is threatening them
maintaining an identity.
As an example of the first case, Thompson and Tambyah (1999) describe how
expatriate professionals try to enact cosmopolitan identities that are central to their self-
development, personal fulfilment, sense of life purpose, and leisure enjoyment. They
describe the tensions lived by this group of people as they try to be cosmopolitan while
having embodied preferences and emotional ties to home, resisting the cosmopolitan
ethos. Their consumption becomes the “site of struggle where these sociocultural
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impediments and experiential tensions became salient in their everyday lives” (p. 215).
Consumption practices serve to express each of these countervailing discourses and to
try to “resolve” the tension between them by enacting “contextually nuanced strategies”
(p.237). In the same vein, Ahuvia (2005) describes various cases of consumers facing
conflicts between two or more identity ideals. The author discusses three consumer
strategies to resolve these conflicts (i.e. demarcating, compromising, synthesising).
In the second case, the consumer research literature discusses cases of consumers
who face conflicts due to the need to maintain their identity while facing a possible
threat by a change in the environment. For example, Dong and Tian (2009, 517) show
diverse ways in which contemporaneous Chinese consumers try to maintain their
Chinese identity in a globalising China by using different discourses on Western brands.
They demonstrate that “competing national narratives of East-West relationships
promote different nationalist identity meanings of Western brands and prescribe
different marketplace responses to them”.
In sum, studies from this third approach focus on the identity construction effort
(identity work) made by consumers to solve tensions (of becoming or maintaining who
they are) created by a world of contrasting cultural discourses. In this view, possessions,
products, brands, and consumption practices are resources supplied by the market and
used by consumers in their identity-work processes. To apply this to the global
cosmopolitan context, we need to ask: What are their identity projects? What is the
identity-work they perform? And what are the tensions involved? Thompson and
Tambyah (1999) provide a clue by showing that part of their tensions come from the
clash of discourses on home and travel. However, to go beyond identifying the tensions,
what are consumers empirically doing to solve these tensions? What practices are
involved in this identity work?
The marketing literature has developed a number of theories and concepts based
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on these three approaches to identity: (a) to express embodied tastes and preferences; b)
to differentiate and integrate people; and c) to signal a desired set of characteristic and
behaviours. For example, a study on the embodied cultural capital of members of the
Indie culture (Arsel 2011) has been based on the notion of identity as a reproduction of
embodied practices and tastes. Likewise, discussions on consumer ethnocentrism
(Shimp and Sharma 1987) and foreign animosity (Klein, Ettenson, and Morris 1998) are
based on assumptions about the preference for products that can symbolically help
consumers to manage integration or differentiation, respectively. Finally, some
discussions on assimilation and acculturation (Askegaard et al. 2005; Dong and Tian
2009) are based on assumptions of the third type, which treats identity as the process of
wanting to be associated, or to keep being associated, with a certain group.
6.4 Consumer migration and consumers’ ethnic and national identities
Consumers’ ethnic and national identities have been of interest for consumer
researchers, especially in the realm of migrant consumers. The
assimilation/acculturation literature – the group of studies that look at
assimilation/acculturation patterns of migrating consumers – have investigated how
cultural identities and citizenship impact consumption.
These studies can be divided into three different groups according to their
approach to consumer cultural identity. The first group looks at cultural identity as a
fixity, an antecedent of consumption, a factor influencing consumption patterns
(Deshpande, Hoyer, and Donthu 1986; O'Guinn and Belk 1989). Thus, they investigate
how membership to a cultural (ethnic or national) group is related to specific
consumption patterns. For example, Faber, O’Guinn, and McCarty (1987) show that
ethnic affiliations to Hispanic and Anglo subcultures affect consumers’ evaluation of
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product attributes. In general, studies in this stream have examined correlations between
belonging to an ethnic group and various consumption patterns. More importantly, the
assumption underlying these studies is that ethnic identity is a fixed given condition and
that consumer behaviour is predicted by ethnic/national membership. The picture is
more complex when individuals happen to have been socialised in two different
cultures, as is the case with many people brought up in Hong Kong before 1996
(Chinese and English), because they may have characteristics of both groups. Briley,
Morris, and Simonson (2005, 351) demonstrate that “bicultural individuals (i.e.
individuals with two distinct sets of cultural values) shift the values they espouse
depending on cues such as language”.
Following a contrasting perspective, a second group of studies (Bouchet 1995;
Oswald 1999) considers ethnic identities as outcomes of consumer acts (instead of
antecedents of consumers acts). Bouchet states that ethnicity is best understood not as a
primordial phenomenon but as an outcome of choices made by individuals in the
market. In this view, the role of the market is to supply the means for postmodern
consumers to express membership to multiple ethnic/national groups. Ethnic identity is,
above all, a performance by consumers through the market. This model is well
illustrated in Oswald’s ethnography of a Haitian family in the United States. Her
framework introduced to the consumer acculturation literature the constructs of “culture
swapping”, “code switching”, and “plasticity of identity,” used to construct a
performative model of ethnicity among ethnic consumers. More specifically, Oswald
(1999, 3) demonstrated the importance of “context-shifting or deixis for theorising
about the movement of ethnic consumers between several worlds at once”. She
highlighted the capacity of objects to work as indexes serving as a spatial link and a
sign of membership to diverse cultural contexts, and thus shaping social relations and
identities. Thus, in Oswald’s performative model, ethnic consumers construct their
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identity by using “products to negotiate differences between home culture and host
culture” (1999, 314).
Through deixis, the same products can refer to different cultural contexts. For
example, Oswald showed that cornmeal can have different meanings to the consumer
depending on the frame of reference (home or host) used. While in one case cornmeal
can be linked to something to be ashamed of, in another it can be linked to the main
dish, something to be loved and cherished. Following Firat and Venkatesh (1995),
Oswald (1999, 304) argued that “ethnicity can be bought, sold, and worn like a loose
garment”.
This line of work is aligned with the studies on the impact of postmodernity on
consumption. These studies tend to be very celebratory of consumption, seeing the act
of consumption as an act of creation. This view has been criticised for disregarding
existential factor and embodied habits (Askegaard et al. 2005). Following the thesis’
assumption that conditions of global mobility emulate consumption in late (and post)
modernity, it is expected that identity-related consumption practices of global
cosmopolitans are even more performative than those of immigrants.
A third stream of research brings together scholars who share a more balanced
view of consumers’ cultural identity. On one hand, they recognize that consumers are
able to use the market to perform membership to diverse ethnic groups, but on the other
hand they show that consumers’ agency to do so is constrained by structural and
contextual elements. For example, in her work with Mexican immigrants in the United
States, Peñaloza (1994) discusses ethnic identity in two different ways. First, she
frames ethnic identity as an antecedent – a marker of the culture of origin (i.e. a census-
like classification). Then, she demonstrates that the experience of cultural difference
was very subjective (i.e. being Mexican meant and implied diverse things to each
immigrant consumer). For her this was a result of consumers’ constant negotiations with
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contextual elements and diverse acculturation agents from their culture of origin and
their host culture (i.e. family, friends, media, and market institutions, including
marketers). Thus, she argues, consumers are in fact constantly crossing cultural borders,
and ethnic identification is a way of managing those border transitions.
Also subscribing to a more balanced view, Askegaard et al. (2005) show that
market-mediated identities are produced by existential negotiations of the immigrant
condition, where consumers use the market to try to resolve identity conflicts caused by
discursive elements representing their culture of immigration, culture of origin, and
global consumer culture. Immigrant consumers can “move between ethnic identities”
(p.161), and in the negotiation process they can claim their membership to their home
culture, to their host culture, to both at the same time, or alternate between them,
depending on the situation. Askegaard et al. criticize Oswald’s postmodern notion of
ethnic performativity (i.e. ethnicity as a garment that one wears at will) because it leaves
existential issues out of the equation, implying that ethnicity is only a matter of choice.
Üstüner and Holt (2007) expand the knowledge of sociocultural structures of
acculturation by arguing that the postmodern models of ethnicity argued by Oswald
(1999) (and to some extent by Askegaard et al. (2010)) can only apply to situations
where consumers have sufficient capital and market knowledge to realize their identity
projects. In contexts where consumers lack socio-cultural capital, where there are
ideological conflicts between minority and dominant ideologies, and where consumers
are not used to a “postmodern consumer culture”, consumers do not succeed in using
the market to negotiate existential differences, which results in shattered identity
projects. In sum, the negotiated view approaches the issue of acculturation as a structure
and agency problem where the agents (i.e. consumers) try to use the market to negotiate
differences between their home and host identities. However, in this processes they are
constrained by a number of structural factors (i.e. elements from both cultures), which
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limits their action and determines the outcomes of their acculturation processes.
The following section presents the findings related to this chapter. It explains
how consumers engage in various practices to monitor their national and ethnic
identities and how they seek multiple, flexible, and mobile cultural identity projects,
which become the new organising structures of their identity-related consumption
activities. As explained in the methodology chapter, this involves analysis of data from
in-depth interviews with global cosmopolitans and from ethnographic research with
InterNations, a community of global cosmopolitans with both an online presence and
offline gatherings in many global cities. While the interviews helped the present author
to understand their hopes, dreams, and characteristics they identify with, InterNations
allowed the analysis to go beyond the individual level and observe how they pursue
these identity projects collectively and how they perform these memberships to each
other. The focus on the collective dimension of the cosmopolitan identities represents an
important contribution to the understanding cosmopolitan consumers, as past work
(Bardhi et al. 2012; Thompson and Tambyah 1999) has tended to rely on individual
accounts only, instead of emphasising the social dimension of cultural identity.
6.5 Findings
6.5.1 Monitoring national and ethnic identities
6.5.1.1 Destabilisation of national and ethnic identity through multiplication
An important feature of global mobility is that it creates the conditions for global
cosmopolitans to identify with multiple national cultures. Interestingly, through their
storytelling and other practices, informants expressed membership not only to their
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culture of origin and their current host culture, as may happen to immigrants, but also to
other national/ethnic cultures. For example, Maria, a top Spanish executive who grew
up in Germany and undertook her studies in the UK before living in various places due
to the needs of her job, thinks of herself as being a bit Spanish, a bit German, and a bit
English, because she spent long periods of time in those three countries.
Cases of multiple memberships were reported by global cosmopolitans who had
deeper and longer exposures to other cultures, either because they had lived in particular
countries (i.e. former host cultures) or because they had experienced other cultures
vicariously, via family members and circle of friends. For example, Morris defined
himself as Taiwanese, Cantonese, Chinese, Japanese, British, and Canadian. Born in
Hong Kong from a Christian missionary father from Taiwan and a mother from Hong
Kong, he spent the first years of his life with his grandparents in Taiwan. Mandarin was
his first language, and for that reason he also sees himself as Chinese. After three years,
he moved back to Hong Kong to live with his parents, but he faced some problems of
communication with his mother, as she spoke only Cantonese and he did not. After two
years, the family of missionaries moved to Japan, where Morris spent nine years. In
Japan, he attended a British School for expatriates; as a child born in Hong Kong before
1996, he was a British citizen, and it made sense for him and his family to go to a
British School. Since then, Morris’ life has included long periods of stay in the USA
(where he studied during high school), Canada (where he went to University), and the
UK (where he joined the army as a British soldier).
According to Morris, he identifies more strongly with Japan, which is neither his
homeland nor his parents’ homeland. He says he is most comfortable in Japan. This is
especially interesting if one considers the historical tensions between Japanese and
Chinese identities that go back to war times (e.g. Morris’ Chinese grandfather was
killed by Japanese in World War II). Nevertheless, the fact that he has spent most of his
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time as a child in Japan seems to have been a key determinant of his feelings for Japan.
Morris also feels he has very strong Chinese and British identities, which are also linked
to places of socialisation (family and school, respectively). Although he feels connected
to the USA and Canada, he does not feel very much part of these national cultures.
However, if a sports team is playing against a team from Australia (a country where he
has no history of extensive living or extensive exposure to local habits, norms or tastes),
he supports Canada.
Morris provides a typical example of what Ho (2006, 397) has called
“gradations of belonging”. Having lived in many places and gone through various
processes of socialisation, global cosmopolitans develop a sense of belonging to
multiple cultures. However, that does not mean they have the same feelings about all of
them. In the data, it is seen that these relationships varied depending on the length of
socialisation, type of the experience (e.g. family, school, work), and age of socialisation.
For example, the “Third Culture Kids” (Pollock and Van Reken 2009; Useem and
Downie 1976) in the sample, people like Morris, who started moving around the globe
from a very early age, reported more stories of multiple identifications than adult global
cosmopolitans, who started moving later at working age. Donald, for instance, is a
South African man who only started moving after he married. The couple went to
Canada, and they are now in Australia. Despite the fact there are many things about
Canada and Australia they love, they feel they identify mostly with South Africa,
although even this membership does not play a big role in their everyday life.
These multiple allegiances seem to affect the way global cosmopolitans
structure their consumption.
You can discuss certain topics competently only in the language you learned them. Computers I do in English, engines in German, and music in French. Most people think I don’t know what I’m talking about because I lack the vocabulary of the moment. What is a Schraubflansch in English? I’d have to Google that! (Markus Schulz, InterNations’ thread: ‘Re: You know you're a TCK (Third Culture Kid) when:..., posted on 18/05/2011)
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Similarly, Agu, a South African of Indian descent, seems to categorize his
behaviour according to his two main identities. He attributes being thrifty to his
“Indian” side and enjoying expensive things to his South African side.
I think it [being South African when consuming] depends on what I was buying. If I was buying something that’s consumable and I have all the time, and if it is a low value product, I was more African, because I grew up in South Africa, so I had those kinds of tastes. When it comes to buying expensive things, I was also going for the quality, the high value things. But sometimes the value for money approach that Indians take would come out. I would feel guilty if I didn't shop around and look for the best deal for something. I: Because? Because that’s what Indians do! I: Oh, and South Africans don’t do it? South African Indians do that, but South Africans, a little bit too, but it’s not a priority. So it’s not something that influences big, that influences my shopping in a big way, but it’s at the back of my mind sometimes when I make a purchase. So I would always tick the box at the back of my head: If I buy something, I would be, ‘did I pay too much for that, or did I get a good price?’ even though it wouldn’t heavily influence my decision making (Agu).
This association of certain behaviours and modes of thinking with particular
national identities has been noticed before in consumer research. While some believe
national identity structures behaviours and modes of thinking (Steenkamp, Hofstede,
and Wedel 1999; Triandis 1989), others argue that the self-attribution of certain groups
of behaviour and modes of thinking to a particular national identity is a consequence of
post-rationalisation (Briley, Morris, and Simonson 2000; Briley et al. 2005). However,
independently of the group of researchers, there is an assumption that, depending on
environmental cues, consumers act according to one identity or to the other. However,
here instead of an “Either… Or” behaviour, Agu is showing that these two types are in
constant negotiation with one another, in a “both…and” behaviour. Agu does not stop
being Indian to become South African. Instead, he sees both aspects as part of his way
of processing purchases.
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6.5.1.2 Freedom, choices and effort
I: So when someone asks, like, what’s your nationality, what do you say? I say whatever makes them happy. Okay, say if it’s some North African guy who doesn’t know me at all. I look like Chinese guy, right. So I will just say I’m Chinese, so I don’t have to answer a million questions… ‘Oh, Hong Kong? Where is Hong Kong? […] I thought you were Chinese’. Yeah but if I say; ‘I’m British’, he will say ‘what? But you are Chinese, right?!’ ‘Come on, you are not white right?’ Now in Hong Kong they know this. I don’t think people even ask in Hong Kong because people in Hong Kong speak English as well. Yeah, in Hong Kong they are pretty easy, but, and a lot of Hong Kong places have multiple nationals. I will say oh yeah, I’m from Hong Kong. If they want to ask then I will say; oh yeah, I am British too but that’s not a surprise for them. I: And when you are in the UK? Then I’m British. I: And here in Canada? Here, I say I am a permanent resident (Morris).
Morris’ explanation illustrates something important about global cosmopolitans:
national and ethnic identities do not seem to be very important for them as a defining
feature of who they are; that is, they do tend not to cling to their national and ethnic
identity and express it in every situation. Instead, it seems that it is more important to
show they are flexible and that they can move among their multiple memberships, to
find the most convenient identity to express in each situation. However, that does not
mean national and ethnic identities are not useful to them. Global cosmopolitans use
national and ethnic identities to express global cosmopolitans’ flexibility. Seeking
“Flexible citizenships”(Ong 1999), or having the necessary resources to be able to
choose the most beneficial identity in each situation, seem to be a common adaptation
strategy among global cosmopolitans.
Furthermore, Morris shows that global cosmopolitans are highly reflexive about the
contextual role of their identities. Informants expressed their cultural reflexivity
through three different aspects: a) they were aware that one’s own cultural identity may
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vary and that it can even be multiple; b) they were aware that the various cultural
identities are perceived differently by different people or in different contexts; and c)
they were aware that the process of cultural identification can be managed. Their
cultural reflexivity has important implications. First, consumers with high cultural
reflexivity tend to question the taken-for-granted culturally-given markers and, instead,
valorise first-hand cultural knowledge over knowledge gained from others. For
example, in these two passages, Linda and Agu discuss how their mobility has affected
their notion of what is good and what is bad:
I have been moving around, and my consumption has become more specific, because my taste has been exposed to different things. I've become more critical of some things. So, if you ask what’s the best sushi I’ve ever had, I am going to say it’s in São Paulo. If you ask me the best pizza I had, I am going to say it’s in South Africa, Johannesburg, not even in Italy where I’ve been. So, my sense of what good quality is has changed (Agu).
I want authenticity so much more. Like, Moroccan food, for example. I’m not going to have [just] any Moroccan food; it’s got to be the Moroccan food I had in L.A [Los Angeles]. If I want Turkish food, it’s got to be as good as I had in Istanbul (Linda).
In these two cases, consumers show that they are aware of certain universal
standards of quality (e.g. good pizza comes from Italy), but they put greater emphasis
on their experience as better criteria in deciding what has good quality. Agu’s best sushi
was not from Japan (as one would expect), but from Brazil (where he has been and has
had the opportunity to taste it himself). The best Moroccan food in Linda’s opinion was
not in Morocco, but in Los Angeles. And Linda’s best Turkish food was in Turkey; not
because she took it for granted, but because she tasted it herself (she mentions “as I had
in Istanbul”). Thus, they relied more on their first-hand experiences with various
cultural contexts than these products’ country of origin attributes. This is important for
identity construction and management because it means global cosmopolitan consumers
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may highlight personal experiences over those that are taken-for-granted culturally as a
means of differentiating from those who are not members of the global cosmopolitan
group.
Second, high cultural reflexivity and having multiple memberships to various cultures
provide many informants with a sense of freedom from not having to conform to the
conventions of one culture (e.g. their culture of origin). Padma, an Indonesian woman
living in Hong Kong, and Benny, an Ethiopian girl who has lived in the United
Kingdom and Canada, explain this feeling of freedom.
I travelled quite a bit, although I have never stayed in a foreign country for more than a couple of months. Whenever I am in a foreign country, I feel more liberated, in a sense maybe because I am free from the preconceptions on other people or other people have on me (Padma Mehta, InterNations’ thread: ‘what moves a non-expat to join InterNations?’, posted on 22/10/2011). I: So what is the feeling that comes with having lived in many different places? It’s got lots of freedom […] I feel very empowered I guess, because I have that ability to go and do certain things on my own […] When I arrived in NY, I just walked around the city all by myself, I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t worried, I wasn’t concerned, I wasn’t worried I wouldn’t find my way or whatever, so it’s very liberating, very good! […] Where I also came from there is so much a woman can do, like go to school and go to work, but there are certain things that they don’t, for example here I can go to a bar by myself if I want to. In Ethiopia, if you do that you are considered a prostitute; it is a place where a woman wouldn’t go, even two girls cannot go to a bar themselves unless they are getting up to something else (Benny).
Benny reports being able to do activities (e.g. going to bars and travelling by
herself) that would be unacceptable in the Ethiopian culture she came from. In this case,
Benny’s sense of freedom is heightened by her specific trajectory: she moved from
Ethiopia, a country with many restrictions on women, to the UK and Canada, countries
that tend to allow more freedom in individual behaviour. Similarly, Apura and Rajiv
commented on their sense of increased freedom as they moved from India to Singapore
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and Australia:
Apura: I can see that I have changed as a person so much in these last many years since I moved to Singapore and especially to Australia where I tend to see a lot of things differently now […] Because it is more Western, its more liberal, in terms of individual freedom and that sort of thing; a type of gender equality, less influenced by community or society or religion or family or culture. I can give you a very specific example. My decision to do some research degree, I would not have ever thought of doing something like this if I would have been in India. Because there it would have been too late for me to may be stop working and go back to school to study. But I was able to take my decision because of the way systems work here in Australia, so it may be acceptable to take a break in new career and go back to school and so, yeah so. I: So why wouldn’t that be acceptable there? Apura: I guess it follows as a set trajectory in India, where, if you study to a certain age, then you are expected to work; then you are expected to get married and have children and look after the family. Rajiv: It’s not to say that you can’t do that in India, you can do that, but then people there and the social setting might not look at it favourably as to why you have to again study now after working for quite some time (Apura and Rajiv).
Although Apura, Rajiv, and Benny experience the feeling of freedom from
moving from cultures they regard as less liberal, the sensation of freedom was a
common perception among global cosmopolitans, even when they moved among more
Westernised liberal cultures. For example, Hazel was born in Scotland and James in
Spain; and they have both lived in Spain, Scotland, Luxembourg, and Canada. They
commented on the benefits of having lived in so many places:
Hazel: For me, the biggest thing is the cultural awareness. I remember saying once, when I was a little girl, that I wanted to experience how other people live, just accepting the fact that in the UK we live in a certain way, and it’s not really a choice. It’s just governed by society and family, and there might be other ways of doing things. I was quite young when I said that. And, I don’t know if I ever realised that I would travel so much and that I would actually get a chance to do it. But I think that’s why I find it difficult to relate to people at home: because they haven’t experienced different cultures or different ways of doing things, and they haven’t really questioned why they do things the way they do, and then it becomes difficult to build relationship[s] based on that.
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James: It gives you that choice, so maybe you will go back and you will do this in the same way, but at least you have the choice, you have seen different things. […] I remember when I started to work in the UK. I was working with a girl that was 17 and she was like: ‘next year I am going to university’. She was from Edinburgh. I thought: ‘okay, which university are you going to? University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt or Napier?’ Those are the three universities in Edinburgh. And she was like, ‘no I am not going to study in Edinburgh. I am going to go to another city; I don’t want to stay here’. For me as Spanish, that was a shock, in Spain nobody will consider going to a different city. If there is a university in a city, that’s where they want to study. You stay with your parents and you go to university in your home town, because you have your friends there and you don’t want to go to another city. […] It’s the first time you start realising that maybe in Spain things happen in a certain way, but there are other ways to do it. While you are in the country you are from, you are not able to see that type of thing. Everybody in Spain, 90% of the people, will go to school and then just start working, or you go to university. Once you start working, the first thing you are going to do is: you are going to buy a car, because you are still living with your parents. So you buy a car because you want to go somewhere, and then you find a girlfriend and then you start saving by living with your parents until you have enough money to buy a house, and then you go (Hazel and James).
Hazel and James explained how exposure to different ways of life has made
them aware of multiple ways of doing things. They underscore their gains in terms of
their ability to choose among diverse perspectives and behaviours. James provides an
example of a sequence of activities (including some consumption activities such as
buying a car and getting an apartment) that describes the stages of a typical Spanish
man leaving his parents’ house. He explains that by being exposed to different ways of
living, global cosmopolitans are free to organize their activities in a different sequence
(or to not execute them at all). Global mobility sets them free from “one way of doing
things”. This is important for consumer research, because it shows that global mobility
may expose people to other ways of consuming, and these ways can challenge the ways
consumers normally buy, use, and dispose of things. The sudden discovery of
alternative ways of consuming may be very liberating to many consumers. In this sense,
mobility does emulate the liberatory postmodernism described by Firat and Venkatesh
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(1995).
However, when allegiances to national and ethnic cultures become a choice,
selecting which one to enact may demand effort (identity-work) from consumers. The
more reflexive they are about the outcomes of expressing certain allegiances over
others, the more they feel the need to monitor their behaviour to express beneficial
allegiances and downplay the ones that may not favour them (Giddens 1991).
Despite the advantages that cultural reflexivity brings (i.e. being able to perform
the most beneficial behaviour), monitoring identities requires work from consumers in
choosing and evaluating the consequences of their choice, which may sometimes be an
unwanted consequence, felt as stressful by consumers. For example, global
cosmopolitans’ constant travelling exposes them to new cultural contexts. These new
cultural contexts probably require dealing with cultural conventions that are different
from those they are used to. Not knowing how to behave in a situation is a constant
threat for them. For an extreme illustration, imagine what can happen when a girl wears
a mini-skirt in countries where this practice is considered offensive. The risks of other
actions are less visible, but they may result in marginalisation (Pollock and Van Reken
2009). Lack of knowledge of cultural rules of local contexts is amongst global
cosmopolitans’ greatest fears, as it may cause problems to their integration and access to
resources (e.g. behaving inappropriately may limit their access to the local social
network). If global cosmopolitans automatically reproduce any of their learned
behaviours (or any of their identities), without choosing the one that best fits the local
context, they may risk behaving inappropriately. For this reason, global cosmopolitans
are constantly exchanging information about how to behave in different contexts. At
InterNations, there are many online threads about cultural misunderstandings, cultural
differences among countries, and difficulties faced by expatriates:
In The Netherlands, it's quite ok to put your thumb between your index finger
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and middle finger, there is no meaning. Here we just flip the middle finger, same as in the US. I do know that in the UK they do it differently… they use the reverse peace-sign... two fingers up, but with the inside towards you....I remember in a restaurant a German colleague of mine asked for a light. I suggested she use the candle on the table to light her cigarette, but she gasped! No! Apparently, in Germany, when you use a candle to light your cigarette.... a sailor dies at sea. I never heard of this, and this is already a difference between two neighbouring countries! (Alice Gunter, InterNations’ thread: ‘Re: Misunderstanding other cultures’, posted on 21/10/2008)
I have experienced this first hand. In Malaysia, meeting with clients, all the women present were wearing head-scarves. The introductions/handshakes began, and some did and some didn’t ... it was a bit uncomfortable, I have to admit. Simply because you can't help feeling you've done something inappropriate when someone rejects your gesture of a handshake. But I accept that the uncomfortableness (if that’s a word), is self-inflicted (Jean Ledoux, InterNations’ thread: ‘Re: Misunderstanding other cultures’, posted on 21/10/2008)
Ok, this is from my experience. When in Jerusalem, shop for a good deal in the Arab market. The shop keepers are very friendly and expect you to bargain. In the Jewish part, I had two Jewish shopkeepers get mad at me when I suggested a lower price. He he. One of the funniest things that I remember from the trip was when I was buying a belly dancing outfit. I collect national costumes, the shop keeper decided to give me a lesson. So he put on a skirt, took a cane and started dancing...you had to see the faces of our guide and my husband when they came into the store. All of us, including the shop keeper, were laughing like crazy (Simone Duvivier, InterNations’ thread: ‘Re: Misunderstanding other cultures’, posted on 26/11/2008)
By exchanging personal stories, global cosmopolitans learn about the different
practices, costumes, and meanings in various countries. They learn when to bargain and
when not to bargain. They learn what they should wear and in which occasions; they
learn which behaviours are appropriate and which are not. These themes are also a
common topic in InterNations’ offline discussions at the gatherings. Every member of
InterNations has at least a handful of stories that they can tell about experiencing
“culture shock” (Ward, Bochner, and Furnham 2001) or difficult moments they faced
for lack of understanding the culture rules of a new context. Through storytelling and
forum exchanges, global cosmopolitans build an important knowledge pool about
cultural conventions, which helps them to minimize the risk of experiencing future
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uncomfortable situations caused by inappropriate behaviour. In turn, if they express a
membership that is beneficial to them (e.g. Morris can behave like a Japanese when he
is in Japan), they take advantage of their multiple memberships, making them more
instrumental.
6.5.1.3 Monitoring national and ethnic identities
For consumers, this monitoring represents understanding that some consumption
practices may signal (purposefully or not) membership to some cultural groups and
exclusion from other cultural groups (i.e. process of social identification). For instance,
by having the habit of eating cheese in the end of every meal, consumers signal they
may be French. They also signal they are not likely to be a typical Chinese. The more
they are aware of the consequences of their behaviour in terms of signalling identity, the
more they try to monitor their behaviour, to control the signals they emit. For example,
Linda, a Chinese-British citizen who lives in Canada, uses her capabilities of expressing
allegiance to the three cultures (i.e. performance of embodied knowledge, practices, and
tastes) to take advantage of social situations in which showing belongingness to one or
the other is more desirable. She uses language, gesture, and ways of dressing to provide
these cues to others. She told stories about situations when she favoured her
Canadianess over her Chinese side (when she was looking for a job in Canada), and
situations when she favoured her Chinese side (when she was working for a Malaysian
advertising company with many Chinese clients). Her deep knowledge of the three
cultures helps her to perform the chosen identity effectively. Likewise, Cathy (a Chinese
woman who moved from China to Finland and Sweden, moved back to China, and went
to Canada) said that, when she went back to China, her Chinese friends did not accept
certain behaviours she had developed, such as going to bars by herself and kissing guys.
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By dressing up like her expat friends (i.e. in different style from her Chinese friends),
she signalled to them that she was an “expat” now, and they stopped picking on her for
breaking Chinese conventions. In that sense, consumption practices can become
resources to help consumers achieve their momentary goals of differentiation and
integration.
Understanding stereotypes and cultural heuristics is a particularly useful tool for
global cosmopolitans in monitoring their identities, because these identities form the
basis for many cultural market heuristics (Peñaloza and Gilly 1999). Stereotypes are
generalisations people make about the characteristics of all members of a group, based
on an essentialised image about what people in that group are like. Cultural market
heuristics are rules to distinguish when it is appropriate for market actors to act. For
example, cultural heuristics may dictate that Spanish should be a preferred language or
that the cashier should address the man, and not the wife, in a couple. Thus, cultural
heuristics often rely on stereotypes to create a short cut for decisions.
Understanding commonly held assumptions about national/ethnic groups is
useful to global cosmopolitans in three ways. First, when consumers face a new cultural
context, understanding stereotypical behaviour provides them with a rough notion of the
cultural conventions of the new place. Although stereotypes may not be precise and are
often too rigid, they are, in general, in tune with cultural norms. They help global
cosmopolitans monitor their cultural identities by providing a model of behaviour and
for decision-making (i.e. cultural heuristics), which minimizes the chances of
inappropriate behaviour. For example, June explains how drinking beer socially is
different among the Irish and the Germans:
In Ireland, people just pay rounds, so you go out and you pay a round for everyone, and then the next person pays a round for everyone. Whereas in Germany everyone pretty much pays for themselves [sic], and if you don’t know how things are done, then sometimes other people find you awkward. And you
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just have to learn how not to be awkward and how not be strange and how to fit in just these patterns of everyday life (June).
Second, when consciously trying to express cultural identities, global
cosmopolitans can use stereotypes to facilitate communication with people from the
out-group (non-members of that cultural group), as they may mark identity more
effectively than non-stereotypical behaviour (Shih, Pittinsky, and Ambady 1999). Third,
global cosmopolitans may feel more integrated in the local culture if they engage in
behaviour they consider as typical of one culture. For example, Donald, a South-African
guy who has lived in Canada and Australia, explained that to feel he is blending in with
Australian culture and that he is becoming more Australian, he eats Tim Tams (brand of
chocolate biscuit characteristic of Australia), goes to AFL (Australian Football League)
games, and eats kangaroo meat (although most Australians do not eat kangaroo meat,
the product belongs to the stereotypical image of the country; and so, by eating it,
Donald feels he is becoming more integrated with the “Australian culture”). Similarly,
Agu, a business consultant who has lived in many countries, explained that he would try
first the “things that are important” to Canadians:
So I don’t know if it makes sense, but if I move to Canada, the first thing I want to find out is what’s important to Canadians. It’s maple syrup, it’s a bit cliché, but that would be one example. So, I would buy that and try it and see what’s good about it (Agu).
Thus, typecasting (i.e. stereotyping) is very important as an identity-
management tool that helps to signal integration and differentiation to others (e.g.
Linda) and to enhance self-feelings of integration (as it happens with Donald and Agu).
This insight helps to explain one intriguing observation from the ethnographic work
with global cosmopolitans: although they are very well travelled and have first-hand
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experiences from many cultures (to the point that they know these cultures cannot be
reduced to a prototypical set of characteristics), stereotyping was a commonly-observed
practice among global cosmopolitans. In the light of the present findings, the abundant
use of stereotyping is explained by its function as an identity-management tool, which
has nothing to do with lack of cultural knowledge about a specific country. This is also
supported by evidence collected from members during InterNations gatherings.
Members (including Agu, from the previous quote) seemed to be much more careful
with assumptions and generalisations when they were in small groups, talking to people
whose nationalities were being discussed. In these situations (i.e. talking to “experts” in
that membership), stereotyping can backfire by signalling lack of knowledge, which can
exclude them from being an insider (i.e. someone that is a member of that cultural
group).
6.5.2 Flexible and fluid identities: the global cosmopolitan identity project
6.5.2.1 Global cosmopolitans as a different group of people
I always tell people that I’m a British-Kenyan-Singaporean-Canadian, that’s how I define myself. I’m actually a person that has a global outlook (Angel).
I'm truly a child of the world! Born of a mother who’s Swedish and Finnish and a father whose heritage is Polish and Italian, I grew up in England and have just migrated to Sydney, Australia. I've worked all over Europe, go back to the Finnish island where my grandfather is from every summer, and have friends from all over the world (Tessa, InterNations - Member online profile).
While national and ethnic identities are present in the everyday life of
informants (as demonstrated in the previous session and observed in the ethnographic
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work), they do not express informants’ identity projects (i.e. ideal cultural identities
linked to being a member of an imagined community) (Anderson 2006). Instead, their
identity projects and their identity-work are centred on being/becoming “global
cosmopolitans”. For informants of this research, expressions of national identities are
associated with situated identification, which is temporary, unstable, and triggered by
situational cues, while “global cosmopolitan” identities are associated with deep
structure identification (Ashforth et al. 2008), which represents more permanent and
fundamental desired relationships between the individual and the imagined (i.e.
constructed) collectivity.
Although global cosmopolitan identity is related to a set of characteristics that
define the group and its members (a theme developed in the next section), it is the
feeling of being part of the same collectivity (“us”) and of not being part of other
collectivities (“them”) that reveals most clearly its existence. For example, informants’
interviews were loaded with comments about “them”, the people who were not global
cosmopolitans. It was very clear to informants that they had a perspective about life that
was very different from that of “the others”, the ones who don’t move globally:
[People back home] find it difficult to relate to me as well. They are just like ‘why?’, ‘why are you going there?’, ‘what are you doing?’, you know [...] I can’t understand why one would want to be in one place. My brother doesn’t want to move, his girlfriend moved to London and he was just very adamant: ‘I am not going to London’. [...] So he doesn’t even want to go to London and I want to go everywhere. So, that’s difficult [...] Every time I go home my brother is like ‘settle down, Collette, just settle down, just stay in one place. Why do you have to keep going?’ And I am like ‘don’t you want to see, you know, something new or do something different?’, ‘no, this is where I am from and this is fine and this is - I like it here and I am fine’. And I am like, ‘okay, yeah, this is fine, but I want to see something else’ (Collette).
I have got friends also who are just like my childhood friends […] I still very much value them and they’re wonderful, wonderful people. But for them it’s very difficult to understand my lifestyle sometimes. They admire it, they actually sometimes, you can say that, they wish they would have done something similar, but they don’t understand it. I think they glamorize it a little bit as well, and it’s not glamorous. It really isn’t, but for them when I move yet
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again to another country or work in yet another country, or they get yet another letter from a different place, they sometimes make comments like: ‘I don’t know how you do it’ and ‘don’t you get unsettled?’, and ‘aren’t you lonely?’, and all these sort of questions. And for them it’s very difficult sometimes to understand that there are lots of people like me (Maria).
There is a big, clear divide. I think there are lots of different ways I think about this, but the one clear divide is friends who understand that [life], who understand this international friendship thing, you know that -- they know they will be going places, it’s not that I don’t want to keep in touch with them, but I just can’t, okay. Sometimes the amount of contact [is reduced], there are no computers around, and I can’t afford the phone bills, et cetera, et cetera, right? Or I’m too busy, right? It’s not that about the friend, but for whatever reasons. These are friends who I know they are going to be my friends regardless. So, whenever I connect with them again, we just start off from wherever we last left off and then it goes from there, right? There are friends who understand that, and then there are friends who don’t understand that, and it’s much harder to keep the friends who don’t understand that. I: So where are those friends that don’t understand that? Okay, much more likely to be friends from monocultures, much more likely to be friends that I have grown up in one place, rather than many places. So, can you get this? (Morris).
Maria, Collette, and Morris provide good illustrations of the clear difference
global cosmopolitans perceive between themselves and the people who do not move
globally. These differences are perceived in terms of “beliefs or assumptions, values,
attitudes, preferences, decisional premises, gestures, habits, and rules” (Scott et al.
1998, 303) related to being globally mobile. Thus, global cosmopolitans engage in
various practices that help them not only to construct a self-narrative, but also to
differentiate themselves from “the others”, the ones who don’t move globally.
6.5.2.2 Self-definition through five key characteristics
Past research on consumer cosmopolitanism (Cleveland, Laroche, and
Papadopoulos 2009; Thompson and Tambyah 1999) has used predetermined definitions
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of cosmopolitanism, which were derived from conceptual works in the social sciences
(Hannerz 1990). However, this practice has generated confusion because each author
adopted different definitions for the concept or decided to focus on different aspects of
cosmopolitanism, which were not always compatible.
To avoid these problems, and to create the conditions for a more grounded
discussion, I opted for a bottom-up (inductive) approach to find out the key
characteristics of the global cosmopolitans in this study. Using InterNations as a
microcosm of the imagined community of ‘global cosmopolitans’ in the world, I
examined their online profiles and analysed how they discursively claimed their
membership to the community. Every member of InterNations has to fill out a profile
when they sign up as a member. One of the first things they must do is to explain why
they are global minds (i.e. make a statement about the reasons they feel they belong to
the community). After analysing more than 100 profiles from people living in diverse
countries, it became clear which were the key aspects used by them to define
themselves as part of this community of global minds. Using axial coding, I reduced the
100 profiles to 35 profiles (one third of the initial sample). Appendix E contains the
table with these 35 representative profiles from the website. The table was further
reduced to five key characteristics (and 12 sub-characteristics), which correspond to the
key self-defining aspects of global cosmopolitans.
These self-defining aspects represent the most valorised notions (idealised
characteristics) for global cosmopolitans. Table 3 summarises and groups these notions
into five non-exclusive categories: having multicultural experiences, having
multicultural knowledge and skills, having a transnational network, having
cosmopolitan dispositions, and displaying transnational mobility. These five categories
represent ways through which one can claim membership to the global cosmopolitan
community. Usually, each person used more than one way to claim membership. The
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next sections explain how each of these five valorised notions is expressed via
consumption practices and objects.
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Table 3 - Self-definition through five key characteristics
Passports to a global cosmopolitan
identity
Examples of Empirical Manifestations
1.Multicultural Life Experiences
(ancestry) Having a multicultural background
(family and household) Sharing house with multicultural family
(education) Studying in international schools,
exchange programs
(work) Having worked in many different places,
working for a multinational, working with
people from different cultures, having
business interests and partnerships in
many countries
(residence) Having lived in many different countries
2.Multicultural knowledge and skills Being able to speak multiple languages,
knowing how to behaving in different
cultural context
3. Transnational network (relationships) Having friends and relatives in many
different countries
4. Transnational mobility (being mobile) Constantly travelling, commuting between
hemispheres, travelling around the globe
5. Cosmopolitan Dispositions (engagement with the Other)
(taste and preferred activities) Enjoying travelling, engaging in new
adventures, experiencing new things,
learning about different cultures, meeting
people from different places and cultures,
listening to stories from different parts of
the world, living in global cities, helping
people in other areas of the world.
(attitudes) Being open towards others, respecting
others, understanding difference, being
non-judgmental, caring for other people in
other parts of the world, being able to see
things through other people’s eyes.
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(beliefs) Believing that people are the same despite
their differences, underlying human
connection, disregarding of difference,
sharing views with other people in other
parts of the world, committing to people
and society.
(feelings) Feeling a member of multiple cultures,
feeling homeless, feeling global, and
feeling like a global citizen.
6.5.2.3 Storytelling and the five key characteristics
Storytelling, a key activity during InterNations’ gatherings, is the main form of
identity construction for global cosmopolitans. Through their narratives about places
they have lived in, things they have done, challenges they have had to overcome, and
victories they have won, global cosmopolitans are able to express who they are and who
they want to be (Ahuvia 2005). The data in the present study indicate that global
cosmopolitan narratives are centred on displaying the five key characteristics:
multicultural experiences, multicultural knowledge and skills, a transnational network,
cosmopolitan dispositions, and transnational mobility. Personal stories that are able to
link consumers with these characteristics are valorised by the group and can even
generate some symbolic capital. For example, at InterNations, individuals that are able
to show evidence (e.g. stories) of having lived in multiple cultural contexts (a valorised
notion) are highly regarded at by other global cosmopolitans. At InterNations, sharing
stories also helps the group to forge a collective identity. During the gatherings,
members tell personal stories and they hear personal stories (e.g. stories of expatriate
experiences). When members get together online, they also tell stories and hear stories.
Even the way they organize their online profiles (e.g. choosing what to tell and not to
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tell others, marking the places they have lived) also tells a story. These stories circulate
among members and help create a sense of an imagined community to which they
belong (observe how the letter in Appendix G stimulates the production of stories and
exchange of memories, and observe how these stories become integrated with other
elements of global consumer culture, such as valorised objects and brands). Moreover,
the exchange of stories is a sense-making process. Schank (1990, 29) explains that
“stories digest one’s experiences [...] the experiences that we do remember form the set
of stories that constitute our view of the world and characterize our beliefs. In some
sense we may not even know what our own view of the world is until we are reminded
of and tell stories that illustrate our opinion on some aspect of the world”. Therefore, the
centrality of narratives should not be underestimated in this community.
Consumption practices and objects help their identity-work by serving as
symbolic resources for building identity narratives (Murray 1997; Thompson and
Tambyah 1999). Consumers use the symbolic meanings of products, services, and
brands to express their global cosmopolitan ideals and construct global cosmopolitan
narratives. By exchanging their narratives, they are also producing, evaluating, and
validating a cosmopolitan way of life.
The following subsections offer examples of how consumers use those
practices and objects to express each aspect of their global cosmopolitan identities.
6.5.2.4 Consumption practices and the five characteristics
a) Expressing multicultural life (and past) experiences via consumption
practices and objects
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Consumption practices and objects are effective in the construction of identity work
when they are used to display multicultural ancestry (e.g. having a multicultural
background), family and household (e.g. having a multicultural marriage, in-laws, half-
brothers), education (e.g. studying in international schools and exchange programs),
work (e.g. having international careers and experiencing multicultural workplaces), or
residence (e.g. living in many different countries).
Global cosmopolitans value objects and practices that can help them express their
multicultural experiences. Objects can be a direct expression of multicultural
experiences (e.g. an album displaying photographs taken on a trip around the world) or
they can be used as a resource for practices that express multicultural experiences (e.g. a
souvenir from an exotic land, aiding the practice of assembling exotic objects to signal
multicultural experiences). While, in the first case, the objects themselves must “be
read” as multicultural, in the latter case, objects can “be read” as stereotypical
representations of one culture. In the latter case, stereotypes help the construction of
multicultural symbols because these stereotypes make these symbols a more effective
semiotic resource to display multicultural experiences, when in association with other
stereotypical representation of other cultures (e.g. a collection of elements, each
representing one culture). In this latter case, it is the practices (e.g. assembling the
objects together) that must be “read” as multicultural. Agu, for example, collects flags
or objects that contain flags of places where he has been. He explains: “I try to collect
things that remind me of the countries I’ve been. Not only collect flags, I would say.
Like, in Brazil I bought ‘a flag’, a beach towel flag that I hang up”. Although each flag
is a stereotypical representation of a country he has lived, having a collection of flags
expresses multicultural residence.
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b) Expressing multicultural knowledge and skills via consumption practices
and objects
Second, many claim their global cosmopolitan identity on the basis of their
multicultural skills (e.g. speaking multiple languages, possessing knowledge of cultural
norms of many places, having cultural translation skills, understanding what is most
appropriate behaviour in each culture). For example, in this passage Linda exhibits her
multicultural knowledge and skills through a list of consumption practices associated
with the knowledge of what is best in each country:
I think when you are well travelled, you know, it’s not good enough to go to a place in Chicago or in Toronto or Montreal for certain things, because now your market is the world. I’ll give you an example like wine, right? If you’re truly a wine connoisseur you are not okay with just French wines or you are not okay with just Californian wines, because you know there is a grape called Malbec that you can only get in Argentina. So if you want that, you need to have Argentinean wine. I know if you want Shiraz, you have option of South Africa or Australia. So, now you are not shopping in one region, or you’re restricted to Burgundy or whatever, you now have the world as your market. So I can tell you, having travelled the world and shopped to a certain extent, I know where I’m going to get the value or the style that I like. So for me I know, I’m looking for clothes that show that I am feminine, I want clothes that show that I am sexy. So what does that mean? That means most styles that are American or Canadian will not be within my taste. So I think clothes that are that style are in Europe, especially Spain or in Brazil. So therefore I know if I want something that looks a certain way I need to find a Brazil cut, or I want to go to Brazil to buy certain things and I want to go to Spain to buy certain things. If I want value for money and I want to get suits, I know I want to get them in Hong Kong, because I know I am not going to get the same price for a suit here, I can get a great suit for US$100, and I can get for $100 - $200 four suits; we cannot do that in Canada. And the beauty things from the girl’s style point of view is you never wanted to have the same clothes that another women has, while when you have a purse from Buenos Ayres and a scarf from Argentina, a pair of jeans from, I don’t know, Chicago, and a hat from Macao and suit in Hong Kong, it’s unlikely someone else is going to have the same thing. Very unlikely! (Linda).
There are many things to observe in Linda’s explanation as it illustrates well, in
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the consumption domain, some of the points discussed earlier in this chapter. First,
when Linda says “now your market is the world” and “you know you have the world as
your market”, she exemplifies the feelings of freedom that global cosmopolitans have,
their expanded consumption field (i.e. enlarged evoked set comprising products and
brands from around the world), and their cultural reflexivity (i.e. awareness of these
new possibilities). For global cosmopolitans, the world is a cultural supermarket
(Mathews 2002), and knowing how to shop for identity is central to surviving the
demands for flexibility of the marketplace (Halter 2000).
Second, when Linda says “it is not good enough to…” and “you are not okay
with just…”, she is demonstrating the restlessness felt by global cosmopolitans as they
try to monitor the enlarged and multiple consumption objects and practices that come
into play in their new condition. Third, she demonstrates that to succeed in this new
condition, one needs to master some skills associated with understanding what each
place has to offer. Through her skilled usage of her knowledge about product and
places, and through her storytelling, Linda creates a differential for herself. As she
emphasised, it is very improbable that she will find someone else dressing in the same
manner as herself. Thus, wearing garments from different parts of the world helps to
show how much knowledge she has about what is of good value around the world.
Interestingly, it would probably take another global cosmopolitan to “read” her clothes
properly, that is, to realize that she dresses up using the most appropriate/best elements
from different parts of the world. Thus, Linda’s global cosmopolitan competencies
function as a “cosmopolitan capital” (Weenink 2008, 1092), as they represent forms of
knowledge, skills, and education (Bourdieu 1986) that help Linda to conquer privileged
positions and a higher status among her cosmopolitan peers.
c) Displaying transnational network via consumption practices and objects
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I am American by birth and have lived in Mexico, Australia, France, and now England. I have met some magnificent people in all three countries (England is a work in progress - lol). I can proudly say that I have lifetime friends in each country. Like many others here, I too keep in touch via Facebook, Skype, and e-mail (Rita Morales, InterNations’ thread: ‘How to make real friends as an expat?’, posted on 23/03/2011) I have been extremely fortunate to have made real and amazing friends in every country I've lived in. And having Facebook and Skype allows all of us to continue to keep in touch and even plan reunions (which by the way, I consider extremely important to maintaining those friendships after you’ve departed for other pastures). (Violeta Calli, InterNations’ thread: ‘How to make real friends as an expat?’, posted on 17/03/2011)
Global cosmopolitans also construct their identity through consumption
practices, objects, and narratives that involves having friends and relatives spread all
over the world (e.g. having a global network of relationships). Social networking
programs like Facebook are more than communication tools for them. They help them
display their international network. They tell a narrative of transnational relationships.
Thus, when organisers of the InterNations website realised that global cosmopolitans
value the display of a global network of friends, they adopted techniques to enhance this
aspect. Through their profile page, each member knows how many friends they have in
each country and which nationalities these friends bear. The page also tells members
(through the display of country flags) how many nationalities their social network
includes (see Figure 2). At InterNations’ gatherings, members receive a paper label to
stick on their clothes containing their names and their country of origin. These help
enhance the general feeling that gatherings are a truly inter-national gathering.
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Figure 2- Flag Gallery
d) Displaying transnational mobility via consumption practices and objects
Global cosmopolitans can claim their identity through displaying geographical
mobility across multiple countries. Consumption practices such as travelling and
packing help consumers display their international mobility. Consumption objects that
are emblematic of these practices, such as cards of mileage plans, travel tickets, and
universal adapters, can help to show transnational mobility. Storytelling that includes
these practices and objects also help to display transnational mobility and, consequently,
claim the global cosmopolitan citizenship. In this next posting, a member describes her
routines for smart travelling. By doing so, she is not only transmitting knowledge. She
is also claiming herself as a member that has travelled internationally and who knows
how to use these gadgets properly.
I usually travel light for holiday by bringing old clothing to “wear and leave behind”, so have luggage space if I decided to buy anything... and I usually buy something! I bring a dress that can be made formal with a nice scarf or pashmina shawl and accessories. I put most of my things in Ziploc bags, easy to pack and find things. Plus large Ziploc bags can be used for dirty laundry and small ones for keeping currencies (especial coins!) you don't need. I travel light since I need to lug my own luggage at some point during a trip. I use a cabin size luggage
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that is expandable and can withstand rough ground or rough handling by baggage staffs. I tie two different colour ribbons on my luggage handle, easier to tell it apart from others. I stop bringing laptop on holiday and use my 80GB iPod touch instead; it’s a lot lighter and smaller. :-) I have my contacts and emergency numbers on my phone and iPod touch. I use iPod touch to listen to music or audio books, watch movies, review my travel itinerary or flight details, play games when I am bored, check and download email wirelessly. I was in South America recently for five weeks and there was free wireless access in most hotels, bus stations and airports. For bag, I like sling bag from Kipling; it’s waterproof and has lots of compartments and separate pockets for phone, pens, etc. I also like one of the Kipling purses which have three compartments, good for separating different currencies. When purchasing skin care products in Asia, one get free travel size samples, very useful for travel. Baby oil is great to have as it can remove makeup and double up as moisturizer for your body. Besides cash and credit cards, other things I can’t do without are: - photocopies of passport, travel and travel insurance documents - world travel adapter, ear phone adapter for plane and charges for all gadgets - camera with extra memory stick(s) and some batteries as backup - 3G camera phone with international roaming for keeping in touch via SMS, emergency call and as a backup camera - pashmina shawl and black sweater, if travelling to a cool/cold place, a trench coat with removable lining and hood - good walking shoes and 2 pairs of trekking sock, nice slipper for use in hotel or to the beach & black ballet flat for causal or formal night out - ear plug, wet tissues, travel wash, sunglasses, sun screen, swim suit, hat, disposable rain coat - Atwarer Carey Light & Dry travel first aid kit, Swiss army knife, small touch light, camping fork/spoon and a pair of chopstick - prescribed medicines from my GP, lozenges and cough drops - citronella splash as insect repellent or a wake-me-up splash, mint oil for headache & clearing stuffy nose- green tea in tea bags, some instant soup packages and muesli bars (Irene Ming, InterNations’ thread: ‘Last minute travel check....’, posted on 18/12/2008).
Like Irene, many global cosmopolitans exchange information about travelling
transnationally. This information is not only useful practically, but it also helps them to
build their individual and collective identity as global cosmopolitans. Through their
voices, one can grasp the various ways in which transnational mobility is appreciated by
the group. Many objects (e.g. world travel adapter, ear phone adapter for planes, and
chargers for all gadgets) and brands (e.g. Kipling, Atwarer Carey, Ziploc) are mentioned
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in association with their capacity to facilitate a transnational life and the development of
global cosmopolitan identities and competencies.
e) Displaying cosmopolitan dispositions via consumption practices and objects
Cosmopolitan dispositions are associated with willingness to engage with “the
Others”, those people and things culturally different from “us”. The desire to engage
with the Others may include any attitude, belief, feeling, preference, or behaviour that
expresses that “you are different, but I am interested in you”:
My first international experience was when I was two years old and flying to the Philippines. I saw a Caucasian man with very hairy arms and said: ‘Mom! There's a gorilla on this airplane!’. When we got to the Philippines, the family next door were Australians. Our moms thought it would be a fine idea to put us in a playpen together while they played Bridge, so, two weeks later, Bruce (the Australian boy) was speaking Japanese and I was speaking English (Yukimi Yasuda, InterNations’ thread: ‘First International Experience?’, posted 20/04/2008)
Yukimi’s story reveals a typical case of engagement with the Other: the
recognition of difference (i.e. the emblematic gorilla) followed by an interaction with
the goal of overcoming these differences (i.e. speaking each others’ languages). By
narrating this story, Yukimi shows other members of InterNations that she is willing to
engage with the Other and that this attitude helps her in the construction of a
cosmopolitan identity. Thus, behaviours such as seeking adventures in other countries,
seeking new experiences, enjoying learning, and experiencing different cultures are seen
as central to the construction of their identities. Unlike tourists, who may see the Others
without participating/interacting/being changed by them (Hannerz 1990), global
cosmopolitans have the desire to engage with and experience the Other. This is clearly
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felt when comparing the data from InterNations and the data from the interviews. While
some interviewees sometimes mentioned the lack of empathy for the host culture (very
infrequent among informants), this does not happen at InterNations gatherings or in the
online forums. Lack of cultural empathy is seen as a problem, and it is severely
criticised by members. The expat who lacks appreciation for other cultures is
marginalised among InterNations’ members. The social norm and ethos of the group
seems to cultivate the ideal of empathy towards those who are culturally different.
Most around the world are not as fortunate as us (IN members) and have not travelled or experienced first-hand what it is to be from other countries, religious, or cultural backgrounds. It’s a terrible shame, and the source of much of what is “wrong” with the world today. People fear what they do not know. (Jean Ledoux, InterNations’ thread: ‘Misunderstanding other cultures’, posted 21/10/2008)
Well, Jean you are absolutely right. Not so many people can have the chance to know “real” people from other countries and cultures... and we are lucky here in IN that we not only know real people but we get to know the best of the great minds of each country... and to become connected in a friendly atmosphere like this one (despite some heated discussions here and there :-) ) at the end we come here to broaden our horizons.. right? (Abdul Hakam, InterNations’ thread: ‘Misunderstanding other cultures’, posted 21/10/2008) Anything related to religion, politics, socio-economic issues should be considered a sensitive topic and asked with courtesy and basic understanding of the subject matter. If you really need to know, but show respect, you may end up having an informative conversation. I recommend doing own research beforehand. (Hilda Thompson, InterNations’ thread: ‘Re: What Questions Shouldn’t be asked by an Expat?’, posted 27/10/2011) These three postings reproduce a practice that is very commonly observed at
InterNations. Postings (online) and comments (gatherings) reinforce the need to respect
diversity and the view that InterNations’ members are ‘special’ because they are able to
see beyond cultural boundaries.
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In addition, global cosmopolitans tend to share a vision that all human beings
are basically the same. For them, the “others” are paradoxically different (culturally)
and similar (as human beings). They understand that, underneath the differences (e.g.
seeming like a Gorilla), there are key similarities (e.g. two people capable of
understanding each other). This “ equality in diversity” is a key feature global
cosmopolitanism and is the ‘raison d’être’ of InterNations, as it is a community that
seeks to unite on equal grounds people coming from different places in the world.
During the gatherings and interviews, it was common to hear them saying and writing
sentences like “we are all humans”, “we are citizens of the global village”, or “we are
global citizens”, reaffirming the sameness underneath the cultural differences.
Consumption objects, practices, and narratives that can represent engagement
with the Other and the sameness in difference are highly regarded by global
cosmopolitans. Thus, cultural objects such as films (e.g. “Avatar”), brands (e.g. “United
Colors of Benetton”), and songs (e.g. Lady Gaga’s “Born this way”) reinforce the
cosmopolitan ideal regarding the engagement with the Other and the idea of equality in
diversity. Similarly, consumer practices communicate these cosmopolitan dispositions
through activities, tastes, and preferences that express willingness to engage with that
which is culturally different. For example, Angel’s openness to other cultures allows her
to have an appreciation for engaging with diversity in relation to people and to products:
I think that living in Singapore made me who I am today, like it made me somebody who is very open minded, and I embrace other cultures. I love to learn other languages. I don’t have any issues of eating food from other countries or anything else, because there are people - and I have met them here too - who won’t eat food like Sushi or something because they are never exposed to it as children, or they were never encouraged to try something new. And I think that that way [by encouraging us to try new things] my parents really gave us a lot of openness, and I guess, they were a lot more liberal that way: you can go and experience something and learn from it, it was great (Angel). The cosmopolitan valorisation of the engagement with the Other can also be
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expressed through storytelling, that is, through the ways narratives weave elements
together, showing an openness to appreciate elements that are normally considered
strange. For example, at one of InterNations’ online forums, they discuss various
breakfast-related practices among different cultures:
Here in Tokyo many coffee shops offer a reasonably priced “breakfast set”: a hard-boiled egg, very thick piece of toast, small tossed salad, and coffee. Tossed salad for breakfast? It seems very strange to an American at first, but over time it grows on you. The traditional Japanese breakfast is, of course, rice, grilled fish, and miso soup. On a recent visit to Malaysia we tried the traditional nasi lemak for breakfast: white rice cooked in coconut milk, with a veg. curry and condiments like hard-boiled eggs, sliced cucumbers, sambal, fried anchovies, and peanuts. It was really delicious, though perhaps not something I’d eat every day. (Meggie Wood, InterNations’ thread: ‘What will you be eating for breakfast tomorrow?’, posted on 03/09/2008).
Underlying the descriptive information of difference, there is an assumption of
equivalence, that all can be regarded as breakfast, and if one engages with difference for
enough time, one may learn to appreciate it (i.e. “it grows on you”). The willingness to
engage with the culturally different has been detected by Thompson and Tambyah
(1999, 226) in their study about expatriates in Singapore. They noted that
“confrontations with cultural differences enhance their own sense of being flexible,
cosmopolitan travellers” and that “these adaptations to cultural difference affirm their
cosmopolitan flexibility” (p.227). However, the authors do not discuss the assumptions
of equivalence. This omission may have to do with the fact that Thomson and Tambyah
compare cosmopolitans with locals, highlighting the difference between them. Instead,
in the present study, heterogeneity and equivalence are defining characteristics of who
the participants are. The particularity of the present study is that it shows that a sense of
equality (‘we are all humans’) tends to underscore the process of engagement with the
Other. Global cosmopolitans are constantly building bridges across cultural differences
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not only with locals of various regions but also among the members of their
cosmopolitan world. Global cosmopolitans are always engaging with different Others.
However, living among the different Others and the recognition of sameness in
difference are two sides of the same coin. The two together provide a sense of
community to global cosmopolitans. They recognize each other for their capacity to
overcome difference and to assume that, underneath the cultural differences, they are
the same people.
In turn, the real differences are not among those of different cultures, but
between those who can engage with the Other (e.g. global cosmopolitans) and those
who cannot. Global cosmopolitans see clear differences between them and people who
cannot or do not want to engage with the Others, regardless of their culture of origin.
Since their consumption plays an important role in integration and differentiation,
global cosmopolitans develop consumption practices that are markedly different from
those that are not from the same global cosmopolitan community. This is clear in the
way Cathy differentiates herself from other people from China.
I don’t really hang out with [other Chinese]; I mean I’m not like a lot of the Chinese living in Toronto. They live here but they still stick to their own community, they live in China town, they live in Richmond Hill, Scarborough, Markham, I mean they surround themselves with Chinese, living close to Chinese grocery stores and close to the Chinese community and they speak Chinese every day. I don’t know, […] it’s my choice. I mean, I don’t think I consciously made that choice not to live there but I don’t spend a lot of time with the Chinese community here. I mean, […] I have Chinese friends, they can live in Scarborough but I also have other friends […] it just seems that maybe the friends I end up with, even the Chinese friends who end up hanging out with me are more like me than the more traditional, conservative type of Chinese who live in Scarborough, and never come out.[…]They don’t change a thing, they stay there, just there, they are very comfortable staying within the Chinese community. They read Chinese newspapers and watch Chinese news and follow, yeah, like follow to the minute of details, what’s happening in China.[…] I check Chinese news sometimes, definitely not on a daily basis. My front page [in my computer] is the “Toronto Star”, and I read “The Globe and Mail” [Canadian national newspapers] and some more newspapers, I want to know what’s going on here, around me, I’m interested, I mean, like I want to try, I try to keep up with what’s going on in China too because my family are still there.
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[…] I do see the difference [between me and the Others], they seem to keep more of the Chineseness in them and then maybe also the fact that I was married to a non-Chinese person and I had a few years of that relationship… maybe also that changed me more than just the simple fact that I lived in a foreign country, so all that probably also has something to do with who I am now (Cathy).
6.5.2.5 Uprooting identity practices
Uprooting identity practices play an important role in helping the expression of
global cosmopolitan identities. Instead of marking flexibility or multiplicity of cultural
identities, uprooting practices work to erase cultural symbols so other cultural identity
practices can be performed. For example, uprooting practices are common in theatre
presentations. When actors who have tattoos need to play roles that are incompatible
with tattoos (e.g. the role of a conservative old lady from the eighteen hundreds), they
need to erase (i.e. cover with base) those tattoos before putting on the persona and the
outfits of their characters. These practices help them neutralize personal attributes that
could otherwise interfere with their performance or with the external signals that their
performance emits. Similarly, global cosmopolitans may use uprooting identity
practices to minimise unwanted aspects of their cultural identity so they can engage in
the performance of other identities. The immigrant literature has many cases showing
immigrants trying to neutralize their accents so they can fit better in the host society,
and the marketing literature has shown how speaking the standard accent of the host can
help sales (DeShields and de los Santos 2000)
It is interesting to observe uprooting identity practices as they happen at
InterNations’ gatherings. One striking features of all gatherings has to do with how the
members dress in a similar manner, independently of which part of the globe the event
happens. InterNations does not offer any guidance or dress code that would force people
to wear one type of clothes over another; however, intriguingly, members of
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InterNations naturally gravitate towards similar patterns. The analysis of the photos
taken from communities all over the world and uploaded to the website reveals that
these outfits are very similar to each other (Appendix F shows photos from nine
different InterNations gatherings around the world, all taken in the same month of the
same year). Everyone dresses either in Western smart casual or business styles. Men
may wear a blazer, a sports jacket, or a pullover, with a collared or polo shirt, and dress
trousers. Ties and suits are sometime worn if they come directly from work. Smart
casual footwear includes shoes and loafers. Women tend to wear skirts (long or short) or
slacks, sometimes accompanied by a fashionable belt, a blouse or turtleneck, a vest, a
jacket, or a sweater coordinated to the outfit, hosiery or socks with flats (leather, suede,
or fabric), boots or mid-heel shoes. Jeans and sneakers are seen, but only occasionally.
Independently of the country and city where the gatherings happen, there is very little
variation on how people dress up. It is very rare to see someone wearing something
different, such as a typical outfit of that host country. This is especially interesting when
one thinks that in some countries the street clothes can be quite different from the
Western smart casual.
Wearing Western professional and smart casual clothes serves three uprooting
purposes. First, it creates the ‘blank canvas’ effect, which helps members to construct
their multicultural storytelling. Since clothes do not point to a specific place or culture,
these clothes make it easier for them to use their narratives to create temporary anchors
to diverse places. It is important to highlight that the ‘blank canvas’ effect works only
with the cultural dimension, as the professional attire tells little about which national or
ethnic culture one belongs. Second, in other dimensions, such as social status, the
professional and smart attire can reveal many things about those who wear them. The
professional and smart attires help them to show they belong to the middle and upper
middle sectors of the global managerial class (Sklair 2001). Third, similar to any
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uniform, the professional and smart attire help create a sense of collectivity, of
belonging to the same group of people. In his work on Star Trek fans, Kozinets (2001)
discusses how important uniforms and outfits are for signalling membership and helping
in the process of identification to a cultural group. Similarly, the professional and casual
outfit of the InterNations members helps to create a sense of collectivity. However,
unlike Star Trek outfits, which are not worn in other situations, the professional outfit is
also their work clothes. This reinforces the point argued earlier, that global
cosmopolitans are at work and performing even when networking and bonding.
6.6 Discussion
6.6.1 Summary
The above findings demonstrated that global mobility shifts the basis of
consumers’ cultural identification from territorially-based cultural identities (e.g.
national and ethnic) to more flexible cultural identities, based on non-territorial
imagined communities (e.g. global cosmopolitans). The findings have shown that global
cosmopolitans may develop multiple memberships to national and ethnic cultures.
These memberships may have different “gradations” (Ho 2006), depending on
consumers’ length of stay in each country, type of the experience (e.g. family, school,
work), and age of acculturation. Multiple memberships may shape the way consumers
think about consumption, as they associate different consumption practices to different
national and ethnic identities (e.g. “My Indian side does X, while my French side does
Y”). Furthermore, the research has shown that multiple identities are used to express
consumers’ flexibility, a valorised notion for global cosmopolitans.
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In addition, the findings have demonstrated that global cosmopolitans have high
cultural reflexivity, which makes them question the taken-for-granted knowledge about
products and their country of origin, such as ‘the best Sushi comes from Japan”. Instead,
global cosmopolitans privilege their own personal experience over preconceived
cultural notions. Moreover, multiple identities associated with high cultural reflexivity
provide a sense of freedom (from one’s culture) to global cosmopolitans, which is a
valorised aspect of their mobile life. At the same time, high cultural reflexivity,
associated with multiple identities, create the need to constantly monitor the expression
of cultural identities (i.e. to control their behaviour to signal or not to signal
membership to a cultural group), in order to choose the most beneficial identity for a
specific goal or situation and to avoid the risk of behaving inappropriately. This
monitoring demands effort from consumers; thus, it can be felt as stressful by some.
The use of stereotypes and cultural heuristics, commonly observed practices among
global cosmopolitans, may help the monitoring of cultural identities by providing clear
signals of membership (i.e. signals that can be easily recognised) to a specific cultural
group.
Table 2- Global cosmopolitan practices
Managing national and ethnic identities Globalising practices
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Expressing beneficial allegiances
Downplaying undesirable allegiances
Understanding stereotypes and using
cultural heuristics
Sharing information about cultural norms
Uprooting practices
Alternating the display of allegiances to
national and ethnic cultures (interchanging
juxtaposition)
Using arrangements to create pastiche
effect of being multicultural (simultaneous
juxtaposition)
Challenging taken-for-granted cultural
practices and objects
Individual storytelling
Collective storytelling
Understanding, sharing, evaluating, and
validating a cosmopolitan way of life
Furthermore, the research has demonstrated that global cosmopolitans see
themselves as a separate group of people, different from those who are not globally
mobile. The findings point to storytelling as a central form of identity construction for
global cosmopolitan. Their narratives are centred on displaying five key characteristics
that global cosmopolitans use to define themselves: multicultural experiences,
multicultural knowledge and skills, a transnational network, cosmopolitan dispositions,
and transnational mobility. Consumption practices and objects play an important role in
expressing these key characteristics and constructing these narratives.
Table 4 divides these practices into two groups: those associated with the
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management of multiple national and ethnic identities, and those associated with
displaying allegiance to a global cosmopolitan community, which, in the present work,
are called globalising practices.
6.6.2 Contributions
6.6.2.1 The role of national and ethnic identities as symbols in the construction of a
global identity
This work contributes to studies about globalisation of consumer culture by
explaining the role of national and ethnic identities in the construction of global
cosmopolitan identities. It is important to notice that symbols associated with specific
cultures and nationalities are abundant in consumers’ storytelling. Past work has
emphasised the role of national and ethnic products as a way of anchoring identity in
places and as a way of signalling memberships to territorially-defined communities
(Askegaard et al. 2005; Dong and Tian 2009; Klein et al. 1998; Zhao and Belk 2008).
However, as seen in informants’ quotes, national and ethnic symbols are not
used by global cosmopolitans to create or maintain an enduring relationship to a
national culture. They are used as semiotic resources in the creation of a global
cosmopolitan narrative. These narratives create global cosmopolitan identities, through
the composite manner they weave together multiple cultural (e.g. national and ethnic)
references into a single story. Thus, the global cosmopolitan identity is not constructed
in opposition to national identities, but through a narrative that combines and
juxtaposes, in a contrasting way, various national identities. In other words, consumers
use the capability of objects to symbolize places and cultures not to create enduring
attachment with specific countries or to build a national identity, but as a symbolic
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resource in the construction of the global cosmopolitan ideal.
Specifically, global cosmopolitan narratives produce a sense of multicultural
bricolage through two different, but complementary, practices of juxtaposition:
simultaneous juxtaposition and interchanging juxtaposition. Simultaneous juxtaposition
refers to the simultaneous display of diverse ethnic and national symbols (i.e. objects
and practices that symbolizes different cultures). For instance, when Linda wears an
outfit involving elements from different countries at the same time, she is engaging in
simultaneous juxtaposition. Her composed outfit tells a global cosmopolitan story. In
turn, interchanging juxtaposition refers to situations when consumers must alternate
between expressing their various national and ethnic affiliations in order to produce the
juxtaposition effect, characteristic of global cosmopolitan assemblages. When global
cosmopolitans express their national and ethnic identities (using cultural heuristics if
necessary), they must not to express the same identity for a long time. If consumers
identify with one national identity for too long, they risk being recognised as a member
of that single cultural group, and consequently, not being associated with the global
cosmopolitan group. Therefore, they must alternate their allegiances, to show their
flexibility. For example, to create the alternating juxtaposition effect with national and
ethnic symbols, global cosmopolitans must alternate the ethnicity of the restaurants they
eat (e.g. Thai on a Friday, Italian on a Saturday, and French on a Sunday). The
alternation constructs a global cosmopolitan story that is later shared with other global
cosmopolitans.
The notion of flexible citizenship is useful to shed light on how consumers
develop strategies to manage life in conditions of mobility and change. Anthropologist
Aihwa Ong (1993) coined the term flexible citizenship to describe the opportunistic
search for citizenship abroad that facilitate strategies of flexible accumulation of capital.
She affirms that “flexible strategies have been devised not to collaborate in the bio-
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political agenda of any nation-state, but to convert political constraints in one field into
economic opportunities in another, to turn displacement into advantageous positioning
in a range of local contexts” (Ong 1999, 770). Therefore, flexible citizenship means the
capability of using key elements of one or more cultures in order to thrive in another
culture, and it is a skill that globally mobile consumers develop in order to take
advantage of their multiple cultural identities. For global cosmopolitans, flexible
citizenship means they are not only alternating their allegiances, but that they are
choosing the most beneficial at each moment.
In sum, in the global cosmopolitan context, ethnic and national products (i.e.
products that symbolize one ethnic group or a country) are not used to construct
ethnocentric behaviour (Sharma, Shimp, and Shin 1995); nevertheless, they are
important for cosmopolitans as resources in the constructions and maintenance of their
multicultural narratives, the expression of their flexibility, and “omnivore” (Cheyne and
Binder 2010) tastes.
6.6.2.2 Global mobility and multiple, flexible identities
The present study also contributes to a new stream of literature that investigates
the ways by which global mobility and deterritorialisation of culture shape consumption
practices and objects. A noteworthy study by Bardhi, Eckhardt, and Arnould (2012)
argues that nomadic consumers “lack identification with home country or country of
residence”. They find a “diminished role for nationality and possessions in identity
work”. They also underscore that nomadic consumers develop a different kind of
relationship to possessions (i.e. a liquid relationship), which is characterised by
instrumentality. Under this logic, “possessions and practices are strategic resources in
managing mobility”. The present study extends the work on the fluidity and
instrumentality of identities by showing that, consistent with it, global cosmopolitans’
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identity projects are not linked to one specific national or ethnic identity. However,
unlike as previous work suggests, the present study shows that this does not mean that
national and ethnic identities are less relevant to consumers’ identity construction. The
present study demonstrates that consumption objects, as national and ethnic symbols,
may still be very much present in the global consumers’ expression of identity and in
their identity work. The present study shows that the logic of instrumentality is also
applied to ethnic and national identities (i.e. global cosmopolitans use their national and
ethnic identities to construct their global cosmopolitan identities). Instead of being used
to enhance identification to a single place, national and ethnic consumption symbols
(e.g. products, brands, or places associated with specific cultures) are used to enhance
the fluidity and globality of cultural identities. Through narratives of mobility and of
multicultural belongingness, global cosmopolitans are able to transform national and
ethnic identities into resources for identity work. Thus, following Tomlinson (2003,
270), the present findings demonstrate that globalisation, “far from destroying cultural
identities, has been perhaps one of the most significant forces in creating and
proliferating cultural identities”. However, the nature of these identities are changing
from unitary, stable, and fixed to multiple, flexible, and mobile.
6.6.2.3 Grounding global cosmopolitanism
This work offers new insights in the area of consumer cosmopolitanism studies.
Past work has discussed the relationship between cosmopolitanism and diverse
consumer behaviours (Cannon and Yaprak 2002; Cleveland et al. 2009; Özsomer and
Altaras 2008); however, the broad and sometimes fuzzy conceptualisations of
cosmopolitanism point to the need for more grounded concepts (Cleveland and Laroche
2007; Cleveland et al. 2009; Holt 1998; Riefler and Diamantopoulos 2009;
Shankarmahesh 2006; Thompson and Tambyah 1999).
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One of the contributions of the current study is to help fix conceptualisation
problems by offering a more grounded description of the cosmopolitan identity, one that
has emerged from the self-definitions and observations of a community of global
cosmopolitans. By observing global cosmopolitans in interaction, it became clear how
the five valorised notions were used to structure consumption practices and the use of
objects. Specifically, the emerging dimensions included transnational mobility as an
important aspect of differentiation. Additionally, it became clear how global
cosmopolitans regard themselves as different from non-cosmopolitans, which are not
necessarily locals, but the people that are not capable of displaying the five
characteristics in their consumption objects and practices: multicultural experiences,
multicultural knowledge and skills, transnational networks, cosmopolitan dispositions,
and transnational mobility.
In addition, the present study extends Thompson and Tambyah (1999)’s
investigation on expatriates and cosmopolitanism, which attempts to describe
“experiences such as the emotional work involved in establishing new social networks,
the stress of learning how to be a consumer in the new locale, and the small pleasures of
established routines as well as familiar surroundings and products” (p. 221). Similar to
their research, the current study also discusses the tensions related to negotiating
identity and managing differences. However, unlike Thompson and Tambyah (1999),
this study does not focus on how global cosmopolitans adapt to the local, or on the
tensions between travelling or dwelling, but on the ways cosmopolitans manage
multiple cultural identities. Specifically, it shows the role of ethnic and national
products and practices as symbolic resources for constructing the cosmopolitan
narratives. The findings underscore the role of stereotypes and cultural heuristics in
helping the monitoring of cultural identities required for the enactment of cosmopolitan
identities. The current study shows that, besides providing resources for the construction
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of narratives, consumption objects and practices can directly express cosmopolitan
identities by narrating a story about multicultural experiences (e.g. flag gallery and
photo albums), multicultural knowledge and skills (e.g. dressing with garments from
different parts of the world), transnational networks (e.g. possessing a phone directory
of people from all over the world), cosmopolitan dispositions (e.g. collecting souvenirs
from exotic places), and transnational mobility (e.g. being a platinum member of a
mileage plan).
Furthermore, it contributes to the cosmopolitan literature by showing that,
underneath the “consumption of differences”, global cosmopolitans see “equality in
diversity”. In their imagined communities, cultural difference is an intrinsic taken-for-
granted characteristic of people who are, nevertheless, similar (i.e. “we are all human
beings”). According to their “Cosmopolitan Vision” (Beck 2006), the kaleidoscope of
symbolic actions and objects only has meaning because – and not despite – of its
assemblage of multicoloured equivalent glasses. However, not everyone is part of their
imagined community. The outsiders are not those of different cultures, but those who
cannot engage with difference and cannot see value in diversity.
For marketing scholars, this aspect is enlightening, for it shows that, in
globalising multicultural spaces, where cosmopolitans tend to dwell (e.g. global cities),
it is not national culture that structures consumption, but cosmopolitan skills and
dispositions. In these contexts, segmentation strategies should focus on delineating
those boundaries that really matter, those that reveal structural differences among
consumers, such as the capacity to engage with the Other, the capacity to be globally
mobile, or the capacity to express multicultural experiences.
The present study suggests that in cosmopolitan spaces, such as that of
InterNations, these variables are much more revealing in terms of meaningful
differences than those related to country of origin and ethnic groups (traditional,
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possibly over-worked, bases of segmentation). Thus, knowing how consumers perform
in these dimensions may reveal more of their consumption patterns than their culture of
origin does. On the other hand, and this is the challenging part, cosmopolitan diversity
is often represented through the assemblage of national and ethnic symbols. This means
that products and brands with a strong ethnic/national symbolism may still be of interest
for cosmopolitan consumers, not as an expression of who they are, but as resources in
the construction of a narrative about who they want to be (their global cosmopolitan
identity projects). The difference between ethnic products being an expression of who
they are and being a resource that helps in the expression of who they are has
implications to marketing communication. This is because it is very different to
communicate symbolic ethnicity of a product as an essence of the consumer (e.g. “you
need product x, because you are x”; or “you should drink Corona because that’s what
Mexicans like”) and to show how it can be used, skilfully, to construct temporary
allegiances and build permanent global cosmopolitan identity-projects (“this is how you
use product X, in conjunction with Y,Z, to become A”; or “you should drink Corona,
because when put together with other drinks, such as Absolut Vodka and Champagne
Cristal, the composition makes you belong to the global cosmopolitan imagined
community”).
6.6.2.4 The relevance of imagined communities and social imaginaries
The present chapter contributes to understanding the role of imagined
communities and the social imaginary in global consumer culture. Global cosmopolitans
not only imagine their world individually, but also, and most importantly, collectively.
These acts of “imagination can be theorised as an expression of consumer agency”
(Chronis, Arnould, and Hampton 2012a, 2), because they are contributing to create
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consumer behaviour that is part of the global cosmopolitan social imaginary. Anderson
(2006) explains that people that are not sharing the same territory can be social through
forming and belonging to imagined communities. Similar to Anderson, the informants
in this research are part of a largely intangible yet real group of individuals who, despite
their distance, share similar characteristics. However, unlike the subjects from
Anderson’s work, who imagine their national identities via print capitalism, global
cosmopolitans co-create their global identities collectively through the sharing of
narratives, during their online and offline interactions. As reflexive subjects, they
analyse and evaluate the symbolic result of their own actions, slowly constructing a
pool of shared stories, images, ethos, social norms, and practice, which become part of
the global cosmopolitan social imaginary. Some practices, which are here called
globalising practices, help them to belong to the global cosmopolitan group. This is the
case with all the practices associated with the five global cosmopolitan characteristics
described here (e.g. simultaneous and interchanging juxtaposing). These same practices
help them to differentiate themselves from “others”, who do not enjoy travelling and
meeting other cultures and do not appreciate the value of mobility.
Joy and Sherry (2003) highlight the relevance of embodiment in understanding
imagination. For them, consumers grasp the world directly through their multiple senses
and by “imaginary modes of embodiment” (Chronis et al. 2012a). This means that not
only global cosmopolitan practices contribute to the formation of a global cosmopolitan
imaginary, but the global cosmopolitan imaginary also becomes embodied in the
various practices consumers perform. This is consistent with Steger’s idea about the
interaction between practices and imaginary. For Steger (2009, 13), “Bourdieu notes
that the social imaginary sets the pre-reflexive framework for our daily routines and
social repertoires. Structured by social dynamics that produce them while at the same
time also structuring those forces, social imaginaries are products of history that
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‘generate individual and collective practices—more history—in accordance with the
schemes generated by history”. This is why understanding the social imaginary of
global cosmopolitans and its related practices is so important. It provides consumer
research with the tools not only to observe what they are doing (practices) but to
understand why they are doing it (social imaginary that sets the background for their
actions). By using a bottom-up approach, describing and classifying self-perceptions of
global cosmopolitans and related practices, this chapter increases understanding of
global cosmopolitan behaviour.
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7. Conclusion
The three preceding chapters provide enough evidence to allow me to answer the
main research question of this thesis, that is, “How does the global mobility of
consumers affect their consumption practices?” More specifically, it allows me to
answer two particular sub-questions: “How does the global mobility of consumers affect
their notions of time, space and identity?” and “How do these shifts in their notions of
time, space and identity affect their consumption practices?” First, I present a summary
of the findings and discussion of the three empirical chapters, then I discuss some
limitations of the work and finally I draw out some implications of this thesis.
7.1 Summary
Figure 3 - How mobility affects consumption practices
To recap (see Figure 3), the specific literature discussed in the three preceding
chapters has shown that key cultural categories, such as “time”, “home” and “cultural
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identity,” provide meanings to different activities in people’s lives, including a number
of consumption-related practices and objects. These cultural categories work as
stabilising/coordinating structures, because they help organise diverse objects, practices,
symbols, places and relationships into meaningful bundles. For example, in relation to
time, past work has shown how Thanksgiving (an example of a consumer ritual
associated with cyclical time) can serve as a basis for the coordination of a number of
activities related to this ritualised meal, from buying the ingredients to dividing the
tasks among family members and finally getting together to eat (Arnould and
Wallendorf 1994). To provide another example, in relation to home, past work has
shown that objects and possessions can gain specific meanings once they are in the
realm of home. A table, as a homey object, may acquire specific meanings that can only
be understood in the context of home, where it is also linked to other homey elements in
a complex web of meanings (Epp and Price 2010; McCracken 2005). To provide a third
example, in relation to cultural identity, past work has shown how identification to a
culture may provide meaning to a number of activities that members of that culture
perform. For example, Dong and Tian (2009) have shown how identification to Chinese
national identity can shape the way Chinese people ascribe meanings to Western brands.
In these three examples, Thanksgiving, the house that hosts the table and other objects,
and Chinese identity act as stabilising/coordinating structures of consumption activities,
because through them diverse activities become related and acquire meaning. Thus, in
these examples, a turkey, a table and a Western brand gain particular meanings to
consumers when they are understood as components in the construction of a particular
time (i.e., Thanksgiving), place (i.e., that particular home) and cultural identity (i.e.,
Chinese identity). These cultural categories stabilise/coordinate activities because they
presuppose a certain order and a certain arrangement. When we think of Thanksgiving,
we can imagine a set of practices that should be performed, an arrangement of objects
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that should be part of it, and the sequence they should happen in, so it can be called
Thanksgiving instead of Christmas.
Additionally, these cultural categories (i.e., these coordinating structures) are so
ingrained in everyday activity that they tend to be taken-for-granted in marketing
theory. In other words, although marketing theory frequently acknowledges the role of
time, home and cultural identity as key categories for understanding consumers, it rarely
questions the nature of these categories. For example, theories on consumer
ethnocentrism tend to work on the assumption that consumers will consider people from
other countries as “cultural dissimilar” (Shimp and Sharma 1987, 280). It does not
consider that the cultural dissimilar may lie elsewhere, far from countries’ boundaries or
far from a territorial logic. Similarly, theories on consumers’ home rarely consider the
fact that home may be dissociated from the house where someone lives, or that someone
may have more than one home. In the same way, theories that relate time and
consumption tend to consider time as an objective variable (instead of a cultural
construction), or to focus on individual perceptions of time (i.e., timestyles), or in
variations of time perceptions among cultures (defined by countries’ geographic
boundaries). Marketing theory tends to overlook the fact that time itself can be produced
by new patterns of consumer activity, such as the ones developed in conditions of
mobility (e.g., mobility cycles shaping decisions of products).
The findings of this research show that the mobility of global cosmopolitans
destabilises these coordinating structures (i.e., time, home and cultural identity),
rendering them problematic. These structures, which are taken for granted by non-
mobile consumers, emerge as a problem, because consumers cannot reproduce related
practices in the same way (e.g., the fragmentation of home in mobility does not allow
consumers to develop home-related practices in the same way they do when they have
lived in a house for their whole life). Moreover, this study shows that destabilisation
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may occur via three complementary processes. First, global mobility may multiply
coordinating structures. Instead of one home, global cosmopolitans may have multiple
homes. Instead of one cultural identity (usually the national identity), global
cosmopolitans may have multiple cultural identities. Instead of one temporal
framework, global cosmopolitans may live according to various temporal frameworks,
simultaneously. Second, global mobility may fragment the meaning of these
coordinating structures. Fragmentation is associated with a destabilisation of the
meanings that are customarily associated with a certain cultural category of space, time
or identity. This means that in conditions of mobility, coordinating structures may not
be able to perform the stabilising/coordinating functions they used to perform for them
before they became mobile. Consumers may only have access to fragments of the
original meanings. Thus, one of the places considered as “home” for global
cosmopolitans may be a place of privacy and safety, but not a place where the family is
(some of the homey functions are lacking). Similarly, time-related rituals (e.g.,
Christmas) may lose some of their meanings when global cosmopolitans are away from
their family and close friends. Likewise, national identities may become less capable of
explaining the consumer behaviour of transnational mobile individuals. Third, global
mobility may disembed consumer activities from the bundle in which they are normally
conceived. Thus, two consumer activities such as ice-skating and eating turkey that are
linked together by a time-related category (i.e., Christmas holidays) may become
dissociated if a global cosmopolitan from the northern hemisphere moved to the
southern hemisphere, where ice-skating will not be associated with Christmas holidays.
Consequently, as global mobility fragments meanings, multiplies coordinating
structures (time, space and identity) and disassembles consumer activities, global
cosmopolitans engage in various practices to keep their actions meaningful, coordinated
and stable. These actions may sometimes seem liberating (or so it appears from the in-
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depth interviews and observations of conversations among consumers at InterNations),
providing options for what was once a taken-for-granted behaviour. However, being
reflexive and agentic about how to behave and which practices to enact requires effort.
For example, I observed that consumers who have more than one focal point for home
must engage in various practices to access, ground and link the fragmented focal points
for home. Consumption practices and objects play key roles in keeping these points
grounded and connected. Similarly, consumers may spend a lot of time managing
different temporal frameworks, which increases the effort of synchronisation,
scheduling and allocation of time-loaded resources. Various activities—such as
shopping, storing, using and disposing of objects—may also require extra coordinating
efforts when global cosmopolitans have more than one temporal framework to
simultaneously support their actions. Fortunately, global mobility seems to be able to
provide new stabilising/coordinating structures for place (e.g., networked homes),
identity (e.g., global cosmopolitan identities) and time (e.g., mobility cycles and a
relationship to the future and past that stems from the present). These new
stabilising/coordinating structures organise consumer activities in a way that is different
from the way it occurs with less mobile consumers (i.e., the consumers normally
discussed in the consumer research literature). Thus, networked homes may perform
similar “homey” functions of the traditional home (a household with a family living in
that house for a long time), but because they are grounded in many focal points and
because they may exist even when they are not grounded, this has implications for the
kind of consumption activities that are associated with the networked home (e.g.,
“Skyping” may become part of home, whereas ordinarily it merely may be seen as an
enabling communication technology). Similarly, mobility cycles are associated with
certain consumption practices that differ from practices associated with other cycles
[e.g., the traditional family life cycle—where the house is expected to reflect the
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progression of the family in the life cycle (Wilkes 1995)]. Furthermore, flexible
identities (such as the global cosmopolitan identity) are based on criteria that do not
follow geographical boundaries, although markers of nationality may be used as
semiotic resources to compose a multicultural identity.
In sum, the three previous chapters demonstrate that global mobility is a key
force of globalisation, which works by destabilising cultural categories that coordinate
consumer activities. In order to maintain their meanings, consumers either perform re-
assembling/coordinating practices, or they structure their activities according to a new
mobility-based logic. Table 5 summarises the key findings of the thesis.
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Table 3- Summary of findings
Stabilising structures
Global mobility destabilises structures
Consumers’ managing practices New mobility-related structures
Temporal frameworks (chapter 4)
Multiplication of temporal frameworks demands effort and synchronisation. Fragmentation of the meanings of time-related activities may cause discomfort. Disembedding of time-structure consumer activities may also require coordinating efforts from consumers.
• Zoning (grouping activities per time-zone or culture)
• Projecting themselves in the future • Assembling time-keeping objects
together • Developing time-management
routines • Developing portable routines • Using temporal boundary objects
• Temporal boundary objects
• Embodied mobility rhythms
• Cycles of global mobility
• Re-constructed global past
• Future orientation
Home (chapter 5)
Traditional notion of home becomes problematic for consumers as its meanings become fragmented, its focal points are spread through distant points, and its related activities disassembled.
• Accessing home • Grounding home • Linking home • Uprooting home
• Networked homes, with their stable and temporary focal points
Cultural identity (chapter 6)
Multiplication of cultural identities creates the need to choose. The centrality of territorial identities decreases because national and ethnic identities become a semiotic resource (an emptied sign of belonging) instead of an expression of “deep” loyalty to the nation. National and ethnic identities cease to be a strong shaper of identity.
Managing national and ethnic identities:
• Expressing beneficial allegiances • Downplaying undesirable allegiances • Understanding stereotypes and using
cultural heuristics • Sharing information about cultural
norms Globalising practices: • Uprooting practices • Alternating the display of allegiances
to national and ethnic cultures (interchanging juxtaposition)
• Using arrangements to create pastiche effect of being multicultural (simultaneous juxtaposition) Challenging taken-for-granted cultural practices and objects
• Individual storytelling • Collective storytelling • Understanding, sharing, evaluating
and validating cosmopolitan way of life
• Multicultural, flexible, mobile identities
• Imagined
communities of global cosmopolitans
• Social imaginary of
global cosmopolitans (as part of a mobility culture)
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7.2 Research Limitations and Extensions
InterNations data should be interpreted with caution. Members of InterNations
are exceptionally self-aware (due to their high reflexivity), self-selected (only persons
who see themselves as global cosmopolitans look for a group like that) and conscious of
the way they wish to be seen. These factors result in a community of performance where
comments are intentionality made for impression management, that is, a conscious or
unconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of other
people about a person, object or event (Leary and Kowalski 1990). Thus, their
narratives are filtered by their idea of how they think they should be and behave.
Although it is a limitation of the data, the performance of identity at InterNations is not
necessarily detrimental to the research findings, as the performative aspects highlight
features of the social imaginary of global cosmopolitans that may not be so obvious
when they are not performing (e.g., showing off their multicultural past experiences).
Nevertheless, the other data set (i.e., in-depth interviews with global
cosmopolitans) helped to partially overcome this limitation by allowing investigation of
other aspects of their behaviour. Although they were also performing to some extent in
the interviews, the intimate context of the interview and some of the questions enabled
probing of less discussed issues. The other drawback with interviews is that they
included only one or two people (the couple). Future research may engage with global
cosmopolitan families for longer periods, or purposefully look for instances when they
might not be performing their global cosmopolitan identity.
Noticeable too is the overall positive tone of informants’ accounts of their global
mobility. Most of the time, the consequences of mobility are reinforced and celebrated
by the informants, not leaving much room for moaning, complaining or regretting. The
positive tone is a consequence of three different factors: a limitation in the methods, the
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conceptual framework and choice of research questions, and the global cosmopolitan
imaginary. First, the limitation in the methods (as explained previously) has to do with
the reflexivity and performativity of the self at InterNations and the interviews. In the
performance of global cosmopolitan identities, mobility is idealised and any residual
positive feelings attached to immobility may be suppressed (e.g., the feeling of deep
attachment to a local community and a meaningful place).
Second, this research was intended to contribute to understanding the
imaginaries and practices associated with being a global cosmopolitan. Thompson and
Tambyah (1999) have already shown that dwelling discourses (discourse of roots) are
present in cosmopolitan lives, and that these “negative” discourses are in dynamic
tension with the predominant cosmopolitan travelling discourses. If this study focussed
on global cosmopolitans who want to have roots despite their mobility, it would only
replicate Thompson and Tambyah’s theoretical findings. To go beyond their findings
and extend their research, it was important to show how those people who embraced the
cosmopolitan discourse managed to find stability in their lives. For example, one of the
issues under investigation was “Given mobility is part of your life, how do you manage
to construct home?” The question has a “positive tone” to it, as it focuses on
construction and stability. Thus, instead of investigating the difficulties of creating a
rooted home (which would not add much theoretically as there is plenty written about
that); I focussed on cases where people have managed to create a sense of home while
being mobile (rather than despite being mobile). Even in doing so, problems surfaced,
as is the case in the section on the “empty house,” which is not only empty of objects,
but also of people. Future research could go deeper into exploring the material and
spiritual emptiness in their lives. It could also include the accounts of informants who
stayed back; for example, relatives and friends who see signs of absence, regret and
solitude amongst those who are comparatively mobile.
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The third reason for the positive tone in the accounts is the fact that the global
cosmopolitan imaginary, as a typical construction of the second modernity (Giddens
1991), has characteristics of an enterprise culture (Du Gay 1991). In the enterprise
culture, structural problems become tasks that consumers must perform (Du Gay 1996).
Thus, it is not so much that members of InterNations do not talk about the difficulties of
being mobile, but they frame these difficulties in terms of personal challenges (tasks)
that need to be overcome. According to their ethos, failing to overcome the challenges
of mobility is considered a failure of the self, something to be ashamed of; mobility is
never to be blamed (it is a given in their life). Facing these challenges successfully is a
token of membership to the global cosmopolitan community. Accordingly, in many
ways, the positive accounts reveal a lot about global cosmopolitan ethos and social
imaginaries. Nonetheless, future research could use methods such as Garfinkel’s (1994)
ethnomethodology to show how communities of global cosmopolitans are able to react
to members who defy this ethos by, for example, blaming mobility for the problems in
their lives.
Finally, this research also limited the scope of the three chosen structuring
cultural categories (time, space and identity). Although they are the key pillars of
cultural analysis, for matters of practicality, this study focussed on certain notions of
time (e.g., future, past, and cycles), on home as a category of place/space, and on
cultural identity as a category of identity. Limiting the scope to certain categories
helped with the interviews and the fieldwork analysis. However, the findings of this
research encourage further exploration of how global mobility changes our relationship
to time, space and identity in other instances. For example, the relationship to places
one encounters when travelling may change in conditions of global mobility. Augé
(1995) has argued that airports, supermarkets and highways are “non-places”, because
they are places of transience that do not hold enough significance to be seen as places.
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Given the findings of this research, it is possible that, in the networked world of global
cosmopolitans, these non-places are indeed places, full of meaning and stability.
Studying global cosmopolitan place-making practices in these contexts suggests
interesting extensions. For example, Bengtsson et al. (2010) show how global brands
like McDonald’s and Starbucks may create a sense of home abroad. Future research
could examine whether airports and other “non-places” can also promote a sense of
home abroad, or whether these “non-places” are part of other place-making practices.
Additionally, future research could look at other ways of conceptualising the
relationship between global mobility and space, time and identity by, for example,
concentrating on the multicultural encounters, movements and rhythms of global
cosmopolitans who only move across global cities (global cityscapes). Global cities are
known to exercise pulling and pushing forces on migrating populations (Sassen 2001),
so to examine them as being linked through a network of mobile people, which
presupposes particular imaginations and forms of consumption, could also be
theoretically fruitful.
7.3 Contributions and Implications
Contributions are divided into two groups: contributions to understanding
consumption in late modernity and contributions to understanding global consumer
culture. Each section starts with a paragraph delineating the key contributions;
remaining paragraphs in each section discuss implications.
7.3.1 Consumption in late modernity
Working under the assumption that mobility is a key process of flexible
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capitalism (Urry 2006), this research empirically demonstrates and details the process
by which global mobility destabilises and re-structures consumers’ activities.
Specifically, the findings of this research show that (1) the global mobility of consumers
affects their notions of time, space and identity through processes of fragmentation of
meaning, disembedding of consumption activities and multiplication of coordinating
structures. The empirical findings also demonstrates that (2) consumers respond to these
processes by increasing their workload to manage and stabilise their lives. More
importantly, the research shows evidence that (3) global mobility also enables other
notions of time, space and identity and that (4) these notions bring about new structures
that function as new sources of stability in consumers’ lives. The following paragraphs
detail the implications of each of these points.
7.3.1.1 The destabilising (or stabilising?) power of mobility
In the Introduction, I argue that global mobility can contribute to our understanding
of consumer life in the age of late modernity, because mobility simulates many aspects
of this phase of flexible capitalism. The findings provide evidence for this claim by
showing that mobility is associated with various aspects of late modernity:
disembedding of consumer activities, high self-reflexivity, fragmentation of life
experiences and juxtaposition of opposites (Bauman 2000; Beck et al. 1994;
Featherstone 1995; Firat 1997; Firat and Venkatesh 1995; Giddens 1991). More
specifically, this research uses evidence from three different analytic categories (space,
time and identity) to empirically demonstrate how mobility destabilises consumers’
lives, leading to fragmentation of meanings, multiplication of coordinating structures
and disembedding of social activities. In addition, reflexivity and juxtaposition of
opposites were discussed as part of the findings in Chapter Six. I showed that
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consumers’ self-reflexivity is necessary for the monitoring of national and ethnic
identities and that juxtaposition of opposites works as a stabilising identity practice that
aims at counterbalancing the effects of fragmentation, multiplication and disembedding
by enabling global cosmopolitan identities.
Another principle of second modernity, individualisation, is also present as a
background principle in the three substantive chapters, especially because geographical
mobility literally separates and isolates people. Individualisation—a consequence of
social changes in late modernity, in which individuals are increasingly required to
construct their own lives (Bauman 2000; Giddens 1991)—is highlighted as a key
feature of the responses of consumers to fragmentation, disembedding and
multiplication. The burden of managing the structural changes caused by mobility is
carried by individual consumers who have their workload increased. This comes across
most clearly in the chapter about cultural identity. Consumers with multiple cultural
identities need to engage in extra identity work to coordinate the performances of their
various national identities, in order to express the one that is the most beneficial for
them in a particular situation. When identity becomes a choice, it increases consumers’
identity work. On top of that, mobile consumers have to show they are good at blending
the elements in a skilful way to show they deserve to belong to the group of global
cosmopolitans. In many ways, consumers are forced to perform the stabilising and
coordinating functions that can be taken for granted in situations of non-mobility. This
reveals the paradox of second modernity: free choice for the individual to reassemble
activities in time, space and identity becomes a burden. Bauman (2000) explains that the
individualisation characteristic of our times “consists of transforming human identity
from a ‘given’ into a ‘task’ and charging the actors with the responsibility for
performing that task and for the consequences (also the side effects of their
performance)” (p. 32). In our times of liquid modernity, the paradox then seems to be:
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“in the land of individual freedom of choice, the option to escape individualisation and
to refuse to participate in the individualising game is emphatically not in the agenda” (p.
34). Freedom to choose is compulsory. Thus, under discourses that glamorise mobility,
travel and freedom, I observed effort, a lot of effort.
These findings reinforce the idea that mobility foreshadows situations in which the
principles of modernity are even more radical. If we agree with theorists from diverse
fields (Augé 1995; Beck 2006; Giddens 1990; Harvey 1999) who affirm that we are in a
phase of increasing radicalisation of the principles of modernity, then the findings of
these studies suggest that by studying consumer life in highly mobile contexts (such as
global cosmopolitans), one may also catch glimpses of where second modernity is
taking us. More importantly, it allows us to see beyond fragmentation, disembedding,
individualisation and erosion of certain institutions. The empirical findings show that
these “destructive” processes are only one side of the equation. On the other side, there
are new structures being produced out of fragmentation (e.g., other spaces, other
temporal frameworks, other forms of identity). Much has been written about the
globalisation of fragmentation and the other maladies of second modernity affecting
consumption (Firat 1997; Firat and Dholakia 1998). This study suggests that it might be
time for consumer researchers to also concentrate on the new formations and structures
that replace the crumbling ones. It encourages researchers to focus on the sources of
stability in these changing scenarios.
7.3.1.2 New structures of mobility
The findings support the idea that mobility produces new structures (i.e., new
temporal frameworks, new places and spaces, new identities). There are three central
issues for consumers regarding these new structures: stability, networks and
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embodiment of mobility structures. First, new structures seem to be able to re-install
stability in people’s lives. I have shown how destabilisation of home, temporal
frameworks and cultural identity can be problematic for consumers. In this sense, global
cosmopolitan consumers are very modern, in the way they expect progress and stability
in their lives. The new structures of home, time and cultural identity emerge because
they are able to provide new sources of comfort for consumers and to create constants in
consumers’ lives. For example, it is comforting for global cosmopolitans to know that
the stages of mobility (arrival, stay and departure) are repeated over and over through
mobility cycles. It is also comforting for them to know they belong to a group of people
with similar characteristics and mobile backgrounds, despite their various national
backgrounds or their hosting society.
Second, I show that in many cases the new structures created by mobility take
the shape of networks. In this work, networks are assemblages of concrete elements,
practices, social relations, emotions and meanings that are linked together by imagined
relationships. This is consistent with (Castells 1996, 469) who argues that “networks
constitute the new social morphology of our societies, and the diffusion of networking
logic substantially modifies the operation and outcomes in processes of production,
experience, power, and culture.” It is also in line with Delanty (2006, 32) who says that
“mobilities are not just flows but networked relations and are globally organised in new
kinds of spaces and temporal processes.” Similarly, it is also consistent with Urry
(2003) who argues that mobile lives unfold through networks and global assemblages.
This work extends Castells’, Delanty’s and Urry’s frameworks by showing how
mobility leads to networked structures in consumers’ lives. Specifically, it shows that
mobility seems to act as an accelerating force in this process, speeding up the transition
from more traditional structures into more networked structures. For example, the
findings reveal that global cosmopolitans maintain the functions and stability
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traditionally offered by the situated home through the maintenance of networked homes
that can span multiple territories, or even be deterritorialised. Through a number of
practices (linking, accessing, grounding, uprooting) concrete and symbolic components
of the networked home are integrated. The existence of the networked home shows that
the notion of home still exists and is important for global cosmopolitans; however, it
does not follow the same principles of territoriality or proximity that the traditional
notion of home entails. These networks allow life to exist in conditions of mobility.
Additionally, these networks provide meanings to global cosmopolitans’ lives. A
network is not just an assemblage of elements. It involves particular meanings that are
associated not with one component of the assemblage, but with its totality. Thus, for
Donald, the networked home is meaningful because it makes sense in its totality. Each
component of the networked home is incapable of substituting the functions and
symbolism of all the elements of the networked home. Similarly, each component of the
global cosmopolitan identity (e.g., individual national identities) cannot substitute the
multicultural meaning that the assemblage expresses. This is consistent with Ong and
Collier’s (2004, 12) idea of assemblages, which is “the product of multiple
determinations that are not reducible to a single logic.”
As a consequence, if we do not understand these spatial and temporal
assemblages and how mobile people identify with them, we cannot fully understand
their behaviour. It is important to understand their behaviour as part of a larger effort to
seek stability via networks. For example, from a utilitarian point of view, it would be
difficult to explain why consumers may keep their furniture in paid storage for years if
they have no real intention of ever using this furniture again. From the point of view of
the networked home, the furniture is symbolically demarcating the boundaries of the
networked home, fixing one of its focal points in a site that may serve a stabilising
purpose for consumers. Similarly, it would be difficult to use extant theory to explain
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why Osito, the teddy bear (a cherished possession), moves around, among Heidi’s
friends. However, under the light of the networked home, its role becomes clearly part
of the linking practices that maintain the components of the networked home together.
Focusing on assemblages and networks is important because they provide a
theoretical explanation for paradoxical findings in this research. For example, past
consumer research affirms that the possession and use of national and ethnic symbols by
consumers are signs of their allegiance to a specific national cultural or a specific ethnic
group (Askegaard et al. 2005; Mehta and Belk 1991; Peñaloza 1994). By contrast, this
study suggests that the use and possession of national and ethnic symbols may also be
used as resources in the construction of other cultural identities. Specifically, the
findings suggest that certain cultural identities (e.g., global cosmopolitan identity)
presuppose the skilful assemblage of national and ethnic symbols into meaningful new
arrangements. Further, these arrangements also explain why global cosmopolitans,
although well-travelled, and thus possessing some knowledge of heterogeneity within
other cultures, constantly rely on stereotypes and cultural heuristics to temporarily
express their national and ethnic identities. Stereotypes are a particularly useful tool
when composing assemblages, because they enhance the contrasts within the network,
facilitating the display of diversity.
Furthermore, understanding cosmopolitan identity as the identification with a
meaningful network of contrasting signs (juxtaposition of opposites organised as
assemblages) sheds light into Linda’s behaviour of wearing and combining clothes from
different countries of origin. Past consumer research on cosmopolitans may explain this
behaviour as an attempt by Linda to differentiate herself from locals (Holt 1998), or an
attempt to consume the “Other”, or to be flexible (Thompson and Tambyah 1999). This
study emphasises that, beyond these factors, Linda’s behaviour has an important role in
increasing her social status among other global cosmopolitans. The choice she makes in
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the composition of her outfits encapsulates the knowledge she has about resources in
different geographies and about how to combine them in arrangements. Her behaviour
displays skills that are deeply valorised by global cosmopolitans. Thus, her behaviour
encodes more an attempt to stand out among her peers, than to differentiate herself from
locals. In sum, networks allow us to understand behaviour that could not be understood
before, or that was understood partially because the focus was on the object.
Comprehending the new structures in terms of consumer embodiment is also
important. Consumers living in conditions of mobility embody these structural
characteristics, reproducing a “mobility” habitus through practices that are associated
with being mobile (Sandra provides an excellent illustration of this when she describes
how she “developed” travelling practices over the years to match her travelling
routines). This embodiment of mobility structures clarifies the nature of some consumer
behaviours that could not be properly explained by previous theories. For example,
without understanding the influence of mobility cycles on global cosmopolitans, it
becomes difficult to explain why Paul Kim, a rich successful doctor buys his furniture at
IKEA (a store known for its inexpensive short-lived goods), or why many other upper
middle class informants would live in ‘empty’ apartments. Very recent research has
begun to explain these behaviours as a type of liquid relationship to possessions, which
are based only on use-value and instrumentality (Bardhi et al. 2012). Extending such
work, this research shows that this liquid relationship to possessions occurs as a
consequence of the embodiment of mobility cycles. It suggests that global
cosmopolitans learn to consider (consciously or unconsciously) the future consequences
of their purchase (especially the moment of disposal), which may prevent them from
developing deeper attachments to possessions. This work suggests that it might not be
so much the case of a new kind of relationship to possessions being developed (i.e., a
liquid relationship to possessions), but the fact that the mobility cycles may make it hard
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for consumers to develop other (deeper/symbolic) types of relationships to possessions.
In other words, global cosmopolitans may be less attached to possessions, not so much
because they value detachment, but because they have embodied the future
consequences of their mobility (through exposure to mobility cycles), which prevents
them from attaching and accumulating. This difference has important implications. For
example, consider brand A, which sells clothes to global cosmopolitans. If they believe
global cosmopolitans can only develop liquid relationships to their clothes, there is not
much they can do to advertise their products, besides emphasising their situational and
use-value. However, if they believe the only reason global cosmopolitans are not
developing deeper attachments to their clothes is because of mobility cycles (i.e.,
eventual disposal of the item when moving), they can enhance attachment if they can
find a way of removing their clothes from the threats of the mobility cycles (e.g.,
emphasising its portability or re-sale value).
Moreover, mobility cycles can also shed light on the relationship between
mobile consumers and objects. Mobility cycles may regulate the desirability of goods.
When the desirability of objects becomes conditioned by the mobility stage that the
consumer is presently in (e.g., furniture is needed in the settlement phase, but not in the
departure stage) this heightens the object’s use-value when it is most needed, but at the
same time lowers its value when it is not needed. Bardhi found that mobile consumers’
relationship to possessions is one of increased situational and use-value. I extend that by
suggesting that there is a dialectical relationship between objects and mobile consumers.
Whether or not use-value is relied upon or not depends on the mobility cycle stage the
consumer is in.
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7.3.2 Global consumer culture
This research contributes to the literature on global consumer culture by
highlighting the centrality of global mobility in understanding the cultural consequences
of globalisation. The focus on mobility (1) expands the conceptual and methodological
options needed to overcome the limitations of “methodological nationalism,” a common
assumption in consumer research studies of global consumer culture. The focus on
mobility also (2) contributes to the studies that view global consumer culture as a set of
dynamic processes. Additionally, the findings of this study highlights (3) the productive
power of mobile imaginations as social practices and the structuring role of the global
cosmopolitan social imaginary. In particular, it shows how the social imaginary
provides the background for new structures of time, space and identity that shape
consumption practices. Moreover, the findings show (4) how these new structures are
made possible via the marketplace in arrangements of tangible and intangible elements.
The findings also show (5) how objects gain new meanings associated with their role in
networks. The following paragraphs will detail the implications of each of these points.
7.3.2.1 Challenging methodological nationalism
By developing a new methodological approach to consumer research (i.e.,
mixing global ethnography and the Extended Case Method) that uses mobile
populations (mobile individuals and community of mobiles) as its unit of analysis, this
work contributes to studies that show the limitations and pitfalls of methodological
nationalism (Craig and Douglas 2006). Methodological nationalism is a term coined by
Martins (1974) and later used by Smith (2004) and other social scientists. It refers to the
“assumption that the nation/state/society is the natural social and political form of the
modern world” (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002, 301). Apparently, 200 years of living
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under the logic of nation-states have blinded many scholars to other possible ways of
approaching problems in the social sciences. In essence, critics of methodological
nationalism argue that it makes certain historical trends and forms of identity
completely invisible (Chernilo 2006). By following a group of mobile consumers, and
registering the transformations of the notions of home, time and identity, this work
contributes to exposing the limitations of models that take “national discourses,
agendas, loyalties and histories for granted, without problematising them or making
them an object of an analysis in its own right” (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002, 304).
In marketing theory, it is a common practice to assume that a country has one
national culture and to use national culture as the unit of analysis for examining culture
(Craig and Douglas 2006).These studies tend to take national identities for granted and
to overlook other types of cultural identities (Nakata 2009; Steenkamp 2001). An
analysis of global cosmopolitan identities directly challenges methodological
nationalism, as it uses methods that favour “methodological cosmopolitanism” (Beck
and Sznaider 2006, 4), a perspective that rejects the “national organisation as a
structural principle for societal and political action.” The boundaries of this study were
created by patterns of mobility, instead of patterns of territoriality (nation-states).
7.3.2.2 Mobility as a central process in global consumer culture
Understanding mobility as a central process in globalisation enables a more
dynamic perspective on global consumer culture. This work contributes to the group of
studies that sees global consumer culture as a set of dynamic processes that are a
consequence of cultural globalisation (Cayla and Eckhardt 2008; Kjeldgaard and
Askegaard 2006; Thompson and Arsel 2004). For example, Cayla and Eckhardt show
how brands (and brand managers) help build transnational imagined worlds. Kjeldgaard
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and Askegaard explain how youthscapes become “structures of common difference” in
global consumer culture. Thompson and Arsel explain how new branded global spaces
(e.g., Starbucks brandscape) provide the locus and the discourse through which
opposing cultural discourses, consumption practices and symbolic identifications are
articulated. Similarly, this study points to the centrality of mobility and its associated
imaginaries to the understanding of new forms and structures that emerge in global
consumer culture.
This study also extends the work on movement, migration and acculturation
(Askegaard et al. 2005; Oswald 1999; Peñaloza 1994). Past work on consumer
movement has tended to look at the movement of people as processes of emigration and
immigration, which expresses a territorial way of thinking by which migrants either
leave a territory or enter a territory. As a result, studies on immigration have tended to
examine consumption practices related to leaving and entering a country, that is, the
practices associated with consumer assimilation and acculturation. In contrast, this
study focuses on mobility as a condition experienced by consumers. When consumers
are examined as living in conditions of mobility, living in various places represents only
stages in their mobile lives. The focus on mobility in a world where objects and people
are constantly crossing borders allows for new cultural forms and processes to be
observed. For example, this study showed that mobility acts as a double-edged sword
that destabilises some cultural categories, while enabling others.
7.3.2.3 Imaginations of mobility cultures
This work highlights the symbolic dimension of mobility and the productive role
of imagination in global consumer culture. A few researchers have discussed the role of
imagination in consumer research (Chronis, Arnould, and Hampton 2012b; Kozinets et
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al. 2002; Martin 2004; Peñaloza 2001b, 2001a) and a few have started looking at the
role of travel and mobility (Bardhi et al. 2012; Thompson and Tambyah 1999; Veresiu
and Giesler 2011). However, this study highlights the importance of understanding the
imagination and social imaginary associated with mobility as a way of understanding
the production of meaning in global consumer culture.
For Cresswell (2006), mobility is movement imbued with meaning. Without its
symbolic dimension, mobility would be just movement. Thus, Appadurai (1996) has
urged scholars to look at global consumer culture from the perspective of the
imaginaries they engender. Appadurai has made some important connections between
the creation of modern social imaginaries and the global circulation of people, ideas,
capital, technologies and images:
The image, the imagined, the imaginary… are all terms that direct us to
something critical and new in global cultural processes: the imagination as a
social practice. No longer mere fantasy (opium for the masses whose real work
is elsewhere), no longer simple escape (from a world defined principally by
more concrete purposes and structures), no longer elite pastime (thus not
relevant to the lives of ordinary people) and no longer mere contemplation
(irrelevant for new forms of desire and subjectivity), the imagination has
become an organised field of social practices, a form of work (in the sense of
both labour and culturally organised practice), and a form of negotiation
between sites of agency (individuals) and globally defined fields of possibility.
(1996, 31)
The findings of this research expand on Appadurai’s view by showing how
imagination can be a central process in understanding consumption practices in global
consumer culture. In particular, this study shows how imagination associated with being
mobile can shape and provide meaning to a number of consumption practices. The
findings also respond to Benjamin Lee’s suggestion that more empirical research should
be done to understand the culture and imaginations around mobility. Lee (2002, 237)
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argued that “circulation [mobility] is more than the movement of people, ideas, and
commodities from one society to another it is also a cultural process with its own types
of abstraction and constraint that are produced by the nature of the circulating forms and
the imagined communities that interpret and use them.” Thus, when trying to
understand how the mobility of global cosmopolitans shapes their consumption
practices, I am also helping to define, map and understand the processes of imagination
and the social imaginary created by their mobile lifestyle. As the substantive chapters
have demonstrated, without understanding these processes and the world in which
global cosmopolitans live, it becomes harder to interpret the meaning they ascribe to
consumption acts.
7.3.2.4 Individual and collective storytelling
As observed in the findings, networks are the result of temporal and spatial
arrangements. These arrangements can be expressed through consumers’ narratives
(oral, written, visual) that organise the temporal and spatial elements into assemblages
with meaning. Storytelling plays a major role at the InterNations’ gatherings, because it
is through storytelling that the various spatial and temporal elements are linked to gain
meaning. When members of InterNations tell stories about the places they have lived,
things they have done and objects they possess, they are weaving these elements
together to discursively construct and communicate spatial and temporal arrangements.
When informants explain how they use technologies (such as Skype, WhatsApp and
Facebook) to keep the elements of their network connected, they are also recreating
spatial and temporal arrangements. When informants describe how they shop and
maintain possessions across various territories they are also assembling the elements of
their networked life into spatial and temporal arrangements. What is important to
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observe here is that the arrangement—the way the elements of the network are
organised—is as central to the network as the elements themselves. This is why the
narrative and the composition are so important for global cosmopolitans: they convey
the temporal and spatial arrangements.
Additionally, global cosmopolitans develop a sense of who they are based on
these arrangements. Their identification occurs with the network (the arrangement
itself) and not with the individual elements of the arrangement. Thus, for example,
skilled global cosmopolitans are the ones who can show they belong to various national
cultures. They are admired among their peers for their ability to alternate between
multiple national allegiances, not for the individual allegiances they display. The flag
gallery on the InterNations’ profile is a good illustration of these arrangements. It does
not matter much what specific flags one has in the flag gallery. Having lots of flags is a
symbol of global cosmopolitanism, independently of the individual flags. Similarly,
having many clocks on the wall pointing to diverse temporal frameworks also tells a
story of global cosmopolitanism. Each temporal framework is not important, but the
arrangement is, because it tells a global cosmopolitan story.
7.3.2.5 Market mediation, object signification and cultural production
Consumer practices and the new mobility structures (networks, arrangements,
cycles) are mediated by elements of the marketplace. For example, the networked home
is only possible because the marketplace supplies technologies of communication,
transportation, exchange and distribution that allow consumers to re-build their homes.
A number of people believe their “dropbox” (a virtual storage place offered by the
market) is the safest place to keep their files and photos. Without mediation from the
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marketplace, the networked home would not be possible. Similarly, the use of temporal
boundary objects (such as Google Calendars) is facilitated by technology offered by the
market. Moreover, the existence of a community of global cosmopolitans worldwide is
only feasible because these people can count on a virtual platform that helps the
network to become visible.
However, the marketplace is not only providing the means of communication
and relationship building. In many ways, it also helps to make tangible the social
imaginaries of global cosmopolitans. InterNations’ flag galleries, global images, forums
and debates are provided partially in response to members’ demands. The website has
recently launched a new feature, which includes a city and a country guide based on the
demands and needs of members. In the past, some members have reported trips they
made relying only on the advice given by other global cosmopolitans. Because global
cosmopolitans belong to the middle, upper middle and upper global classes and have
access to economic resources that fuel the capitalist system, they are valuable
consumers in the marketplace. For that reason, they have their desires and imaginations
materialised by markets. This is important, because their imaginations are not only re-
structuring their lives, but they are materialising in consumer goods (mobile
technologies such as smartphones and tablets are the quintessential examples of how the
marketplace has produced items for these consumers). Lash and Lury (2007, 182) have
described this process as a “structural coupling between the virtual objects of the global
culture industry and our social imaginary.” They highlight the productive force of the
social imaginary of consumers when coupled with marketplace offerings. If mobility is
producing new forms of imaginations and new social imaginaries (as this study showed
in dimensions of time, space and identity), then mobility is key to understanding the
production of signs and objects in global consumer culture.
Bardhi et al. (2012) have shown that mobile people may develop relationships to
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possessions that are instrumental, situational and intangible. I show that these
relationships, far from being just instrumental, perform an important symbolic function
in the constitution of other kinds of objects (the ones associated with the new
structures). However, these relationships can only be observed when one shifts the
theoretical lens from possession as tangible objects that belong to us, to possessions as
fluid assemblages of tangible objects, intangible objects, practices and relationships
(e.g., networked places and temporal boundary objects).
Marketplace goods undergo a process of re-signification (Certeau 1984; Elliott
1999) under mobility. Therefore, digitalised pictures exchanged via WhatsApp, mailed
and transported gifts, and a teddy bear become valuable because they are linking tools
for building and maintaining the networked home. The practices of drinking and eating
with fellow expats may be valuable for their ability to create a shared past, which
provides stability for global cosmopolitans. Undergoing difficult experiences in other
countries (e.g., eating scorpions in China) may be a tool for a cosmopolitan identity
construction. This challenges models of meaning and production of value that state that
cultural meanings are contained in the goods themselves (McCracken 1988a), because
their meaning may change depending on their function in the network. Here, I show that
in conditions of mobility, goods are re-signified and put to work for consumers’ home-
making, time-coordinating and identity-constructing purposes. As Firat (1999, 293) has
affirmed “the ‘production’ of (value and valuables) occurs in consumption.” Firat
pushes the argument of production in consumption even further by stating that “this
[re]signification of consumption as production would require that we articulate the
products at different moments of production without privileging only some as
valuable—all have different values. This means that value has to be re-conceptualised
as having multiple, not singularly economic, content(s)” (p. 293). The current work
seems to support Firat’s view by showing that consumers produce value when they use
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these marketplace objects to create and maintain networks. The re-signification of
objects in the network also leads to a change in their value for consumers.
In addition, these findings extend the meaning-making model of Peñaloza (2000,
2001a), which shows that meanings are co-produced by several marketplace actors and
diverse levels of interaction. This research shows the importance of cultural categories
in structuring the way these interactions happen. In Peñaloza’s context (i.e., trade
shows), cultural categories of time, space and identity are embedded in the local context
and thus they are not highlighted as key structuring categories (i.e., they are taken for
granted in the context). However, in conditions of mobility, where contexts are fluid
and deterritorialised, locality is no longer the provider of a common framework for
cultural categories to be based on. New structures of time, space and identity replace the
structuring/stabilising/coordinating function of the locale. These new structuring
categories are being produced (imagined) by consumers and integrated into the global
cosmopolitan social imaginary. More importantly, these new structuring categories (the
ones used by global cosmopolitans such as the mobility cycles and networked home) are
being collectively produced in non-local (deterritorialised) contexts by consumers’
global cosmopolitan imaginations and various re-made tangible locales (think of how
global cosmopolitans arrange their new houses to conform to their imagined idea of
dwelling).
In sum, the three substantive chapters demonstrate that a focus on global
mobility may provide an excellent starting point from which to develop research that
seeks to understand the consequences of cultural globalisation to consumers’ lives. By
studying changes in time, space and identity, researchers can also tap into new
imaginaries that are created by consumers’ mobility. Nevertheless, findings from this
research are only the first steps towards the realm of possibilities that the study of
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mobility of consumers unlocks.
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Appendices
257
Appendix A - Ethics
Approval No 09666
PARTICIPANT INFORMATION STATEMENT AND CONSENT FORM
Investigating the consumption of Transnational Mobile Professionals –
You are invited to participate in a study on Transnational Mobile Professionals. The
purpose of this study is to investigate consumption patterns of transnational mobile
professionals. You were selected as a possible participant in this study because of your
experience of living and working in more than one country or because of your
experience of working with TMPs.
If you decide to participate, we might need to conduct three in-depth interviews during
the course of a year. Each interview is completely voluntary, and takes approximately
one hour. The interview will take place preferably at your home, but it can also happen
in the place of your choice. In it I will ask you about your professional and educational
background, your experience in living in different countries and your experiences as a
consumer. This research is part of a doctoral thesis.
Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be identified
with you will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission,
except as required by law. If you give your consent, the interview will be digitally
recorded, as that will allow the researcher to concentrate more on the interview itself.
The digital file will be kept confidential. If, for any reasons, you do not wish to be tape-
recorded, hand-written notes only may be taken.
259
If you give us your permission to be interviewed by signing this document, we plan to
discuss the contents of this interview in academic and professional conferences and to
publish such results in academic publications. In any publication, unless we get your
permission, information will be provided in such a way that you cannot be identified. In
July 2012, at the completion of the study, a summary of research findings will be
available to you if you request by email to [email protected]
Complaints may be directed to the Ethics Secretariat, The University of New South
Wales, Sydney 2052 Australia (phone: 9385 4234, fax 9385 6648, email
[email protected]). Any complaint you make will be investigated promptly and
you will be informed out the outcome.
Your decision whether or not to participate will not prejudice your future relations with
the University of New South Wales. If you decide to participate, you are free to
withdraw your consent and to discontinue participation at any time without prejudice. If
you have any questions, please feel free to ask us. If you have any additional questions
later, feel free to get in touch with me by email [email protected] or with Dr.
Julien Cayla [email protected] and we will be happy to answer them.
You will be given a copy of this form to keep.
260
PARTICIPANT INFORMATION STATEMENT AND CONSENT FORM
(continued)
Investigating the consumption of Transnational Mobile Professionals –
You are making a decision whether or not to participate. Your signature indicates that, having read the information provided above, you have decided to participate. …………………………………………………… Signature of Research Participant .……………………………………………………. Signature of Witness …………………………………………………… (Please PRINT name) .……………………………………………………. (Please PRINT name) .……………………………………………………. Date
261
Method of interview (tick one): □ Digitally record and take notes of the interview □ Take notes of the interview only Your signature indicates that, having read the information provided above, you have agreed to participate using one of the methods above. …………………………………………………… Signature of Research Participant .……………………………………………………. Signature of Witness …………………………………………………… (Please PRINT name) .……………………………………………………. (Please PRINT name) .……………………………………………………. Date Mr. Bernardo Figueiredo – Project Leader Australian School of Business School of Marketing Room 3005 Quadrangle Building, Level 3 University of New South Wales New South Wales Sydney 2052 Phone: +61 2 93852638
262
REVOCATION OF CONSENT
Investigating the consumption of Transnational Mobile Professionals
I hereby wish to WITHDRAW my consent to participate in the research proposal
described above and understand that such withdrawal WILL NOT jeopardise any
treatment or my relationship with The University of New South Wales.
.…………………………………………………….
Signature Date
……………………………………………………
Please PRINT Name
The section for Revocation of Consent should be forwarded to
Mr. Bernardo Figueiredo
Australian School of Business
School of Marketing
Room 3005
Quadrangle Building, Level 3
University of New South Wales
New South Wales Sydney 2052
Phone: +61 2 93852638
263
264
Appendix B – Fact Sheet and Interview Guide
265
Fact Sheet :
Please, complete the following survey as precisely as you can. Let me know if you have
any problems. Thank you!
Name: ____________________________________________
Age: ______________________________________________
Education Level: ______________
Current Occupation: _______________
Profession (if different from above): ______________________
Country of origin (birth): _____________________
Nationalities and Permanent Residencies: _____________________
Country of current residency: ________________
Countries of past residencies (and time spent in each country):
_________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
Ethnic background: _____________________________
Civil Status: □ Single □ Married □ De-facto □ Divorced □ Single Parent
□ Widowed □ Other
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Age of spouse/ de-facto: ____________
Education Level of spouse / de -facto: ______________
Current Occupation of spouse/ de-facto: _______________
Profession (if different from above): ______________
Do you have kids? □Yes □ No
If yes, how many kids do you have? _____________________
What is your first language? ______________________________
What other languages do you speak?
Approximate Household Annual income (1.000 AUD):
□ 0 – 50 □ 50 – 75 □75-100 □ 100-125 □ 125-150
□150-157 □175-200 □200-250 □ 250 -300 □+300
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Interview Guide
Guide for the Interview with Global Cosmopolitans
Technique: The long interview (McCracken 1988)
I would like to hear about your experience of having lived and worked in many
countries. How was it? And what was the motivation to go to each place? There is no
right or wrong answer. Feel free to start from any point you wish and proceed from
there. I will ask you questions only to clarify the parts that are not clear.
Other questions might be made to clarify issues and to help the consumers in points
where the interview has come to a halt. The questions below are intended to aid the
interviewer and are not part of a fixed structure. The objective of the interview is to
have the respondent describe his life trajectory and his life as a transnational mobile
professional.
Examples of possible complementary questions:
Introductory Questions and background information
• Can you please tell me a little bit about yourself, your educational background
for example?
• Can you briefly describe the nature of your current job?
• Can you tell me about your professional experiences before coming to
Australia? What have you done before that?
• In which countries have you lived?
• Tell me a little about your family?
• What nationality do you carry?
• Do you travel a lot?
• Do you have any hobbies?
268
Homeland
Where were you born? Did you also grow up there?
How often do you visit X these days? What takes you there?
In which ways is this place part of your life? In which ways have it influenced your life
(key decisions, mind-set) ?
What images come to your mind when you think of X ?
What are some things you carry or possess that might remind you of that place?
What did you study? Where?
Identity and mobility
• What are the major challenges about living in different countries?
• What advices would you give to someone that wants to live and work in
different countries? What should the person know?
• How have your experiences about living in different countries shaped you life?
• if you take a moment and reflect back on your relationship to these places you
have lived and to your mobility, can you think of some ways that your
relationship to these places has changed because of the fact you have lived in
different countries?
• How does your experience, activities, and life at home has changed because of
you mobility?
• How do you define yourself?
• How does the fact you’ve lived in different countries affect your identity? –
• Now that you have lived in more than three countries, what have you learned
about moving to a new country? What do you do differently now than you did
before?
Globalisation
• How do you see globalisation? How does it affect you?
269
• Do you see yourself as a cosmopolitan? What does that mean to you?
• Do you see yourself as a global citizen? What does that mean to you?
• (if it does not work, how do you see yourself?)
• IN which situations you feel you are being more X? What kinds of activities
make you feel more X?
• Are there certain objects that make you feel more X?
• Are there certain things/objects that make you feel more like X?
• How do you feel when you are being a X?
• Can you detect other X like you? How?
• What objects help you express your X?
• How does being a X change your consumption?
Future projects
• Where do you see yourself living in the future?
• What are you plans for the future?
• What are your biggest dreams?
Home and nationality
- Where do you feel at home? - Where do you call home?
- What has made X a home for you?
What do you do to feel at home when you arrive at another place?
- How does home should look like?
- What is home for you? Can you tell me what home means to you? What images come
to you mind when you think about home?
- What is your nationality(ies)? Are you a citizen of X ?
- How do you feel about the fact that you are (nationality)? A citizen of X ?
- How do you feel about the fact that people recognize you as (nationality)?
- When do you feel X?
270
- Do you feel you belong to any ethnic group? Which ones? What does that mean to
you?
Time
- If you had to divide your experiences in each country into phases, how would
you divide it?
- Why?
- What would be the characteristic of each phase?
- How do you feel about having a life here at the same time you are connected to
family or friends in [country X]?
- -How long did it take for you to call home?
Relationships
• An interesting issue for me is to know more about the way you think about
relationships and the influence that your life experience in many countries has
had in the nature of your social relationships. Can you talk in general about the
meaning of relationships to you?
• Can you think of ways in which your social relationships changed because of
your mobile lifestyle?
• Can you describe your relationship with your family? How does your
relationship with family changes when you move?
• What do you do to meet new people and make new social relationships when
you move to another country? How is that process to you? How did you meet
new people in Australia?
• In the other places you have lived, what kind of people did you socialize with?
Did you meet more locals or other foreigners?
• Do you socialize with local people? When?
• If you had to map out your important friendships and communities, how will
that look like? Where are they located and who are they?
• Do you participate in any social group or activity?
271
• Do you belong to any professional organisation? Are they national,
international, global? Can you describe them for me?
Possessions
• What are you favourite possessions? What do they mean to you?
• When did you acquire them? How often do you use them?
• When you first moved to X and you went shopping, how did you know what to
buy? How did you learn about that?
• Was it different than other countries you lived? What was similar?
• How do you think that the fact you’ve lived in different countries affect the way
you buy? What has changed?
• Which possessions give you a sense of being a global citizen? How is that so?
• Which possessions have you carried everywhere you have lived? How did you
do that?
• Which possessions you would like to have carried?
• Which possessions you would not carry to a new country?
• What do you do with X when you move countries?
• Which possessions do you think are essential for one to feel as a global citizen?
• - What did you bring to Australia when you moved here? If many, what were the
most important products you brought with you when you moved to Australia?
What would happen if you lost them?
• - Have any of these things been moving around with you? Which one? In which
ways are they important to you?
What can you tell me about your life at X?
First country of residency
Do you keep any connections with that place?
In which ways and to what extend is this place important to you?
272
In which ways is this place part of your life? In which ways have it influenced your life
(key decisions, mind-set) ?
What images come to your mind when you think of X ?
What are some things you carry or possess that might remind you of that place?
Repeat questions to other countries of past residency…
Current country of residency
- How did you come to Australia [or Canada]?
- How long have you been living in Australia [or Canada]?
- How is life in Australia [or Canada]?
- How is your typical day here?
- What do you do in your spare time?
- How is it different from other places you have lived?
- How is it similar to other places you have lived?
- How many meals do you have per day? Do you take your meals in the same way you
did in the other countries you lived?
Consumption habits :
Objects associate with your lifestyle?
How do you see yourself consuming different from other people?
House objects
• Do you go out with you workmates? What do you do?
Entertainment
• Is it the same in the other places you’ve lived?
273
• What is your favourite activity?
• Do you watch TV? Which channels? Is it different than in other places? What
habits have remained the same?
Media influence
• Do you try to keep yourself updated? How do you do that? Magazines? News?
• What else do you read?
• What do you eat for breakfast? Lunch? Dinner?
Eating
• What does your family eat for breakfast? Lunch? Dinner?
• Is the family together during the meals?
• Which is your main meal?
• How was (main meal) when you were in [country 1]?
• How was it when you were in [country 2] ? Is it different from here?
Brands
– associate with your lifestyle
• What are the three most important brands to you?
• How is [brand 1,2,3] important to you? In which ways?
• How have [brand 1,2,3] become important to you?
• How attached are you to that brand?
• Were they part of your life before moving to Australia? Since when?
Appendix C – Sample Profile
Table 4 – Interviewees - Key Information
Pseudonym Age
Civil status
Education level
Household Inc. AUD $ Current Occupation
Country of Origin Nationalities
Agu 28 single Bachelor's 100-125 Management consultant South Africa South African Aida 28 single Masters 50-75 Portfolio Analyst Germany Mauritanian, Canadian (PR)
Albert 62 married High School 75-100 E-bay dealer USA American (Australia PR)
Angel 36 single Bachelor's 100-125 Project manager England British, Singaporean (PR), Canadian
Apura 38 married Masters 175-200 Psychiatrist India Indian, Australia (PR) Benny 38 single Bachelor's 50-75 Project co-ordinator Ethiopia Ethiopian, Canadian
Carla 31 de-facto Masters N/A Journalist India Indian, Australia (PR)
Cate 40 de-facto Bachelor's 150-175 Journalist England British, Australian
Cathy 36 Divorced Masters 75-100 Project Manager China
Chinese, Finland (PR), Canada (PR)
Chen Li 30 single Masters 75-100 Technical Sales Manager China Chinese, Australian (PR) Claire 32 single Masters N/A Supply chain manager Germany German, Australian
Collette 29 single Bachelor's 0-50 Event assistant Scotland - UK British
Cybele 43 married Bachelor's N/A Housewife India Indian, Dutch (PR) Diva 30 de- Doctoral 50-75 Professor Sri Lanka Australian, Canadian (PR)
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facto Donald 31 married Masters N/A Chartered accountant South Africa South African, Canadian (PR) Donna 33 single Bachelor's 75-100 Bank Employee Germany German Eron 32 married Masters 50-75 University Professor Hong Kong Chinese, Canadian (PR)
Hazel 29 married Masters 100-125 Even manager Scotland - UK British
Irvin 36 married Masters N/A Project officer Indonesia Indonesian, Australian (PR) James 35 married Bachelor's 100-125 IT Developer Spain Spanish Jenny 36 single Bachelor's N/A Marketing manager Canada Canadian
June 28 de-facto Masters 50-75 Communication Advisor Germany German
Kelly 54 married High School 75-100 Phlebotomist UK
Australian, British, American (PR)
Khaled 38 married Doctoral 150-175 University Lecturer Afghanistan Afghan, Canadian
Kova 38 de-facto Doctoral 50-75
Environmental Technology Engineer Nigeria Nigerian, Canadian
Lara 35 married doctoral 150-175 University Lecturer Korean Korean, Canadian Linda 42 Single Bachelor's 175-200 Advertising Hong Kong British, Canadian
Luca 55 divorced Masters N/A Diplomat Switzerland Ecuadorian
Manuela 33 single Masters 0-50 Manager Health Industry Albania Albanian, Canadian (PR)
Maria 34 single Masters N/A Marketing Director Spain Spanish, German, Australian (PR)
Mario 41 married Bachelor's 150-175 Field Service Manager Brazil Brazilian, Canadian (PR)
Morris 28 single Bachelor's N/A Simultaneous interpreter and dive instructor Hong Kong British, Canadian (PR)
Paul 36 single PhD 100-125 Biochemist Germany Germany
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Kim
Radha 35 Single Masters 50-75 Communications and marketing manager India Indian and Canadian
Rajiv 39 married Masters 175-200 Manager India Indian, Australia (PR)
Roberta 27 single Masters 0-50 Marketing assistant USA American, Argentinean, Australian (PR)
Sandra 39 married Doctoral 75-100 Applied Sociologist Canada Canadian
Sarah 44 de-facto Masters 175-200 HR Trainer England British, Australian
Simon 30 de-facto Masters N/A PhD student Finances India American, Australian
Vera 27 single Masters 0-50 Research Assistant Colombia Swiss, Australia, Italian, Argentinean (PR), Colombian
Velma 38 divorced Bachelor's N/A Job Developer Peru
Peruvian, Egyptian, Canadian (PR)
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Table 5– Interviewees - Additional Information
Pseudonym Past residencies
Declared ethnic background
First language Other languages
Agu South African (27y), Brazil (1y) East Indian English Afrikaans, Portuguese
Aida Germany (7y), USA (15y), Mauritania (3y), UK (6m), France (6m) Black - African
Fulani and French English
Albert Australia (12), USA (50) European English French
Angel Kenya (12y), Singapore (10y) Indian Marwari (Rajasthani)
English, French, Spanish, Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati
Apura Singapore (2y), India (33y) Indian Malayalam English, Hindi
Benny Ethiopia (21y), UK (4y) Black Amharic (Ethiopian) English
Carla India (27 y) US (2 y) Indian English Hindi Cate UK (22 y) Singapore (2 y) Hong Kong (7 y) Caucasian English none
Cathy China (27), Finland (5), Canada (4) none Chinese (mandarin) English, Finnish, Japanese
Chen Li China (25y), Mauritius (6m), Madagascar (2y) Chinese Chinese English Claire France, UK, Slovakia none German English, French, Spanish Collette Czech Republic (6m), Mexico (1y), Japan (2 y), Spain (4m) White British English Spanish Cybele New York (2y), Amsterdam (2y), Sydney (4y) Indian English Hindi Dutch
Diva USA (2,5y), Ireland (6m) Canada (9m), USA (1Y), Australia (17), Vanuatu (2y), UAE (1y) Indian English none
Donald Canada (3 y) South Africa (27 y) White English Afrikaans
Donna Luxembourg (3.5y), Chile (7m), Singapore (2m), Indonesia (6m) European German English, Spanish, French
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Eron Hong Kong (27y), US (3y), Qatar (1 year), Canada (1 year) Chinese
Chinese (Cantonese)
Chinese (Mandarin), English
Hazel Spain (1y), Luxembourg (5y), England (1y), Scotland (22y) None English Spanish and French
Irvin Indonesia (26y) USA (4y) Singapore (4y) Chinese Indonesian Indonesian English
James Spain (25y), UK (5 y), Spain (1y), Luxembourg (3y) Mediterranean (White) Spanish English and French
Jenny Ireland (2.5y) UK (6m) Caucasian English English June Germany (25y), England (1y) Caucasian German English Kelly Australia(14) , USA (32), UK (8) English English French
Khaled Qatar (2), UAE (5), Pakistan (3), Canada (20), Afghanistan (6) South Asian Pashto (Afghani)
Persian, English, Urdu, Arabic
Kova Thailand (4y), Nigeria (23y), Canada (3y) African Yoruba Hausa, Thai, German English
Lara Qatar (2), UAE (5), Pakistan (3), Canada (5), Korea (20) Korean Korean English
Linda Hong Kong (20y), US (4y), Canada (13y), Spain (1y) Eurasian, Chinese, English Chinese English , Spanish
Luca USA, Brasil, Costa Rica, Argentina, Honduras, Germany None Spanish, English
Portuguese, French, German
Manuela Albania (29), USA (3), Canada (1y) Albanian Albanian English
Maria India (6m), Germany (18y), Switzerland (1y), US (3mnths), UK (12 y), Hong Kong (3m) None Spanish
German, English, French, Italian ,Portuguese, Japanese
Mario US(11y), Brazil (27y), France (1y) Latin Portuguese English
Morris Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, US, Canada, UK, Iraq, Malta none Mandarin English, Japanese, Cantonese, Arabic
Paul Kim US (10y), Germany (24y), Canada (1y) Korean German English, Korean
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Radha India (22), Canada (5), USA (5) , Switzerland (1.5) Indian English
Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, French, Spanish
Rajiv India (35y) Australia (4y) Indian Malayalam English, Hindi Roberta Greece (1,5m), Argentina (11y), USA (16 y) none Spanish English, Italian Sandra Canada (39y), Ukraine (0.5y) none English Russian, French
Sarah UK (30 y) Singapore (6 y) Hong Kong (6 m, Malaysia (6 m), Fiji (6 m) Caucasian English Indonesian
Simon India (27 y) US (2 y) Indian English Hindi
Vera Colombia (3y), Mexico (3), USA (4), UK (4), Argentina (4), Switzerland (8), China (6m), Australia (1) Italian
English and Spanish French
Velma Peru (25y), Canada (1), US (5y), Austria (3m), Egypt (6y) Latin Spanish English, Arabic, German
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Appendix D – Conceptions of Time and Consumer Behaviour
Three different terms are used in the main text. Conception of time is a general term
that refers to the different ways societies perceive and account for the passage of time. They
include clock time, events, genesis, cyclical time, life cycle, and the relationship between
Past, Present and Future. In addition, timestyles, a recurrent term in the marketing literature
about time, refer to the customary ways in which consumers use time as a basis for their
actions. The term has been used to micro segment consumers according to their attitudes and
orientations in relation to time (e.g. monochronic vs. Polychronic or spontaneous vs. planned).
And temporal frameworks refer to broader ways of understanding time that are used linked to
the way social time is perceived by communities and societies.
Because time is as intangible factor and because clock time tends to be the
predominant way of representing time in our lives, it is sometimes difficult for readers to
imagine other ways of theoretically conceptualising time. Therefore, aiming for clarity, I
present below some common conception of time. Besides presenting their definitions I also
provide examples that demonstrate how these conceptions of time help coordinate consumers’
lives (Table 8):
.
Clock Time: as the name says, this is the time as measured by the clock. In most Western
societies, this is the time used to coordinate everyday life. Modernity, industrialism and
capitalism incorporated the time of the clock as the universal system of time (Hassan and
Purser 2007). It depicts the continuum of time “as linear, objective, divided into quantifiable
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units such that the units are homogeneous, uniform, regular” (Ancona, Okhuysen, and
Perlow 2001, 514). Clock time coordinates a number of activities in consumers’ life. For
example, it regulates the beginning of work activities, the timetables for use of public
transportation, school hours, shops’ closing and opening time, airplanes, TV program
schedules. In fact, most of public life is regulated by clock time. Time keeping through clock
time is so significant to the operation of modern societies that it is coordinated at an
international level thought systems such as the atomic clocks (International Atomic Time).
Table 6- Conceptions of time
Conceptions of
Time
Examples of consumer activities that may be coordinated by the
different conceptions of time.
Clock time Opening and closing of shops, schedules of public transportation, time
of flights, TV programs
Events Activities that develop around the arrival of a cruise ship, the
preparation for a cyclone, the consequences of the global financial
crisis
Genesis Shopping for wine and furniture according to the year of production,
activities around the inauguration of shops, the launching of a new
brand in the market
Cyclical time Realisation of meals, holidays, social gatherings on a periodic basis.
Life Cycles Activities related to weddings, graduation ceremonies, buying a new
car or a new house.
Past-Present-Future
(PPF) relationships
Decisions about saving or investing, acquiring insurance and health
covers and bank loans.
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Event time: this is time as measured by key events. This type of time is often used in
recollecting past memories or in timelines, when key events in a person, group, and country’s
life are used to mark the passage of time. Events are common markers in individual
narratives, but also they are very much used by communities to create a shared notion of time.
As a shared notion of time, events help coordinate other social activities and behaviours. For
example, instead of saying that someone got married in 1989, one could say that the wedding
happened around the fall of the Berlin Wall. The recent earthquakes in New Zealand have
been commonly used by the press and local people to refer to activities than happened around
the time of the earthquake. Likewise, a group of consumers may refer to the purchases they
made when they undertook a trip to Bali or during a specific cruise in the Caribbean (Ancona
et al. 2001). Thus, events act as essential coordinators in the perception of time, of social
activities and behaviours.
Genesis: This refers to a single point in time, the point of origin. Genesis marks the beginning
of a social activity. The temporal component of genesis sets the moment of origin and it is a
common type of time in religious and in historical texts (Eliade 1963; Lucas 2005). It is also
a part of consumption, as it regulates consumers’ idea of origin, beginning, and tradition,
which are key to the purchase and evaluation of various products and services, such as some
types of home decor, art, or wine (Johnson, Ringham, and Jurd 1991; Prochnow and
Prochnow 2006). Genesis coordinates activities when they are synchronised around their time
of origin. The concept of vintage, for example, translates a formal point which unites all
bottles of wine from the same producer in the same year.
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Cyclical Time: Cyclical time involves events happening periodically in regular intervals of
time (Ancona et al. 2001). Cyclical time has been associated with natural time, the time we
had before time became a resource, before clock time (Thompson 1967). However, one can
see cyclical time everywhere: days of the week, moon calendar, birthday celebrations, and
summer holidays. Cyclical time is very important to understanding consumer behaviour as it
regulates a lot of consumer activities and decisions. For example, consumers organize their
lives in terms of different days of the week. Many consumers have a specific time for meals
during weekdays. Some of them have a different, but regular, time for meals at weekends. For
some, Sunday is the day to have dinner with the extended family and Saturday may be a day
to go shopping. In addition, consumption is shaped by different rituals that are based on
cyclical time: Christmas, Thanks-Giving, School Holidays, Mardi-Gras, just to name a few
(Metcalf and Harboe 2006).
Life cycle: It refers to the stages of life an individual or group goes through during the span
of a life time such as birth, growth, maturity, decline and death. As a special case of cyclical
time, life cycles are only cyclical because they tend to repeat themselves in subsequent
generations. During the lifetime of one individual, it signals different stages which are usually
thought of being different and associated with different behaviours. Lifecycle organizes
social activities because different activities are associated with each life stage. For example, in
many cultures, married life is associated with individuals moving out of their parents’ house
or their flatmates’ houses into a residence that is shared by the couple. There are some rituals
that mark the passage from one stage to the other (i.e. rites of passage). These rituals, such as
weddings, are particularly important to consumer behaviour because they may involve a
number of consumption activities from everyone involved, such as travelling, buying gifts,
feeding, dressing up, and grooming. Furthermore, the marketing literature discusses how
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family life-cycle affects consumers’ expenditures (Wagner and Hanna 1983). The family life
cycle, marking transition in the family situation, is formed by several stages of specific family
needs such as bachelor stage, newly married couples, full nest with younger kids, full nest
with older kids, empty nests (no kids living in the family home), and solitary survivors (Wells
and Gubar 1966). Many studies have related the consumption of food, durables, housing and
vacations with family life-cycles (Wagner and Hanna 1983; Wilkes 1995). The reasoning
behind these studies is that consumers “move” from one cycle to another and that the needs of
each stage are quite different (Gilly and Enis 1982).
The past, present and future (PPF) relationships: this refers to how individuals understand
the role of past, present and future. More than individual differences, the relationship
between past, present and future tend to be shared among individuals belonging to the same
cultural groups. For example, Western societies tend to view the PPF as linear, like an arrow
that always goes from left to right. Other societies such as the indigenous peoples of Australia
may have different conception of past and future, which does not follow linearity and
causality. Some individuals and some cultures also favour one time over the other. For
example, previous research has characterised Spanish-Americans as putting more emphasis on
the present than Anglo-Americans, who would put more emphasis on the future (Usunier and
Valette-Florence 2007). The PPF relationship coordinates consumption activities because they
represent the framework through which behaviour creates meaning. For example, if
individuals have a strong future orientation and believe in linear time they may engage in
various planning activities, which are seen as an investment in the future. However, if a group
of individuals have a strong present orientation, short-term goal orientation or believe future
might bring unpleasant surprises, they may prefer to limit their decisions to securing financial
stability (Henry 2005). And yet, others who consider that the future is not linear in relation to
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the present may use credit card instalments and contract debts to afford a hedonic ever-in-
the-present life.
Other types of time: there are other types of socially constructed time that are important to
coordinating consumer behaviour such as the categories of work/leisure time (Feldman and
Hornik 1981), sacred/profane time (Belk et al. 1989), special/ordinary time (Ger and Kravets
2009), monochronic/polychronic time (Usunier and Valette-Florence 2007), and personal
/environmental time (Bergadaà 1990).
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Appendix E – Self-defining sentences at InterNations Profiles
Table 9- What makes me a Global Mind
Sample from Website – Profiles – Explaining why they are global minds Member Gender Countries
lived Summary of key aspects of the quote
Example of how InterNations members completed the box entitled “What makes me a global mind”
1 F Singapore, Kenya and Canada
Living in many places, learning about many places and interacting with people from these different places
“I've lived on 3 continents and have had the opportunity to learn about so many cultures, through interactions with people I've met through travel, school and work.”
2 M Honduras, London, US, Denmark and Canada
Living in many countries, profession, having relationships in many countries
“I have lived in several countries and it opened my mind to other languages and cultures. I am a journalist and writer with a very liberal mind who loves intellectual discussions. I have family and friends in more than four countries.
3 M Algeria, Spain and Tahiti
Diverse origins, living abroad, feeling shared humanity.
“French, Spanish and Argentinean origins. I grew up in Tahiti and spent all my childhood abroad. I've always had the feeling that beyond their cultural and individual differences, all human beings share the same essence...”
4 M Peru, Sydney
Living in other countries, travelling in many countries, working with multinationals, having multicultural ancestry, love for travelling meeting new people and cooking (activities).
“Having lived in South America and now in Australia for 11 years. Having travelled around Europe, the US, Australia & NZ, and South America. Working, and having worked in the past, with multinationals. My insatiable love for travelling, meeting new people, cultures, cuisine. Having Italian, Spanish, French and Peruvian ancestry.”
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5 M Germany,
Australia, Switzerland, France
Travelled the world, living in many countries, understanding of multiple cultures and environments, personal characteristics of openness and positive attitude
“Having travelled the world, lived in several countries, understanding of and respect for different cultures & environments, open for everything new and most importantly a positive attitude to life wherever you are, as challenging as that might be from time to time.”
6 F Italy, US, UK, France
Preferences (like experiencing many cultures, learning new languages
“experiencing many cultures, learning new languages”
F Italy, Australia, UK, South Africa
Personal characteristics ( by personal characteristics open mind, by preferences (liking new adventures, liking people, liking travelling)
“Having an open mind, liking new adventures, cultures, people and travelling.”
8 M Canada, UK, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands and Australia
By preference (travel and work in different cultures), by skills (speak several languages), by professional focus
“Love of travel and work in different cultures, speak several languages, professional focus on "getting people working better together"
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9 F Australia,
UK, Sweden
Ancestry (multicultural), places where they have lived (many cultures), places they have worked (multicultures / multinationals), where family and friends are (all over the world)
“I'm truly a child of the world! Born of a mother who's Swedish and Finnish and a father whose heritage is Polish and Italian, I grew up in England and have just migrated to Sydney, Australia. I've worked all over Europe, go back to the Finnish island where my grandfather is from every summer and have friends from all over the world.”
11 M NZ, Australia, UK, UAE
Working with different people, understanding we are all humans, family composition
“On a daily basis I work with different people; English, Indian, South African, Emirati, Mauritian, Lebanese, Egyptian, Australian, German... I understanding that beneath our cultural and religious robes, all are human, all are equal in our endeavour to find purpose in life, to learn how to make a meaningful contribution in our lives and make choices that will create happiness for ourselves and those around us. And my wife is Egyptian!”
12 F Italy, France, China, Tunisia, Senegal, Morocco
Places where they lived, language skills, working in multinational company, love to travel
“Lived in several countries, speaking different languages, working in a multinational company, love to travel”
13 M India, Australia, Bahrain
Family is spread
“Children are settled in USA and Australia. Wife lives in India and self migrated to Australia after retirement from GulfAir.”
14 F Russia, Australia
Language skills, living in different countries, working in many different places, learning about different cultures
“Speaking several languages, lived in different countries, working in multinational company, love to learn about different cultures.”
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15 F US,
Singapore, Germany, Australia
Ancestry, Places lived,
“I'm Chinese American, my spouse is German. We met in Singapore during a study abroad semester. Together we've lived in 5 cities including Singapore, LA, Munich, Boston, and now Sydney.”
16 F Germany, Greece, Botswana and Malawi
Feels a global citizen, enjoys meeting people from all over the world
“I feel like a global citizen with a global mind. I enjoy meeting people from all over the world, different ages, backgrounds, cultures, traditions and, most of all, stories”
17 M Spain, Denmark and US
Understanding and tolerance of difference
“The understanding and appreciation of tolerance and cultural relativity.”
18 F Italy, UK, US, Switzerland
Working with people from all over the world. Believe on outcomes and disregard of differences.
“As executive coach and leadership trainer who has worked with hundreds of executives from all over the world I have come to believe expats can play a very important role in bridging cultures. I observed time and time again when people truly connect they start to relate beyond cultures and recognize the importance of working together focusing on common outcomes and disregarding differences.”
19 F US, Latvia, India, Panama, Denmark
Expat family and career in logistics
“Expat spouse of international businessman raising children and is also an international logistics professional.”
20 F South Africa and US
Ancestry, Life history, friends spread all over the world, feeling global.
“Having lived and worked as a journalist and a teacher/coach in different countries, and having had a Polish father, a Scots granny and a South African mother, and with friends dotted around the world, I guess I just feel global.”
21 F China, Vietnam and India
Languages, constant travel, working in different countries
“Speaking several languages, and also trying to constantly travel and if possible, to work in different countries. I want to know as much as possible in one lifetime, about various cultures and lifestyles.”
22 F Norway and Australia
movement “I am globetrotter- commuting between the southern and northern hemispheres”
23 M France, Israel, UK, US, Germany
Languages, work (having business with), commitment to people and society
“I speak English and French, and have notions of German and Arabic. I have business interests in the Philippines. Support a number of charities and am committed to People and Society”
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24 M London Partnerships “Business partners in 20+ countries.” 25 F Italy,
German, France, US, Belgium
Curious mind, eager to learn new ways meet new people
“A curious mind, always eager to learn new ways and to meet new people and cultures”
26 M Canada, India, Italy and UK
Open mind and no prejudice or pre-judgement. Disregard for differences,
“Very very open mind and I don’t have preconceived notion on anything. I don’t impose my judgment neither do I awkwardly probe people. I strongly believe in what Bill Clinton says "that people are the same irrespective of the differences". And I am a LEO too..hehe. In a nutshell I try to form lifelong friendship. “
27 F Brazil, Bahamas, Switzerland, Canada, Monaco
Being an expat, enjoy travelling around the globe, learning something new about countries and cultures, friends all over the world, small world
“When I was one year old, I became an ‘expat’ for the first time and I have been one for almost three quarters of my life. Travelling around the globe is what makes me happy. I am always interested in learning something new about other countries and cultures. My friends are all over the world, which by the way I find very small indeed :) “
28 M US, Canada, France, Japan
Working in many different countries, touring, creating global organisations, care for other places in the world
“travelled and worked in 40-50 countries around the world with touring live entertainment shows - Now, we find ourselves putting together an international group of specialists in agriculture, logistics and nutrition that will teach orphans, refugees, and people with little how to grow their own nutritious diet, versus waiting for a someone to just feed them for a day - looking for like minded people who wish to help - beta sites are in Ethiopia, India, and Uganda - if anyone wants to help, you know where to find me.”
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29 F Italy, UK Openness,
feeling of global community, we are all citizens of the world
“I strive to be open to global culture - to continue to learn from peoples of all nations on a daily basis - to enjoy the similarities and the differences that we all bring to our global community - I wish to impart this mindset to those around me, be they colleagues, clients or friends and above all I wish to teach my own children that we are all citizens of the world, wherever we have come from, wherever we are now, and wherever our journey in life may take us in the future.”
30 M Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, Dominican Republic, Germany
Ancestry, biography (including school), interested in foreign places, living in global cities
“I am a Third Culture Kid (TCK) with parents from two nationalities who met in a foreign country, and then later took me to grow up and go to international schools in four countries. Since then I have always been thinking globally and have been always interested in foreign places. I love NYC as it is a melting pot of cultures.”
31 F Chad, Germany, Mexico, France, Madagascar, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Chile, United States
Biography, care about other areas of the world.
“I grew up in East Africa in both ex French and British colonies and continued my expat experience as an adult in Northern and Central America. I m always interested in collaborating with other global nomads (or TCKs who grew up outside of home culture) and IN is a good medium for such connections. I am also very involved in an association that distributes solar flashlights to children and schools in areas without electricity.”
32 M India, UAE, Lebanon, Turkey, Ireland, Spain, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, UK, Egypt
Ability to understand people from other cultures and seeing through their eyes, having a two way perspective
“The ability to understand a person not by the colour of their skin, geographic location, or political view, but through their culture, seeing through their eyes and hopefully helping me to always have a two way perspective on things!!!!!!”
292
33 F US, Brazil,
France and Italy
Denying roots, language skills, share views with people from various parts of the world
“I was born and raised in one country and became an adult in another. I'm from no place in particular. I speak a few languages and I share views with people from various parts of the world.”
34 M Germany, Japan, US, France
Believes football is a world game, unintelligible phone calls,
“I believe vehemently that football is played with a round, spotted ball - Half of my phone calls are unintelligible to those around me - I struggle to answer the question "where are you from?" - My phone has a few taxi company's numbers from most big cities in the world - I like singing ‘We all live in a Yellow Submarine’ in French.”
35 F US, North Korea, Vietnam, Germany, Belgium France Switzerland Germany United Kingdom
Thinks differently. Made of many parts. Globally minded.
“My international exposure has dramatically changed my way of thinking. I am now a citizen of the world, no longer Brazilian, European or American. I am made of many parts and I hope to continue this wonderful journey... the world is out there, and I still have a lot to see.”
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Appendix f – How do members dress for InterNations’ gatherings?
The photographs below represent InterNations’ Gatherings that occurred in nine different
countries in December 2011 (Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, South
Africa, UAE, and the USA). The faces have been erased to keep them anonymous.
Pictures reveal great similarities in outfits across the globe. In fact, it is interesting to observe
how they are not place specific. They could have been from any InterNations’ gathering.
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InterNations December 2011 – Toronto
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InterNations December 2011 – Shanghai
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InterNations December 2011 – Sydney
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InterNations December 2011 – Dubai
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InterNations December 2011 – Chicago
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InterNations December 2011 – Johannesburg
300
InterNations December 2011 – Munich
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InterNations December 2011 – Sao Paulo
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InterNations December 2011 – Paris
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Appendix G – Constructing a global past at InterNations
In October 2010, InterNations and CNN joined efforts to create the “InterNations history
vote”, which asked for members to participate and share their personal memories about 30
global events. After an impressive response 4000 narratives, members voted for the best
stories. The “winners” (authors of the most voted narratives) received prizes that are highly
valued among global cosmopolitans (flight voucher, Ipod, and travel kit).
The following document is a letter of acknowledgement and thanks sent by the organising
team sent to all InterNation members:
“Dear Participants of the InterNations History Vote,
The InterNations History Vote, in cooperation with our Global Partner CNN, has now come
to an end, and we would like to thank you again for your enthusiasm and dedication.
Altogether we received over 10,000 votes and 4,000 personal memories from thousands of
members coming from more than 140 different countries around the world. Thank you all
for making this unparalleled voting initiative such a great success!
Many of you have shared their memories of the news events which personally affected you
and expressed a great interest in your fellow members’ memories as well. Here, at the
InterNations head office, we enjoyed seeing all your memories and stories come in, even
though they were occasionally heart-breaking to read. We were both delighted and astonished
by the wide range of participants, the spotlight on their biographies, and their different points
of view.
The InterNations History Vote has showed us how diverse our global community really is and
how these 30 global events had an impact on all of us in some way.
Now, without further ado, we would like to introduce you to the three winners of our
InterNations History Vote:
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1. Place: With a rating of 128, Natalia’s memory of the Collapse of the Soviet Union proved
to be the most popular one. Congratulations and a 1.000 EUR flexible flight ticket voucher go
to Natalia from Romania who works as a journalist in our Berlin Community!
"When the Soviet Union collapsed, I was at home in Bucharest, learning for the admission
exams to university. I mean, I was in my home country Romania, where it was impossible to
travel abroad, even to neighbouring Communist countries like Hungary. Trapped like a
mouse in the mousetrap. Entirely cut off from the rest of the world. I had been so
indoctrinated from childhood that, for me, having a single party system was completely
normal. However, I knew that living abroad should be better. It was hardly possible to be
worse. There, food stores would not be empty. You could buy flour, oil, and sugar without
ration cards. You could have light and water without interruptions. In addition, television
programmes would be running for more than two hours a day. You would be free to speak
what you think without being afraid that you’d end up in jail and your parents unemployed.
Being 18 at the time, I do remember everything. Young people in the streets on a cold winter
night. Ceausescu telling us, in his last speech, that he had decided to give us 100 g more soya
salami on our food ration cards if we ceased to demonstrate against him. My father going up
and down the street with glass bottles filled with hot tea and soup my mother had prepared.
“After drinking the hot tea, they can throw the empty bottles at the army,” he said. Bottles
against bullets. Was this a bad joke? No, just the cruel reality. The bullet in the armchair in
our living room and the ones collected from our balcony were also real. Five years later, with
my university diploma in the pocket, I got a DAAD scholarship and went to Kiel, Northern
Germany. For one year, I ate bananas every day. It was like Christmas the whole year long! I
have to tell you that in Romania, you could buy bananas only on Christmas, if you were lucky
enough to catch the supply truck. But this is another story. From another world. The collapse
of the Soviet Union changed my life entirely. Without this historic event, Romania would have
remained one of the worst dictatorships in the world. Myself, I would maybe have been shot
trying to cross the Danube by swimming to liberty. That was the plan. Nobody could keep me
trapped in a cage."
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2. Place: With a rating of 116, comes Helena’s memories of the beginning of the Second Gulf
War are our first runner-up. A big thank you and the Apple iPod nano thus go to Helena who
originally comes from Canada and works as a staff writer in Cairo.
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"My family is Iraqi, and every Iraqi knows, all too well, the tragedy and chaos inflicted on
our people by Saddam Hussein. But when it was announced that the US was about to invade
Iraq again, just as the country was finally beginning to recover from years of sanctions and
the bombing of essential infrastructure during the Gulf War, nothing but outrage, frustration,
injustice, and helplessness flooded over us all. We knew that Saddam couldn't have anything
to do with 9/11 nor did he possess any weapons of mass destruction - his power was simply
too crippled and he didn't have the resources. And if Iraqis living outside the country knew
this basic fact, how was it that Colin Powell, Secretary of State, didn't? What do poor,
injured, diseased Iraqis have anything to do with Osama and Afghanistan? (…) The unjust
war and rampant racism that ensued was the first time that I questioned the good in this
world, leaving me vastly more cynical about the powers that be and their motivations (…). Is
this the way of the future?"
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3. Place: Last but not least, with a rating of 71, Elnura’s childhood memories of the Bosnian
War come in third. Elnura grew up in Tuszla/Bosnia and now lives in Vienna where she
works as senior auditor. We hope she’ll enjoy the CNN travel kit on one of her next journeys!
"I was only 11 years old when the war in my country started. It was a beautiful day in May
1992. I still remember all the details - although it has been nearly 20 years now. It was
supposed to be the last day of the school year, the beginning of our summer holidays. For me
and my friends, it ended not on the backseats of our parents’ cars, headings towards the
Adriatic coast, but in the cellar of our houses, where we listened, for the first time in our lives,
to the sound of real gunfire. Life as we knew it was destroyed that day. Many dear friends and
relatives were lost during those horrible years, families were separated, and four long years
of uncertainty, brutality and total violence followed. Today, these years are behind us – thank
God. Although they have forever changed me - changed all of us – they also taught me maybe
one of the greatest lessons in life: Happiness lies in those simple things we take for granted.
Such as: the ability to walk outside on a beautiful summer day without the fear of being killed
by some bomb or a sharpshooter; (…) to see the daylight and to know that, when you wake up
the next morning, you will not hear the grenades or sirens announcing the bombings... There
is no reason in this world that can ever justify the incredible amount of pain, sorrow and
destruction - physical and mental - that a war inflicts on people. It takes so little to be happy,
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but it takes a lifetime to heal the wounds that hate, nationalism and bloodshed leave behind.
Respect and tolerance!"
Congratulations again to the three winners. We will contact them individually via email as
well.
We really hope you found our InterNations History Vote as fascinating as we did, even if your
memory was not among the top three. You can view the complete ratings and our Editor’s
Choice from all the memories on our website. Thanks again for taking the time to participate!
Best regards
Your InterNations Team”
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