Consumer Activism

Eleftheria Lekakis is Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Media and Communications at the School of Media, Arts and Humanities at the University of Sussex. Her research focuses on communication, consumer culture, and politics. Her first book explored the relationship between fair trade consumption and political participation. She has also co-edited Art, Law, Power, a volume on the intersections of artistic practice and resistance in relation to the law. Her published work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Consumer Culture, Popular Communication, Social Movement Studies, as well as edited collections such as the Sage Handbook of Consumer Culture, the Oxford Handbook of Political Consumerism, and the Routledge Handbook of Advertising and Promotional Culture. Eleftheria teaches on topics related to advertising and promotional culture, as well as humanitarian communication, media and social change. Eleftheria has been a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Bergamo, and Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

Consumer Activism: An Introduction Conceptualizing Consumer Activism Nationalism, Race, Ethnicity, and Consumer Activism Gender, Feminism and Consumer Activism Consumer Activism in the Environment Celebrity Advocacy and Consumer Activism Subvertising as Anti-Consumerism Conclusion

Consumers of the world, unite! Consumer Activism is both an excellent intellectual reference and a savvy guide for educators and students. Eleftheria Lekakis reminds us that as consumers, we can do much more than just buy our way out of social or political problems. Through creative and collective efforts, consumers can work to end unfair and inequitable market practices, and can promote concerted action on such major issues as climate change, racial justice or women's rights. Rich with key concepts, contemporary themes, and provocative case studies, this book will foster necessary conversations about power and politics in consumer culture. -- Melissa Aronczyk This book offers a crucial intervention to both critical studies of consumption and action research into activism. It authoritatively explores the complex and multiplying links between branding and neoliberal culture, consumer practices and social justice, and calls for an urgent renegotiation of ethics in response. Consumer Activism will be an indispensable resource for research and pedagogy in the urgent years ahead, as humanity reckons with the effects climate change, deepening inequality, and increasingly feverish consumption. -- Mehita Iqani Consumer Activism discusses in an interesting way the complexities of and dilemmas involved in using the market as an arena for politics. Eleftheria Lekakis argues for putting more scholarly emphasis on the global South and considering more systematically the role of nationalism, race, ethnicity, gender, feminism, and environmentalism in this form of activism. Thought-provoking examples on these topics are included in the book. Importantly, the book focuses on the role of celebrity and corporate promotion, and even anti-consumerist activism. The term "consumer solutionism" is coined to emphasis the limitations of consumer activism as a central means of contemporary resistance today. This book adds additional perspectives to the study of political consumerism. -- Michele Micheletti An interesting, well written, and thoughtful book that by posing particular emphasis on advertising and promotional communication addresses the complex question of why consumers, especially in wealthy nations, keep overconsuming by virtually ignoring the consequences on other people and our planet. Eleftheria Lekakis critically explores alternatives and opportunities for resistance by focusing on practices of consumer activism aimed at raising awareness and promoting more just and sustainable uses of the marketplace. -- Francesca Forno With a rich array of illustrative examples, this new book shines a light on consumer activism, and the myths that surround political resistance in promotional culture. In travelling this path, Eleftheria Lekakis draws on key thinkers in the field, and confronts us to ask: to what extent are consumers agents of change? And, has the very idea of 'social change' been harnessed and commodified by advertisers? This unflinching book provokes us to think about the ways social justice, ethics and diversity are embedded within the symbolic ambiguities of an immersive market-facing society. In doing so, it is a timely challenge to naive or misplaced ideas of 'digital solutionism'. Teachers and students alike will find this book a valuable resource that opens new research trajectories. -- Kristin Demetrious What is consumer activism? Does it contribute to ethical or sustainable consumption? What are the related actors and factors associated with this phenomena? Under which manifestations of injustice is it salient? This book adopts a consumer culture theory perspective to address comprehensively, critically and scientifically those important questions for our societies. The author, Eleftheria Lekakis, reviews and discusses systematically the phenomenon of consumer activism through its main contemporary mobilizations for nationalistic (racial/ ethnic), gender (feminist/queer) and environmental (green/ sustainable) causes. This book provides both a critical review and a concrete guideline for academics and practitioners. -- Charlotte Gaston-Breton Lekakis's thought provoking book is an essential guide for researchers investigating consumer activism and for practitioners who believe they can, in the spirit of Graeber and Wengrow, reinvent realities. It opens up questions on how and to what extent these realities can be reinvented through consumption activism, highlighting the complex and nuanced dynamics. -- Professor Maria Carolina Zanette * Consumption, Markets and Culture * Lekakis critically examines how citizens, collectives and corporations use the marketplace for political purposes. The strength of Consumer Activism rests in its ability to comprehensively navigate readers through the interdisciplinary and shifting terrains of consumer activism studies, advocating for a systematic consideration of the role that nationalism, race, ethnicity, gender, feminism, environmentalism, celebrity, influencer and anti-consumerism play in consumer activism. It is accessible to both new and established scholars in the field of consumer activism, promotional media and communication studies broadly. For students majoring in advertising, marketing and communication studies, the clear and logical content arrangement and timely case studies can help them better understand the complexity of consumer activism and its significance in today's consumer society. -- Dr Zizheng Yu * Consumption and Society * Lekakis investigates the dissipation of capitalist consumerism and the immoral practices of current markets, as well as possible alternatives of resistance to destructive capitalist consumerism... One of the strengths of this book lies on its insightful analysis of examples both from the Global North and the Global South. The book takes a truly global approach by strategizing and staging strategies of consumer activists, as well as the cultural differences in a globalized capitalist world. Lekakis encourages us to re-envision and rethink the possibilities of consumer activism we are presented with in addressing global social change, cultural and environmental challenges. She accomplishes her ambitious objectives by providing an analytically rich book which offers a wide range of interesting topics and a fruitful and productive analysis of consumer capitalism and resistance in the 21st century. -- Professor Yesim Kaptan * European Journal of Cultural Studies *