Bodily Experiences and Self-Transformation Jannsen Santana, ESCP Europe, France Olivier Badot, ESCP Europe, France
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ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802 Bodily Experiences and Self-Transformation Jannsen Santana, ESCP Europe, France Olivier Badot, ESCP Europe, France Physical, mental, and social disorders are hard to deal with. Yet consumers seek to solve their struggles by engaging in bodily experiences. Drawing on a sensory ethnography on pilgrimages in Europe and Latin America, we categorized self-transformations, and proposed an explanation to how people achieve transformation through bodily enactments. [to cite]: Jannsen Santana and Olivier Badot (2020) ,"Bodily Experiences and Self-Transformation", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 48, eds. Jennifer Argo, Tina M. Lowrey, and Hope Jensen Schau, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 1027-1031. [url]: http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/2661541/volumes/v48/NA-48 [copyright notice]: This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/. Consuming Extraordinary Experiences: Personal Transformationin the Antistructural Realm Chairs: Chris Hackley, University of London - Royal Holloway, UK Rajesh Nanarpuzha, Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, India Paper #1: Dissecting Consumption: The Temple Festival as an – Brazil). The study investigates how the extraordinary experience of Extraordinary Experience pilgrimage is experienced as a transformative sensory phenomenon. Rajesh Nanarpuzha, Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, Finally, paper 4 takes a Turnerian approach to the theorization of solo India travelling. Sixteen solo travelers are interviewed in order to generate Sridhar Samu, Great Lakes Institute of Management, India insight into the personally transformative extraordinary experiences Prakash Satyavageeswaran, Indian Institute of Management they sought and gained in the anti-structural realm of adventurous Udaipur, India solo travel. Jossin Shaji, Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, India The papers have in common a focus on consumer experienc- es that can be deemed extraordinary in the dual sense that they are Paper #2: The Extraordinary Experience of Death and Rebirth a) far from quotidian or routine and b) there is an expectation that in a Thai Temple Ritual undertaking these experiences will yield benefits of a spiritual and/ Rungpaka Amy Hackley, Birkbeck College, University of or transformative character. Each paper discusses extraordinary ex- London, UK periences that go beyond the realm of everyday life (Bhattacharjee Chris Hackley, University of London - Royal Holloway, UK and Mogilner, 2014) and hold the potentiality of a personal change Paper #3: Bodily Experiences and Self-transformation and renewal, even bringing joy (Arnould and Price, 1993, p. 25) and Jannsen Santana, ESCP Europe, France magic (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995). Olivier Badot, ESCP Europe, France In this session we explore three main research questions: Paper #4: Personal Transformation Through Extraordinary 1. In what ways can extraordinary consumer experiences be Experiences empirically and theoretically extended/re-framed, particu- Isadora Matsuda Sanchez de Rojas, EAESP-FGV, Brazil larly in the area of personally transformative experiences? Benjamin Rosenthal, EAESP-FGV, Brazil 2. What is the role of socio-historical institutions and rituals in creating extraordinary experiences? SESSION OVERVIEW 3. How does consumer participation affect extraordinary ex- Extraordinary experiences as consumption phenomena remain periences? a fascinating area of academic research (Beverland, Lindgreen, and Vanhamme 2012; Caru & Cova, 2006; Lanier Jr., Clinton, & Rader, Dissecting Consumption: The Temple Festival as an 2015; Turner and Bruner 1986). Within marketing, multiple perspec- Extraordinary Experience tives have been adopted to look at extraordinary experiences (Ar- nould & Price, 1993; Belk & Costa, 1998; Kozinets, 2002; Tum- EXTENDED ABSTRACT bat and Belk 2011). Even as extraordinary experiences have been The consumption of extraordinary experiences has been studied explored in diverse contexts (Tumbat and Belk 2011), these studies as service encounters (Arnould and Price 1993), as a contrast to the have been largely restricted to the consumption sphere in the United consumption of ordinary experiences (Bhattacharjee and Mogilner States and other developed markets (Arnould & Price, 1993; Belk 2014), as a means of consumer emancipation (Kozinets 2002), and & Costa, 1998, Kozinets, 2002). Even as this stream of research has as socially constructed fabrications (Tumbat and Belk 2011). This provided seminal insights about consumer behavior in the consump- is representative of the different lenses through which extraordinary tion of extraordinary experiences, it has left open the opportunity experiences have been conceptualized and examined in consumer to explore this phenomenon using differing consumer cultural per- research. However, a unifying thread connecting these research spectives. In this special session, we aim to explore diverse facets endeavors is an assumption of experiences being consumed by an of extraordinary experiences from hitherto under-explored cultural archetypal consumer, unshackled by the social context. Even as re- perspectives, with the broad aim of theoretically and empirically ex- search in the consumer domain has looked at consumer motivations, tending consumer research on extraordinary experiences. In doing the role of social institutions in shaping consumption experiences has so, we consider diverse empirical contexts, different methodologi- been overlooked. This is in line with Askegaard & Linnet’s (2011, cal approaches to studying extraordinary experiences, and disparate p. 381) contention that what is missing in Consumer Culture Theory types of extraordinary experiences. (CCT) research is the lack of a ‘context of context’. In paper 1, we consider the context of a single temple festival In this paper, we investigate the impact of social institutions in in India, and examine how socio-historical institutions shape con- the consumption of an extraordinary experience. In doing so, we at- sumption. The study takes a naturalistic ethnographic approach to tempt to answer the following broad research question explore the Nemmara-Vallangi vela, a temple festival in Kerala, In- 1. How is consumption of an extraordinary experience shaped dia. In paper 2, we consider a specific Buddhist ritual that occurs at by the social institutions of gender, social class, and caste? the intersection of spirituality and consumption- the Thai Theravada Buddhist Death Ritual for the Living. The theorization seeks to ex- To investigate this, we conducted a naturalistic inquiry of the tend Victor Turner’s idea of liminoid consumption into the spiritual Nemmara-Vallangi vela, a temple festival in Kerala, India. Planned sphere. Paper 3 entails a multi-sited sensory ethnography of four dif- as a multi-year participant observation of the week-long temple fes- ferent pilgrimages in Europe (Lourdes – France, Camino de Santiago tival, we have completed the first round of data collection and analy- – Spain) and Latin America (Juazeiro do Norte and Belém do Pará sis. A total of 25 ethnographic interviews of festival participants have been conducted. We have complemented this with still photographs Advances in Consumer Research 1027 Volume 48, ©2020 1028 / Consuming Extraordinary Experiences: Personal Transformationin the Antistructural Realm and videos of the festival. In keeping with the tenets of constant ing from within the temple, taking occasional photographs, the lead comparison (Glaser and Strauss 1967), data collection, analysis and researcher translating and reflexively understanding the observed informant selection were done iteratively. events in the light of her own personal life experience of being a We have chosen the Nemmara-Vallanghy vela (temple festival) Thai Buddhist since birth. The devotees gathered in the temple are primarily for the information richness that it offers. This annual fes- invited by the monks to lie down in a row of neatly arranged coffins. tival is ostensibly fashioned as a competition between two adjacent Their palms are pressed together holding flowers, a candle and three villages (Nenmara and Vallanghy, in Palakkad district, Kerala state, incense sticks. The monks’ mesmeric chanting of the funeral ritual India) that share a common temple. Aspects of ritual rivalry as dis- chant Ānisong Sīa Sop: “The Blessings of Disposing of Corpses” cussed by Tarabout (1993) is prevalent in Nenmara-Vallanghy vela. interspersed with the striking of the resonant ceremonial gong adds Held annually, seemingly for the residents of the two villages, the to the sense of religious gravitas of the occasion. In spite of the simi- temple festival is a major tourist attraction, bringing in thousands of larities between this ritual and genuine death rituals in the temple, visitors. Complexity in the context is evidenced in the disparity in the death in this ritual, is symbolic. The coffins and their occupants consumption experiences, which we focus on. are covered with a shroud. When the chanting is finished, the shroud Our findings suggest that the impact of diverse socio-historical is removed and the devotee rises from the coffin. The literal transla- forces at play in shaping consumption experiences