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Environmentally friendly consumer: from determinism to emergence
Author(s) -
Reijonen Satu
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
international journal of consumer studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.775
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1470-6431
pISSN - 1470-6423
DOI - 10.1111/j.1470-6431.2010.00956.x
Subject(s) - determinism , situated , technological determinism , epistemology , consumer behaviour , sociology , psychology , social psychology , social science , computer science , philosophy , artificial intelligence
Several attempts have been made by academics in the past to explain the so‐called ‘environmentally conscious’ consumer. These explanations share an important feature, namely determinism. This paper identifies three different sources of determinism that are distinguished in recent literature on the green consumer: cultural determinism, psycho‐socio‐demographic determinism and calculative determinism. An explanation of the green consumer in these terms, however, loses sight of the emergence and processuality of consumer behaviour. Process oriented constructionism, by contrast, is useful to recover these important aspects. This paper suggests a research agenda focused on socio‐material processes and situated actions that lead to the emergence and stabilization of a particular type of consumer behaviour.