Gendered identity negotiations through food consumption

I am absolutely delighted to present this research on Thursday 20th March 2014 at 9.30am in the Department of Marketing, University of Glasgow and as a preface to the seminar I hope a little back story might be interesting, hence this blog post.

Let’s start from a pedagogical experience, the kernel of this research came from undergraduate student work in the Department of Marketing, University of Otago, New Zealand. The film that is part of this published research was developed from an earlier version that was submitted as a visual media presentation of a consumption experience analysis for a 300 level Consumer Culture paper. We started encouraging students to work in visual media (most commonly videography) as a mean of representing knowledge and creating insight.

Our experience reinforces current research in this area, not only can videographic research be a powerful alternative to the dominant textual form but it effectively records bodily representations and presence in contextual space; emotional, resonant and attention grabbing expressions; more “real” and “authentic” representations and ability to capture context-rich and multi-sensory environments. We also found that our students are more intuitively eloquent in the visual than the textual form. Our experience finds that our undergraduate students are able to express subtlety and tension in consumption experience analysis that often eludes them when seeking to express the same insights in a textual form. The range of topics addressed visually have been ‘eclectic’ from Ken and Barbie discussing gendered stereotypes at play in alcohol advertising to ‘trolleyology’ (a visual exploration of the supermarket environment) to crossing the gender divide (comparing media representation of androgyny with consumers lived experiences) to using self-reflexive video diaries to illustrate consumption practices used to recreate a sense of home for international students.

Ken & Barbie gender stereotypes?
Ken & Barbie gender stereotypes?

The common element to all of these topics is the insight added through the use of a visual aspect which so often challenges verbal or textual representations. For example in the accompanying film linked to the published article, we ask our male household to consume a meal commonly consumed by the female household and vice versa, the film illustrates clearly the tension, discomfort and distaste that accompanies this experience far more eloquently than the actual words uttered (click link below).

Video on Gendered Consumption of Food

Shelagh Ferguson

MaRVL Visiting Scholar, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Otago, NZ

Further readings:

  • Belk, R. W., & Kozinets, R. V. (2005). Videography in marketing and consumer research. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 8, 128–141.
  • De Valck, K., Rokka, J., & Hietanen, J. (2009). Videography in consumer research: Visions for a method on the rise. Finanza Marketing e Produzione, 27, 81–100.
  • Pink, S. (2007). Doing visual ethnography. London: Sage.
  • Pink, S. (2009). Doing sensory ethnography. London: Sage.
  • Spanjaard, D., & Freeman, L. (2007). Tread softly: Using videography to capture shopping behaviour. In M. Craig-Lees, T. Davis, & G. Gregory (Eds.), Asia-Pacific Advances in Consumer Research, 7. (pp. 26–29) Sydney: Association for Consumer Research.
  • Schembri, & Boyle (2013). Visual ethnography: Achieving rigorous and authentic 388 interpretations. Journal of Business Research, 66, 1251–1254.
  • Turner, K., Ferguson, S., Craig, J., Jeffries, A., & Beaton, S. (2013) Gendered identity negotiations through food consumption. Young Consumers 14(3), 280-288