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2nd and final Call for Chapters for the collective volume on Trauma and Consumption that will be published by a major publishing house in 2021

2nd and final Call for Chapters

for the collective volume on

Trauma and Consumption

(DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20568.2432)

that will be published by a major publishing house in 2021

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1eGyPcYLSMcow-ZQIhC-XkUBRe01_oV8_

This volume aims at opening new theoretical vistas in conceptualizing how the notion of trauma may be fruitfully applied to consumption studies, as well as offering fresh perspectives on   how   traumatism   may   modify,   moderate,   re-orient   and   re-evaluate   consumption experiences. The increasing emphasis that has been laid over the past feyears  on  the  unconsciouin  an  attempt  to  identify  and  account  for  psychological processes that pass under the radar of a homeostatic ego that is driven by the pleasure principle calls for an extensive and multi-faceted scrutiny of the notion of trauma.

The concept of traumatic neurosis that was originally popularized by Freud in his seminal treatise Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) marked a critical  turning point in psychoanalytic theorizing. It laid the foundations for one of the most heavily researched topics in contemporary psychologically oriented research, namely PTSD, while it has been instrumental in the consolidation of cultural trauma theories which constitute common conceptual currency in cultural studies and cultural sociology, among other disciplines. To a lesser extent and at a less speculative level, traumatic experiences have been scrutinized in consumer research, largely in the context of psychologically inflected experimental studies.

At the heart of Freud’s original theory of traumatic neurosis lies repetition compulsion. As a result, the subject places himself in distressing situations that repeat a prior experience, without the latter being necessarily recalled. The repressed object or event that is repeated in situations  involving  traumatism  resurfaces  obliquelin  thform  of  jokes,  parapraxes, displaced and distorted. Freud went even further as to question the necessity of a primal scene (whether actually lived or imagined) as the object of a traumatically lived repetition. As remarked by Laplanche (1992), trauma may as well be an instance of afterwardness, or, in Zizek’s (1992) terms, a case of retroactive causality. In this context, Freud highlighted the role performed by the death drive that works unconsciously, and in dissonance to the pleasure principle, towards reinstating subjects to a state of inertia.  The construct was operationalized in order to offer a putative account of the destructive impulses that mitigate the pleasure principle and that may not be attributed to the reality principle. Lacan later opened up new interpretive horizons by contending that traumatism is a necessary condition for entering the symbolic order whereby the subject is split.

Subsequently,  selected facetof  psychoanalytic  approaches  to  traumatism  have informed  sociological  anculturological  readings  of  sociocultural  phenomena.  Oan individual level, traumatic re-enactments surface as moments of disintegration, discontinuity, as an uncontrollable space that unfolds and breaks the subject (Ratti & Estevao, 2016). While

recognizing the paramount influence of affect in the return of the repressed, Neal (1998) contendthat  traumatic  events  resurface  in  feelings  of  anxiety  and  despair.  In  this  context, priorities in consumptive acts, practices, and occasions tend to shift in various and often unforeseen ways, from complete withdrawal to compulsive purchasing, from a penchant for luxury products to a reorientation towards consumptive experiences, rather than products. On a collective level, according to Alexander (2012), cultural trauma occurs when members feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental  and irrevocable waysCollectively  enacted  trauma  presents a paradoxical  co- existence of two antagonistic forces, according to Smelser (2004), between repression and obliteration, and compulsive reliving.

Thivolume  adopts  a  pan-consumptivist  approach  to  social  phenomena,  by endorsing the thesis that consumption is not necessarily dependent on organized markets, while extending it to ideologies, belief-systems, sociocultural practices. Furthermore, it adopts a non-clinical orientation in theorizing, accounting for and empirically investigating trauma- related consumption phenomena. It does not seek to pass pathologizing judgments (Parker

2014, 2015), and even less to ascribe symptoms causally to solipsistically self-enclosed entities. This would contravene both Freudian and Lacanian premises that have been most influential in trauma theory, as, for the former, the cause of traumatism may not even rest on a determinate object, but on the overdetermination of the pleasure principle by the death drive, while the latter, allegedly, never sought to ‘curepatients, i.e. reinstate theto a symbolic order which is responsible for the generation of symptoms in the first place. By recognizing the paramount importance of trauma theory as a cultural hermeneutic tool (Alexander 2012), we seek to map its ramifications vis-à-vis consumption phenomena, but also to challenge salient facets, and, above all, to advance existing theories in the light of concrete cases.

We endorse both disciplinary, as well as methodological diversity by being particularly receptive  to  submissions  from  researchers  ivarious  humanities  and  social  scientific disciplines who are keen on applying either quantitative or qualitative or mixed methods research designs, encompassing, but not being restricted to, cultural analysis, interviews, videography,    ethnography,    online    ethnography/netnography,    conversation    analysis, phenomenological research, semiotic analysis, DA/CDA, to name a few indicative avenues.

The following constitute indicative (and by no means exhaustive) areas for framing and analyzing the relationship between trauma-related theories and consumption studies:

-     The effect of collectively lived traumatic events, such as pandemics and natural disasters, on consumption patterns and/or sociocultural practices

-     Traumatic experiences as antecedents and/or moderating factors in the purchase and usage decision making process of products and services

-     Compulsive purchase behaviors that may be attributed to traumatic experiences

 

-     Autoethnographic  accounts  of  consumption  related  experiences  in  the  light  of traumatic events

-     How traumatic experiences are represented in entertainment products and how they are decoded by audiences

-     How  PTSD  has  impacted  the  purchase  and  consumption  behaviors  of  specific segments (e.g. war veterans)

-     Conceptual approaches to the operationalization of the concept of trauma as outlined

 

in specific psychoanalytic theories

 

-     How the death drive is inscribed in repetitively enacted harmful consumptive acts

 

-     Cultural traumas that are attributable to pandemics, natural catastrophes, etc.

-     How  cultural  traumas  that  affected  local  or  global  populations  are  experienced through simulative re-enactment events

-     Psychoanalytic  discourse  analysiof  movies,  TV  shows,  music  lyrics  and  other popular cultural artefacts that leverage facets of traumatism

-     The semiotics of traumatic advertising

 

-     How culturally traumatic events are transformed into consumable media spectacles

-     Traumatism and the memory of trauma as entry requirement in the constitution of imaginary collectives or the symbolic order of social collectives

 

  Chapter  proposals  should  be  submitted  to  the  volume’s  editor,  Dr.  George  Rossolatos, Chief-Editor of the International Journal of Marketing Semiotics & Discourse Studies (University of Kassel, Germany) via email @ georgerossolatos123@gmail.com no later than September 30, 2020.   Authors   are   encouraged   to   contact   the   editor   for   an  informal  discussion   of their   selected   topic.   The   authors   will   receive   further   information   about   the volume upon acceptance of their manuscript.

 

Project milestones

 

Deadline for initial proposal or full chapter submission: September 30 2020

 

Deadline for notification of acceptance: October 15 2020

Deadline for full chapter submission end of December 2020

 

Deadline for revisions: end of March 30 2021

Expected publication: End of Q2, 2021

 

References

 

Alexander, Jeffrey C. (2012).  Trauma: A social theory. Cambridge: Polity.

Dor, Joël & Gurewich, Judith F. (2010). Introduction to the reading of Lacan: The unconscious structured like a language. London: Other Press.

Freud, Sigmund (1920). Beyond the pleasure principle. In Sigmund Freud, Collected works (pp. 3715-3762). London: Hogarth.

Lacan, Jacques (1998). Seminar XI: The four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis. New York: W.W.Norton.

Laplanche, Jean & Pontalis, Jean-Bertrand (1988). The language of psychoanalysis. London: Karnac.

Laplanche, Jean (1992). Seduction, translation, drives. London: Institute of Contemporary Arts.

Mc  Alexander,  James  (2011).  Communitas  interruptus:  The  limits  of  loyalty.  European Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 9, 401-405.

Meek,   Allen    (2016).     Media   traumatization,     symbolic   wounds    and   digital   cultureCommunication and Media, XI (38), 91110.

Neal, Arthur G. (1998). National trauma and collective memory: major events in the American century. N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe.

Neill, Calum (2013). Breaking the text: An introduction to Lacanian discourse analysis. Theory & Psychology, 23 (3), 334350.

OGuinn, Thomas C. & Faber, Ronald J. (1989). Compulsive buying: a phenomenological exploration. Journal of Consumer Research, 16 (2), 147–157.

Parker, Ian (2014). Lacanian discourse analysis: seven elements. In Ian Parker & David Pavon-Cuellar (Eds.), Lacan, discourse, event: new psychoanalytic approaches to textual indeterminacy (pp. 38-51). London: Routledge.

Parker, Ian (2015). Psychology after discourse analysis: concepts, methods, critique. London: Routledge.

Ratti, Fabiana C. & Estevão, Ivan Ramos (2016). Violence, accident, and trauma – the psychoanalytic clinic faced with the Real of urgency and emergency. Ágora, 19 (3), 1-9.

Rossolatos, George (2018). Consumed by the Real: A conceptual framework of abjectivconsumption and its freaky vicissitudes. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 21(1), 39-62.

Rossolatos, George (2015). Fetish, taboo, simulacrum: An applied psychoanalytic/semiotic approacto the  experiential  consumption of  music products.  In George Rossolatos. Semiotics of popular culture. Kassel: Kassel University Press.

Rossolatos, George (2013). Smoke your brains out: Death drive as interpretative framework for compulsive consumption acts. Paper presented at the 38th Annual Macromarketing Conference,                    Toronto,             Canada,            4-7                                     June. https://www.academia.edu/2383150/Smoke_your_brains_out_Death_drive_as_interpretiv e_framework_for_compulsive_consumption_acts_38_th_Annual_Macromarketing_confer ence_Toronto_Canada_4-7_June_2013_

Smelser, Neil J.  (2004). Psychological trauma and cultural trauma. In Jeffrey C. Alexander, Ron Eyerman, Bernhard Giesen, Neil J. Smelser, Piotr Sztompka (Eds.), Cultural trauma and collective identity (pp. 31-59), London: University of California Press.

Zizek, Slavoj (1992). Looking awry: An introduction to Jacques Lacan through popular culture.Massachusetts: MIT Press.