Materials Matter: An Exploration of the Curatorial Practices of Consumers as Collectors

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine the interplay between the curatorial practices of consumers as collectors and the materiality of the collected objects. In particular, this study explores how the material substances of collected objects shapes curatorial practices and how the ongoing use of the collected objects challenges curatorial practices.

Methodology/approach

Taking advantage of the publicization of once-private collections on social media, we collect 111 YouTube videos created by plastic shoe aficionados. Drawing from visual anthropology and theorizations of materiality, we analyze consumer interactions with the objects they collect.

Findings

This study’s findings elucidate consumers’ interactions with the material substances of the objects they collect and demonstrate how these interactions shape the ways in which consumers curate their collections, including how they wear, care for, catalog, and display the collected objects.

Research implications

Our findings have implications for theorization on consumer collections, consumer identity, and consumer participation in brand communities and are relevant for consumer researchers who study the interactions and relationships between consumers and consumption objects.

Originality/value

This study is the first to re-examine consumers as collectors to extend and update consumer research on the curatorial practices of physical, wearable collectibles. This study sets the foundations for further research to advance our understanding of consumers as collectors as well as to illuminate other theories and aspects of consumer research that consider consumer–object interactions.

Citation

Scaraboto, D., Ferreira, M.C. and Chung, E. (2016), "Materials Matter: An Exploration of the Curatorial Practices of Consumers as Collectors", Consumer Culture Theory (Research in Consumer Behavior, Vol. 18), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 217-243. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0885-211120160000018015