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1 – 7 of 7Purpose – This study investigates the practice of dreaming in consumer culture – a phenomenon that has been excluded from previous CCT discussions despite its inevitable presence…
Abstract
Purpose – This study investigates the practice of dreaming in consumer culture – a phenomenon that has been excluded from previous CCT discussions despite its inevitable presence in consumers' everyday lives.
Methodology/approach – The chapter draws upon anthropological, sociological, and ethnological literature on dreaming and upon a practice-based literature on consumption so as to explore the reciprocal relation between dreaming and consumer culture. The theoretical starting point is, thus, that society dreams in us. Empirically, dream diaries are used as data.
Findings – The exploratory analysis indicates that both the content of dreams and the way dreams are conceived are shaped and structured by the practices, values, and symbols offered by the globalized media and consumer culture.
Implications – The insight that the market and media discourse organizes also the world of dreams has implications to the existing literature on fantasy and fun, marketization, and mediatization of everyday life and on the literature on consumption places and spaces. More generally, the study unsettles the disciplinary habit of taking the waking and alert consumer as the unquestioned starting point of knowledge production and theory-making in cultural consumer research. Dreams provide an angle for further theorizing many key aspects of consumer culture, such as the notion of active consumer and meaning-making.
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This paper aims to explore the personal and academic growth of A. Fuat Firat as one example of his academic life.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the personal and academic growth of A. Fuat Firat as one example of his academic life.
Originality/value
This is a more personal history, in addition to the 2014 academic history of A. Fuat Firat
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Henna Syrjälä and Anu Norrgrann
Purpose: This chapter examines two rather extreme examples of non-human entities in home assemblage, interior objects, and companion animals, and how their agency appears…
Abstract
Purpose: This chapter examines two rather extreme examples of non-human entities in home assemblage, interior objects, and companion animals, and how their agency appears distributed with human consumers in assembling home. The authors aim at drawing conceptual contrasts and overlappings in how agency expresses itself in these categories of living and non-living entities, highlighting the multifaceted manifestations of object agency.
Methodology/Approach: This chapter employs multiple sets of ethnographically inspired data, ranging from ethnographic interviews and an autoethnographic diary to three types of (auto-)netnographic data.
Findings: The findings showcase oscillation of agency between these three analytic categories (human, non-human living, and non-human non-living), focusing on how it is distributed between two of the entities at a time, within the heterogeneous assemblage of home. Furthermore, the findings show instances in which agency emerges as shared between all three entities.
Originality/Value: The contribution of this chapter comes from advancing existing discussion on object agency toward the focus on distributed and shared agency. The research adds to the prevailing discussion by exhibiting how agency oscillates between different types of interacting entities in the assemblage, and in particular, how the two types of non-human entities are agentic. The research demonstrates the variability and interwovenness of non-human and human, living and non-living agency as they appear intertwined in home assemblage.
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Ni Putu Bayu Widhi Antari and Daniel Connell
This study aims to assess whether Tukad Bindu, Bali, Indonesia is a good example of ecotourism or practice in greenwashing.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to assess whether Tukad Bindu, Bali, Indonesia is a good example of ecotourism or practice in greenwashing.
Design/methodology/approach
The characteristics of ecotourism to assess Tukad Bindu were identified through a review of the existing literature. This study used Honey’s argument to determine these characteristics and supplemented them with other experts’ views to understand the global and local contexts of ecotourism. Primary data were collected from interviews with stakeholders and observations. The Tukad Bindu Foundation provided secondary data.
Findings
This study reveals that Tukad Bindu is a good example of ecotourism because it involves travelling to natural destinations. It reduces the negative effects of tourism activities – specifically environmental – thereby raising environmental awareness among local communities, tourists and the public at large. Tukad Bindu produces direct financial benefits for conservation, for empowering local communities and providing financial benefits, reverence for local cultures and positively influences the democratic movement, especially strengthening stakeholders’ participation in ecotourism.
Research limitations/implications
To accelerate the development of Tukad Bindu as an ecotourism destination, research on factors that enable and obstruct ecotourism development is required. This will help the foundation and stakeholders to develop strategies that can achieve the goals of conservation, local communities’ livelihoods and environmental education.
Practical implications
This study also has practical implications in terms of managing environmental activities, enriching Tukad Bindu’s biodiversity and attractions, and maintaining ecotourism sustainability.
Originality/value
Tukad Bindu has applied unique ecotourism practices, in terms of developing and ownership of protected areas. While Honey’s framework of ecotourism is beneficial to elaborate on the nature of ecotourism, the characteristics in this framework are not mutually exclusive in the case of Tukad Bindu. This study also has practical implications in terms of managing environmental activities, enriching Tukad Bindu’s biodiversity and attractions, and maintaining ecotourism sustainability.
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Anu Helena Suominen and Jari Jussila
This chapter deals with teaching and learning knowledge creation in higher-education institutions (HEI) via collaborative writing. The challenge of HEIs is that teaching should…
Abstract
This chapter deals with teaching and learning knowledge creation in higher-education institutions (HEI) via collaborative writing. The challenge of HEIs is that teaching should build capabilities that enable learners to make use of and advance academic knowledge while simultaneously developing skills relevant for the future work life. In practice, teaching at university is often disconnected from authentic work life and the tasks are far more simplified than those in the future jobs. Therefore, to address the challenge HEIs face, this chapter focusses on knowledge creation, expanding it from bounded-learning communities to online communities in social media. In online communities, it is intrinsic to act and think globally, as demanded by the new imperative. This chapter portrays the case of one knowledge management course at an HEI in which the syllabus included collaborative writing for both a bounded-learning community and the online community of Wikipedia. The student group was multidisciplinary and multicultural, with both classroom learning and distance learning options available. The research material, analysed with qualitative methods, consisted of pre-course and anonymous post-course feedback surveys, as well as learning diaries. The results show that although prior to the course many students held a prejudice and lacked knowledge about social media as part of knowledge management, they expressed they had had eye-opening learning experiences because of the expanded learning community from the traditional bounded to the online community. Based on the results of the study and the experience of teachers, recommendations are given for developing learning activities of knowledge creation in HEIs.
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