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The purpose of this article is to argue that consumers experience conflict not only when in identity transitions or social status transitions but also in-between these two, and that the relationship between these two is becoming increasingly important to address. First, this is done by identifying how status transitions (vertical movements) overlap but differ in some important respects from identity transitions (horizontal movements), and second, the consumption strategies used by people when these movements lead to an experience of conflict between one’s (new/old) identity role and (new/old) status position have been demonstrated.

In this multi-sited, qualitative data collection, the phenomenological and ethnographic interviews have been conducted with 35 urban middle-class consumers in their homes at three culturally and historically different sites (Sweden, Turkey and the USA).

The importance and kind of a consumption strategy to resolve the status–identity incongruence relates if it is mainly a vertically or horizontally determined transition. To consumers with a main focus on status change – characterised by hierarchical and competitive dimensions that identity role transitions are free from – the engagement in consumption becomes more important and intense.

Marketers have historically mainly been engaged in static categorisation and segmentation of consumer lifestyles. By instead emphasising consumers’ life transitions and their accompanying status–identity conflicts, marketers may consider the implications for market communication.

Given that liquid modernity (Bauman, 2001) and its loose social structures forces the middle-class to become increasingly socially mobile, matches and mismatches between identity and status positions ought to become more common and the resulting consumption strategies more sophisticated. This research offers a first, tentative framework for understanding these conflicts in relation to consumption.

Although lifestyle transitions have often been elaborated on in consumer research, the differences between social status transitions and identity transitions, and especially the conflict in-between these two, have not been paid its deserved attention. Based on multi-sited, qualitative data collection, concrete consumption strategies following the experience of status–identity incongruence have been identified. The results also contribute to a better understanding of the growing uncertainty and volatility of social status positions in contemporary middle-class consumer culture.

The purpose of this paper is to engage with the discourse on the assumed existence of an distinct “African management” model. It critically deconstructs the concepts and submits an alternative strategy to address the need to understand what is happening in management of business in Africa.

Qualitative critical text analysis is used to understand the discourse on the nature of “African management” from the extant literature. The identity theory informs the understanding of the references to “African” as fundamental to identify a distinct management model. This analysis is supplemented by empirical case study research into successful African business.

Scholars failed to conceptualise what is “African”, and subsequently also what constitutes “African management”. This conceptual void undermines the critical reconstruction of a single African management model. Empirical research into actual management practices emerge as fundamental to systematic progress in this discourse. This research points to diverse management traditions converging into pragmatic practices.

Only a limited number of case studies were conducted into management history in Africa. This paper argues for an extended research programme, but this is future work.

It suggests a research strategy for scholars in African business studies, business history and management history to collaborate towards making a solid contribution to the economic development of our continent.

This research has the potential of forging collaboration in business among all of the people in Africa.

A critical text analysis is used to expose the conceptual lacunae that undermines progress in the discourse. This paper contributes to the literature on “African management” by systematically deconstructing the concept of “African identity” as a prerequisite to the management discourse. By signalling ethnic nostalgia, the critical reconceptualisation of Africanness offers an intellectually creative strategy out of the stalled discourse.

The paper aims to examine Martha Nussbaum's latest theorising about the capabilities approach in relation to the “causal weight” and “texture” of the anarchical condition of the international system.

The paper provides a detailed reading of Nussbaum's creating capabilities with regard to its explicit and implicit assumptions about international relations.

While the paper endorses the aims of the capabilities approach, it draws attention to the limitations of Nussbaum's engagement with the international level of world politics, including relevant international relations (IR) theory. The paper argues that a more explicit engagement with IR theory in general and the so‐called English School in particular would strengthen one of the shortcomings of Nussbaum's counter‐theory to dominant ideas in development economics.

The Human Development and Capability Association is committed to generating ideas to challenge dominant approaches to human development. As such, the sense of direction pointed to in the paper – identifying international relations as the priority area for research and reform – is a contribution to planning the next stage of its activities.

The paper focuses on the international level of world politics, and as such offers insights into what Nussbaum herself admits is an “undertheorized” dimension of the capabilities approach.

Colleges of education must do more than expose prospective educators to “best” practices for teaching and leading linguistically, culturally, and ethnically diverse students. Educators need to develop attitudes, knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to become competent in catering to diverse student populations in schools. In this chapter, we seek to extend this conversation using a critical pedagogical lens. We draw specifically on Paulo Freire’s concept of radical love to interrogate our ways of teaching, leading, and opening up spaces for dialogue toward educating pre-service teachers and leaders who are critically conscious. Additionally, we use Paulo Freire’s concept of radical love to explore the similarities and disjunctures in our pedagogy and positionalities as international scholars of color.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the dynamics and transformative potential associated with counter accounts. It explores how counter-accountants’ attempts to rearticulate animal production result in their own identity becoming constructed during the conflict setting and how this identity subsequently relates to the transformative potential of the counter accounts.

The paper investigates counter accounts released during an animal rights activists’ campaign against industrial meat and dairy production in Finland. The counter accounts, consisting of secretly filmed videos from pig farms, contrasted the official depiction of animal farming and received wide publicity over several years. The main empirical data set consists of 21 interviews with a variety of parties that have a stake in the conflict. This data set is supplemented with a broad set of published documentary material.

The authors find that the counter accounts managed, to some extent, to rearticulate the meaning of animal production, potentially resulting in the emergence of small-scale societal effects. When trying to undermine the counter-accountants’ radical political demand, the dominant social groups not only dismissed the counter accounts but also attempted to constitute the counter-accountants’ identity as irresponsible, militant and negligent, drawing a firm political boundary between “them” and “us.” Likewise, the counter-accountants seemed reluctant to communicate with representatives of the dominant regime, resulting in an antagonistic as opposed to an agonistic relationship between the two political groups. The paper also discusses ethical questions concerning the production of counter accounts, the importance of having a clearly articulated political vision, and the challenges related to evaluating whether the counter accounts have been successful.

The paper provides insights into the design, use and reception of counter accounts in a real-life social setting, thus providing a direct response to a recent call by Thomson et al. (2015). The paper illustrates the usefulness of the conceptual dynamic conflict arena framework presented by Thomson et al. (2015), and makes use of discourse theory (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985; Laclau, 2005, 2001, 1996) to highlight how in exploring the transformative potential of counter accounts it is necessary to also consider how the identity of the counter-accountants becomes constructed and understood. Furthermore, the paper also seeks to advance the connections between accounting research and significant global problems by investigating an ethically and environmentally disputed industry, and by engaging with the interrelationships between accounts and accountability in the context of socio-ecological change.

We use framing theory to analyze songs and poetry from the US women’s movement. Specifically, we utilize frame amplification and transformation as concepts to answer the question: did messages in songs and poetry from the women’s movement change as the movement achieved its original goal of suffrage? Furthermore, are there new organizational goals mentioned in musical artifacts from the second-wave feminist movement? And, if so, why? We find that songs became more radical in the second wave of the women’s movement. This shift reflects and reconstitutes the changing concerns of social movement activists. We demonstrate how frame amplification and transformation are important theoretical concepts in explaining the ideological shifts found in songs and poetry from the first- and second-wave women’s movement.

This article analyzes the decline of the Amsterdam squatters’ movement, examining not why the movement declined, but how. I argue decline is a critical moment for activists, one full of creative action. Decline is a defining moment through which the present, past, and future are interpreted. Narratives are key to understanding this process. As the movement emergence narrative declined, competing narratives of decline emerged. The widening chasm between the initial story and the movement's status compelled activists to choose between saving the movement or the narrative. I identify four critical moments during the movement's response to decline: they initially deny decline; after admitting decline, they debate tactics, followed by debating identities; and finally they demand decline as the only solution for the movement's problem. The movement moves through a process of increasing exclusion, working to resolve internal contradictions defined by the original narrative and identity.

Empirical research demonstrates that category specialism is aligned with competitive success and that social actors indulging in perceptual violations of social codes are subjected to devaluations. Through category generalism, however, social actors may obtain access to diverse set of audience segments. This chapter investigates such a trade-off in the context of political ideologies – conceived here as composed of social codes and exposed to a discipline similar to that of market categories. A successful instance of repositioned identity is introduced and discussed: the case of the British Liberal Democrats Party during the post-WWII period. Particular attention is dedicated to the process of recombination of own and oppositional social codes. This strategy contributed to increase the audience attention received on each of the issues traditionally “owned” by the Liberal Democrats Party. Party level analyses suggest that the borrowed issues improved audience attention when they contributed to extend and clarify the ideological roots of the Liberal Party. The implications of this case study for current research on market categories are further discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how abstract space of the State – universally and specifically within the context of Middle Eastern cities – aims to homogenise the city and eliminate any anomaly that threatens its power structure.

Through a historical and discourse analysis of these policies and processes in the two case studies, this paper presents a contextualised reading of Lefebvre’s concept of abstract space and process of abstraction in relation to the alienation of political public spaces.

The paper proposes that regardless of these homogenising strategies being applied universally, they fail to respond to contextual particularities and therefore they – in a contradictory manner – may themselves produce a space of resistance and difference.

This paper focusses on Iran, the case of Tehran and Turkey, the case of Taksim Square and Gezi Park in Istanbul. Recent policies and strategies have been proposed and implemented to reduce, alienate and possibly neutralise the impacts of urban and political protests in these cities and socio-political contexts.

The market system and a materialistic lifestyle have contributed to some of the environmental and social problems that currently affect the world. However, only a few consumers are willing to express ecological oriented consumption. This study aims to analyse how organic food consumers build a green identity, as well as the new expressions that arise from this identity construction.

A hermeneutical approach was adopted to address the narratives of 31 frequent consumers of organic products motivated by environmental issues. The narratives were collected through the interview method, which was further complemented by participant observation.

The following five phases of identity formation were identified: consciousness, gathering, negotiation, stabilisation and sharing. By looking at the different identity stages, it becomes visible how organic consumption and pro-environmental behaviours act as transformative practices, promoting ecological activism and fortifying a green identity.

This study extends the “processual theory of identity” by analysing how organic products help shape consumer practices and their lifestyle. Moreover, a contribution is provided on how we can build an ecological citizenship by reducing consumption and also by adopting alternative practices of consumption.