Consumption Solidarity: Healing Cultural Trauma Following Marketplace Violence

Abstract

Abstract Targeted acts of violence in the marketplace disrupt the status quo and unravel the very fabric of community and consumption spaces. Despite the growing frequency of these shocking events, they remain underexplored in consumer research, particularly regarding their impact on consumer well-being and collective welfare. This research explores how individual reactions and choices in the face of incomprehensible violence can pave the way for consumer healing and collective regeneration through the re-establishment of community ties and marketplace exchanges. Our ethnographic inquiry grounds these findings in the consumer response and solidarity that occurred in one community directly affected by the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. Our findings highlight how market spaces provide the scaffolding for communities to develop and foster interdependence through exchanges and shared moments. We also delineate cultural trauma as a subset of collective trauma. While both occur when a community one identifies with faces an existential threat, cultural trauma goes further by irrevocably altering the collective identity and transforming the community members. Furthermore, we investigate cultural violence in a marketplace setting, when violent acts target culturally significant consumption practices and communal spaces.

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