https://www.mdu.se/

mdu.sePublications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Service with(out) a smile: The reproduction of gendered consumer violence
Mälardalen University, School of Business, Society and Engineering. Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden.
Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden.
2024 (English)In: Marketing Theory, ISSN 1470-5931, E-ISSN 1741-301XArticle in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

This paper critically examines consumer violations of employees in the Nordic retail sector. In bringing these violations to light, we analyse how employees become subjectified by the ideals of consumer sovereignty, and how service work is discursively and practically aligned with the notion of the sovereign consumer. We demonstrate how the discourse of consumer sovereignty intersects with gendered service work and the expectations of feminine sexual availability, and how this alignment reproduces gender and power inequalities. Drawing on studies of consumer violence and misbehaviour and feminist research on service work, we argue that the patterns of subjugation and consumer abuse are intrinsically embedded both in the ideal of consumer sovereignty itself and in the strategies that employees use to constitute themselves within prevailing market and gender orders. The study provides a critical understanding of how consumer sovereignty operates in tandem with gender structures to form subjugating practices that both enable and normalise consumer violations.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
SAGE Publications , 2024.
Keywords [en]
Consumer sovereignty, consumer violations, gender, marketing, power, service work
National Category
Other Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-66605DOI: 10.1177/14705931241249624ISI: 001215767600001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105003235803OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-66605DiVA, id: diva2:1857986
Available from: 2024-05-15 Created: 2024-05-15 Last updated: 2025-04-30Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus

Authority records

Yngfalk Fyrberg, Anna

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Yngfalk Fyrberg, Anna
By organisation
School of Business, Society and Engineering
In the same journal
Marketing Theory
Other Social Sciences

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 45 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf