Case Studying Ethical Consumers' Projects and Strategies

Introduction

I begin this chapter with an outline of my understanding of the restless consumer culture and the consumer research within which my work was set. The second section is a brief review of the approaches to case study, as these are associated to particular theoretical perspectives. I indicate appropriate further reading and raise some of the issues with which a researcher is confronted.

My multiple case study of 16 ‘ethical consumers’ in the UK during the late 1990s is presented in the third section. Their projects to distance themselves from unethical consumption, to rationalise consumer culture and/or become integrated into its struggles are my contribution to our understanding of such consumers. I intend this also as an illustration of case study practice and refer back occasionally to the issues raised in the methodological section.

The quality of this type of analysis depends on the openness and logic of the process (Thomas, 1998) but there is insufficient space here to include the full development of the analysis. However, the complete thesis (Newholm, 2000) and data are available. In this chapter, I have been selective in my use of comparative tables and participants' quotations and have abbreviated arguments. Do not be surprised to find me saying that my thinking has changed since completing this research – I consider that a good outcome. Please skip the second section on ‘case study’ if you are not interested in the methodology.

Consumer Culture and Consumer Research

Consumption as an aspect of most people's lives in affluent societies is widely acknowledged as having become increasingly important. As Alan Durning (1992) documented, we consume more and consume more often than previous generations. Increasingly personal areas of our lives are commodified, but as Bertell Ollman (1998) notes our involvement encompasses more than the acts of purchase and consumption. We prepare for, worry about and recover from consumption.

Much has been written about people as consumers, about the apparent rise of ethical attitudes and the lack of corresponding change in consumer practices: the so-called ‘words/deeds inconsistency’. Ölander and Thøgersen (1995) review approaches to this perceived phenomenon. This leaves the very notion of an ‘ethical consumer’ as a contested debate and the subject of competing political interpretations (Newholm, 1999b; Chapters 1 and 2). I have assumed that to have a concern for the culturally specific consumption issues (see this book's [Page 108]introduction) is, prima facie, legitimate and therefore that some notion of an ethical consumer is valid. I would, however, suggest that it is better to think of our widening consumption as attracting our ethical consideration than of any increasing morality amongst consumers.

The central question addressed by the study I am reporting here has been, in the cases where consumers describe themselves as ethical, how can they do so in so potentially daunting an environment? Three theoretical features of the ethical consumers' environment are apparent:

• all purchases exhibit ethical dimensions and therefore the potential scope of concern is as wide as an individual's consumption itself;
• the issues arising from consumption acts are at best complex and in some moral respects irresolvable;
• in a continually changing global market, for example where businesses change hands and products change specifications, decisions can only be contingent.

However, specific consumer practices should not be seen in isolation. Animal welfare, human rights, environmental sustainability and corporate responsibility combine, overlap, conflict and vie for attention. There are, therefore, social and contextual questions concerning the way consumers sustain their notion of themselves as ethical, the attention they give and importance they attribute to ethical consumption and what, if anything, stops them from changing their consumer practices further.

...