Dwelling in Postmodernity: The Role of Marketplace in Home-Making Practices

Short Abstracts

Making a Home on the Road: Home and Home-making among Transnational Mobile Professionals

Fleura Bardhi (Northeastern University); Eric Arnould (University of Arizona)

The paper examines the concept of home among contemporary global nomads.  Through 35 semi-structured long interviews with highly mobile global professionals, the paper identifies four notions of home-- as identity, order, relationship, and possessions.  The authors argue that globalization and postmodern social conditions have induced a mobile concept of home that is not fixed in place.  Nonetheless, home remains an important identity anchoring point for mobile global professionals, and they engage in ongoing home making practices to transform consumptionscapes into home-like environments.

From a Diner to a Home: Understanding How Customers Find Home in the Marketplace

Mark S. Rosenbaum (University of Hawaii)

This paper reports the results of interview data that illustrate how consumers experience commercial places and why they experience them in these ways.  Data shows informants experience a tripartite division of places:  place-as-practical, place-as-gathering, or place-as-home.  Consumers who experience commercial place-as-home do so to fulfill consumption, companionship, and emotional support needs.  The findings suggest that consumers transform consumption spaces into home places as they rely on individuals in these places for supportive resources, which are conventionally thought to be provided by family and friends.      

Designing the Family Portal as Home Information System and Home Networking

Alladi Venkatesh (University of California, Irvine)

Citation:

Session Chair: Fleura Bardhi and Discussion Leader: Julie Ozanne (2006) ,"An Examination of the Concept of Postmodern Home and the Role of Consumption in Home-Making Practices", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 33, eds. Connie Pechmann and Linda Price, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 651-658.