Reflecting Family: Home Furnishings As Consumption Symbols of Family Identity

Research demonstrates individual identity is reflected and constructed through consumption. Similarly, families embrace objects as extensions of their core selves, but we lack research on this phenomenon. Drawing on theories of symbolic interaction and impression management, we investigate 1) how families select and consume objects in the home to enact collective, as compared to individual, identities and 2) how these consumption symbols relate to various forms of enactment. Based on participant observation, depth interviews and a projective exercise, we uncover the bricolage of objects that constitute self and family identities and expose how these identities are negotiated, blended and partitioned.

Citation:

Amber Epp, Linda Price, and Robert Kozinets (2005) ,"Reflecting Family: Home Furnishings As Consumption Symbols of Family Identity", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 7, eds. Karin M. Ekstrom and Helene Brembeck, Goteborg, Sweden : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 155-156.