(Routledge Interpretive Marketing Research) 1st Edition
by Tony Wilson (Author)
Practice theories of our equipped
and situated tacit construction of participatory narrative meaning are
evident in multiple disciplines from architectural to communication
study, consumer, marketing and media research, organisational,
psychological and social insight. Their hermeneutic focus is on
customarily little reflected upon, recurrent but required, practices of
embodied, habituated knowing how―from choosing ‘flaw-free’ fruit in a
market to celebrating Chinese New Year Reunion Dining, caring for
patients to social media ‘voice’. In ready-to-hand practices, we attend
to the purpose and not to the process, to the goal rather than its
generating. Yet familiar practices both presume and put in place
fundamental understanding. Listening to Asian and Western consumers
reflecting―not only subsequent to but also within practices―this book
considers activity emplacing core perceptions from a liminal moment in a
massive mall to health psychology research. Institutions configure
practices-in-practices cohering or conflicting within their material
horizons and space accessible to social analysis.
Practices
theory construes routine as minimally self-monitored, nonetheless
considering it as being embodied narrative. In research output, such
generic ‘storied’ activity is seen as (in)formed, shaped from a shifting
hierarchy of ‘horizons’ or perspectives―from habituated to
reflective―rather than a single seamless unfolding. Taking a
communication practices route disentangles and avoids conflating tacit
and transformative construction of identities in qualitative research.
Practices research crosses discipline. Ubiquitous media use by managers
and visitors throughout a shopping mall responds to investigating not
only with digital tracking expertise but also from an interpretive
marketing viewpoint. Visiting a practice perspective’s hermeneutic
underwriting, spatio-temporal metaphorical concepts become available and
appropriate to the analysis of communication as a process across
disciplines. In repeated practices, ‘horizons of understanding’ are
solidified. Emphasising our understanding of a material environment as
‘equipment’, practices theory enables correlation of use and demographic
variable in quantitative study extending interpretive behavioural and
haptic qualitative research.
Consumption, Psychology and Practice Theories: A Hermeneutic Perspective
addresses academics and researchers in communication studies,
marketing, psychology and social theory, as well as university
methodology courses, recognising philosophy guides a discipline’s
investigative insight.
