BU Research Blog

The Faculty of Media and Communication at BU

Venue: CG17, Christchurch House, Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University, Fern Barrow, Poole, Dorset, BH12 5BB

Wednesday 2 March 2016, 4pm, CG17

Promotional Cultures & Communication Centre ​(PCCC)

Guest Lecture

Professor Fleura Bhardi,

Conceptualizing Consumption in Late Modernity: Liquid Consumption
Professor Bhardi introduces the concept of liquid consumption, a style of consumption characterized by a lack of singularization, ephemerality, the dominance of use-value, and dematerialization. This concept helps unpack contemporary consumption phenomena emerging in the current context of liquid modernity, where social structures, and resulting consumer identities, are liquidifying. Liquid consumption is in contrast to a solid perspective of consumption, constituted in the former industrial modern society, when many of our seminal consumer behaviour constructs were developed. She outlines the implications of liquid consumption for four major consumer research domains: consumer attachment, consumer and brand relationships, social distinction, and consumer ethics. We observe a shift in what is valued under conditions of liquidity: flexibility, lightness and access. An agenda for future research focusing on these new sources of value is outlined.

Fleura Bardhi is a Professor of Marketing at Cass Business School, City University London, UK. Fleura has a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA, a MSc in International Business from Norwegian School of Management, Norway, and a B.A. in Management from University of Tirana, Albania. Prior to joining Cass Business School, Fleura was an associate professor at Northeastern University, Boston, USA. Fleura’s research falls into consumer behavior, specifically consumer culture theory (CCT). Methodologically, Fleura is a qualitative researcher and utilizes qualitative interviews, ethnography, observations, and projective techniques in her research.

Her research interests are in three areas: 1) Global Brands and Global Consumers: Fleura’s research examines how the role of materiality and brands changes when we travel or in conditions of a global nomadic lifestyle. This work unpacks the ways globalization has shaped our identities, relationship to places, and consumption tastes.

2) Access Based Consumption and Sharing: This stream of research examines how we consume differently when we do not purchase or own things, but rather access them through the market (via traditional rental, peer-to-peer rental, or market mediated sharing) or outside the market (via public services or peer-to-peer sharing and borrowing). Her research has implications about the notions of collaborative consumption and the sharing economy.

3) Life transitions and Consumption: This research examines how we manage the challenges associated with life transitions including divorce, relocation, migration, and long-distant families, through consumption as well as the role of the marketplace in such life transitions. A current project is looking at how single mothers manage downward social mobility post-divorce or family separation. Fleura teaches at the undergraduate and graduate and postgraduate level programs. Her teaching interest includes modules in Consumer Behavior, Qualitative Market Research, Consumer Insights, and Consumer Culture Theory.

Fleura’s work has been published in Journal of Consumer Research, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, International Marketing Review, Consumption, Markets & Culture, Psychology and Marketing, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, etc. She has presented her work at numerous international and national conferences. Fleura is a member of the Editorial Review Board for Journal of Consumer Research, Consumption, Markets, & Culture journal, Mercati & Competitività, and a Board Member for the International Society for Markets and Development (ISMD) (2012-2014). She has co-chairs twice the Consumer Culture Theory PhD Workshop (2011, 2013) and has been invited as a faculty mentor at several methodology and theory related PhD Workshops. Her work has received attention and cited in the Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Economist, The Guardian, Boston Globe, etc. She has also been a visiting professor at Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada; University of Sydney, Australia; and California State University, Long Beach, US.​

About the series

This new seminar series showcases current research across different disciplines and approaches within the Faculty of Media and Communication at BU. The research seminars include invited speakers in the fields of journalism, politics, narrative studies, media, communication and marketing studies. The aim is to celebrate the diversity of research across departments in the faculty and also generate dialogue and discussion between those areas of research.

Contributions include speakers on behalf of

The Centre for Politics and Media Research

The Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community

Promotional Cultures & Communication Centre

Public Relations Research Centre

Narrative Research Group

Journalism Research Group

Advances in Media Management Research Group