How Pakistani tweens develop institutionally complex consumption practices

Abstract

This research was guided by a qualitative interpretive paradigm and the author’s view that a contextualized study of the Eastern Muslim tweens’ consumption culture that systematically studies how young Muslim consumers design their consumption practices in an institutional complex environment, is important. Previous consumption studies exploring the interaction of Market and Religion have been limited in explaining the effect of the interplaying Market and Religious logics on consumption practices. Wilson et. al., (2013) particularly call for unpacking of consumption patterns that are influenced by internalization, globalization and localization.
The study developed its intellectual framework from the literature streams of consumer socialization and an Institutional Logics (IL) perspective. Extant consumer socialization studies have contributed greatly in shaping understanding of different stages of consumer development, socialising agents and influence strategies used by children. Although a great part of consumer socialization literature sheds light on the role of socialising agents, it does not explore the structures that are represented through different socialising agents. This study accounts for the structures that shape consumption practices via socialising agents and the consumption practices of Muslim tweens. Furthermore, the extant literature is based on the social realities of the developed West, where the structural nuances limit the transferability of existing theories of consumption to Eastern, Muslim contexts.
The Eastern Muslim context, specifically Pakistan, was selected as the research site. Arnould and Thompson's framework for Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) tradition is also
used to situate this project within a consumer culture frame, the primary focus being the interrelated and mutually implicative nature of socio-historic patterning of consumption based on Market and Religious orientation and the role of everyday rituals in creating social, Religious and familial solidarity. Literature informs that individuals are socialized into different institutional orders, each prescribing its own set of rules (Thornton et. al., 2012). In other words, each institutional discourse competes to ascribe meaning to different tween consumption practices, creating subjects and objects, restricting some actions and allowing certain others. Hence, a social world of consumption is constituted through discourses.
Twelve informants from upper middle income, urban, Muslim households, participated in this research. The tensions felt and resolution attempted by Muslim tweens to establish their consumption practices, while operating in an inter-institutional system, was the focus of study. A combination of participant produced videographies and a series of extended phenomenological interviews (Thompson et. al., 1989) were used for data generation. Both these investigations were carried out from the Muslim tweens’ perspective. It is important to note here that Asian participants are new to research, and are culturally conservative. Pakistani society is research unfriendly and recruiting participants was a particularly challenging task. It was equally challenging to convince participants to share detailed and authentic stories, as giving ‘socially appropriate responses’ is normal in formal conversation. Possessing first-hand knowledge of the cultural sensitivities helped me in identifying appropriate data generation techniques and in getting participants to open up. In order to check the usability of data generation techniques, a pilot study was first carried out with four participants. Subsequently, the field research strategy was finalized. In order to deal with the inherent research challenges, purposeful recruitment of participants helped in gaining trust and gathering insights. Since the study involved young children, strict ethical protocols were followed.
A multiperspectival framework suggested by Jorgensen and Phillips (2002), based on Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) discourse theory and Fairclough’s (1995) order of discourse, was used to analyse the data that was generated. Research questions were addressed via analysis of different discursive practices within the realm of consumption. Through this, discourses hailing tweens to order their consumption practices and the consumption strategies that tweens use to successfully operate under institutional complexity, were explored. Market and Religious institutions were identified in literature as significant structural forces impacting Muslims’ construction of consumption practices. Data
generated in the study confirmed the active role of these institutions in making consumption possible for urban, Muslim tweens in Pakistan and highlighted three different reflective balancing strategies deployed by them in responding to an institutionalized sense of institutional complexity: reflective segregation, reflective integration and reflective rejection. Each of these strategies translated into three unique consumption practices: boundary consumption practices, integrated consumption practices and Islamically appropriate consumption practices. The Muslim tweens’ in their pursuit to engage with the Market logic did not change the dominant institutional order of Islam. In fact, they constructed their halal consumption practices using the Market and the Islamic logics as resources.
In addition to making contribution to existing knowledge on Muslim consumption and lived experiences of tween consumers, this study makes contributions to the IL literature. Specifically, it shows how opposing logics co-exist through consumption practices. It also theorizes institutionalized gaze and body parts that produce and are produced by different IL.

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ORCID for Weisha Wang: orcid.org/0000-0002-2985-3416

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