[ecrea] CFP: Consuming Gender

Call for Papers: ‘Consuming Gender’



This special issue of Assuming Gender – an online, peer-reviewed 
academic journal from Cardiff University – seeks to explore the way 
gender is both presented and consumed through popular media and 
advertising. As Ann Herrmann points out in the article ‘Shopping for 
Identities’, commodities ‘are characterised by their dual nature: 
material composition and symbolic meaning’ (Herrmann 2002: 539). 
Consumer culture plays a significant role in constructing valid (and 
normative) identity categories with which consumers are encouraged to 
identify.



Scholars as diverse as Americus Reed, Laura C. Nelson, and Henry Jenkins 
have theorised the ways in which identity and consumer culture are 
intertwined. Reed, for example, claims in ‘Activating the 
Self-Importance of Consumer Selves’ that ‘[s]ocial identities are mental 
representations that can become a basic part of how consumers view 
themselves’ (Reed 2004: 286). In a later article on ‘Identity-Based 
Consumer Behaviour’, Reed and others use the example of athletics to 
illustrate their point: ‘if consumers view themselves as “athletes”, 
they are likely to behave in ways that are consistent with what it means 
to “be” an athlete’ (Reed, Forehand, Puntoni and Warlop 2002: 310). 
Consumption thus becomes defined by identity, and identity becomes 
defined by consumption.



While the construction of identities based on athleticism seems 
relatively benign, the case quickly becomes more complicated when 
consumer identities are racially, economically, or sexually coded. In 
addition to delineating the borders between various interest groups, 
consumer culture plays a significant role in establishing and 
maintaining binary identity distinctions (male/female, gay/straight, 
black/white), undermining the validity of those identifying across or 
in-between one or more categories, or who refuse categorisation at all. 
Those identities not classified as valid consumer groups are not seen as 
valid identities at all.



For this special issue of Assuming Gender, we invite articles that focus 
specifically on the idea of ‘Consuming Gender’. How has consumer culture 
constructed (and how has it been constructed by) gender through the ages?



Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

·       Consuming gender/gendered consumption

·       Historical contexts of gendered consumption

·       Feminist/postfeminist approaches to consumption

·       Consumption and intersectionality

·       Queer consumption

·       Media constructions of (gendered) consumer identities

·       Post/colonialism and gendered consumption



Please send a proposal of roughly 500 words to Megen de Bruin-Molé, 
Akira Suwa and Daný van Dam at (gender /at/ cardiff.ac.uk) under the subject 
line ‘CFP Consuming Gender’, including your name, e-mail institutional 
affiliation (if any), and a biographical note (100 words maximum). We 
welcome papers from scholars of all backgrounds, disciplines, and career 
stages. The deadline for proposals is 16 October, 2016, and completed 
papers of 5000 to 8000 words will be expected no later than 16 April, 2017.



Assuming Gender is an electronic journal dedicated to the timely 
analysis of constructions of gendered texts, practices, and 
subjectivities. This journal seeks to continue and shift debates on how 
gender is problematized in contemporary discourses as well as 
participate in the dialogue and tensions that maintain the urgency of 
such conversations. Prior issues can be viewed on www.assuminggender.com.


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