Isabelle Szmigin
Biographic Data
| ID | 125353 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Isabelle Szmigin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Isabelle |
| FAMILY NAME | Szmigin |
| SIGNATURE | SZMIGIN I |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Birmingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1804-3888 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 210 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 22 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The Porous Sheath and Everyday Fashion Sharing
This study examines everyday fashion sharing through the lens of Erving Goffman’s concept of the sheath. Drawing upon 40 qualitative interviews, we extend the concept generatively, beyond its egocentric function as a personal bodily territory encasing the body, by establishing its social, utilitarian and hedonic functions in the social order of everyday fashion sharing. These functions enable consumers to express, strengthen, explore and perform …
Understanding Individual Voluntary Giving as a Practice
This research examines individual voluntary giving as an integrative practice. Our research speaks to the new funding challenges traversing the British arts sector. Historically reliant on government funds, increasingly regional non-profit arts organisations must diversify their income sources and target a range of voluntary givers. By drawing on practice theories and interpretive qualitative data, we illuminate how giving understandings, procedu…
Socio-spatial authenticity at co-created music festivals
From the early days of hippie counter-culture, music festivals have been an important part of the British summer. Today they are commercialised offerings without the counter-cultural discourse of earlier times. Drawing on participant observation, interviews and focus groups conducted at a rock festival and a smaller boutique festival, the paper examines how their design, organisation and management are co-created with participants to produce auth…
Man Thou Art Dust
In response to recent calls for further cross-disciplinary research on austerity and a deeper sociological understanding of the impact and aftermath of the economic crisis on individuals and societies, this article builds on extant austerity literature through an exploration of its effects on European men. Informed by theories of liminality and rites of passage, this qualitative investigation examines the experience of austerity from the perspect…
We achieve the impossible’
In this article, we explore the notion of freedom as a form of governance within contemporary consumer culture in a sphere where ‘freedom’ appears as a key component: outdoor music-based leisure events, notably music festivals and free parties. ‘Freedom’ is commodified as central to the marketing of many music festivals, which now form a highly commercialised sector of the UK leisure industry, subject to various regulatory restrictions. Free part…
Sociological Ambivalence and Funeral Consumption
This article builds on Hillcoat-Nallétamby and Phillips' (2011) conceptualization of sociological ambivalence within the relational framework to examine a particular consumption practice, the funeral. We develop understanding of social, cultural and relational issues that arise from the experience associated with funeral-arranging. This is not a voluntary behaviour but one engaged with through force of circumstance and which involves commercial a…
Exploring Women's Retirement
This paper reports on an exploratory study examining women's views about and experiences of retirement. It has long been recognized that women's careers often follow a different path than men's due to the differential impact of family and domestic responsibilities and their relative underrepresentation at higher levels of organizations. However, many studies of retirement have implicitly assumed a conventional male career as the norm, where retir…
Inhabiting the contradictions
This paper contributes to debates on post-feminism and the constitution of contemporary femininity via an exploration of young women’s alcohol consumption and their involvement in normative drinking cultures. We view femininity as a profoundly contradictory and dilemmatic space which appears almost impossible for girls or young women to inhabit. The juxtaposition of hyper-sexual femininity and the culture of intoxication produces a particularly d…
Acculturation and identity
This paper presents a research study examining the acculturation and identity of second‐generation Indian Punjabis. It focuses on how they balance their lives between two cultures and reflects on the nature of second‐generation integration in light of cultural context, situational factors, ethnicity and consumption, presenting the conflicts and tensions experienced by participants. The paper reviews existing propositions with regard to acculturat…
Students and the Consumer Credit Market
The rise in access to complex consumer credit arrangements has taken place against a backdrop of a call for increased individual responsibility. Consumers are required to behave in a way which recognizes both their rights and responsibilities. But how much responsibility should they be expected to shoulder in critical areas of complex choice? Students represent a particular group of novice, sometimes vulnerable and often targeted consumers, who m…
Living production-engaged alternatives
In this study we draw on varied theoretical perspectives to explore and gain an alternative understanding of consumption at New Consumption Communities (NCCs). Intrinsic to the notion of NCCs is a sense of community between production-engaged consumers who question market practices deemed inadequate or unfair. Reported findings are part of a three-year ethnographic research project and suggest that such communities have been overly perceived as p…
Every Time I Do It I Absolutely Annihilate Myself
Young people's alcohol consumption has been the focus of heightened concern over 'binge drinking' in social policy, academic research and popular culture. A normalized culture of intoxication is now central to many young people's social lives, playing an important role in the night-time economy of towns and cities across the UK. In this article we draw on the findings of a study on the significance of alcohol consumption in the everyday lives of …
Re-framing ‘binge drinking’ as calculated hedonism
Communities and consumption
Caring for the community
Purpose The symbolic and social roles of waste are explored through a small sample of UK and Brazilian consumers from urban and rural communities. These findings are relevant in highlighting the importance of considering socio‐cultural differences in waste policies. Design/methodology/approach Following an ontologically realist and epistemologically interpretive perspective on waste a series of semi‐structured interviews was conducted in English …
Managing routine food choices in UK families
Empowerment, waste and new consumption communities
Purpose This paper aims to explore the diverse and complementary resistance and waste‐reduction practices adopted by UK‐based New Consumption Communities, and whether such behaviours empower them to achieve their environmental and social goals. Design/methodology/approach The methodology can be broadly classified as critical ethnography, which acknowledges the researcher's own subjectivity, how the informants are treated and represented, and the …
Understanding the Consumer
Uniting marketing theory and practice in a consumer-centric approach, this book challenges the lip service usually paid to this concept and demonstrates that a fundamental understanding of the consumer is critical to the future of effective marketing
Leisure and Tourism Services and the Older Innovator
In the light of changing demographics this article seeks to identify whether 'older' consumers are innovative in their consumption behaviour. A domain specific scale is used among up-market consumers for leisure and tourism services. This scale has been extensively applied to consumers to identify predisposition towards innovative behaviour for specific products and services. A postal survey identified 'older' consumers as having a relatively hig…
The Spectrum of ( Explacit ) Knowledges in Firms and Nations
Advertising in an ageing society
Age discrimination is one of the last forms of discrimination yet to be tackled by legislation. Despite the call of the United Nations for older people to be treated fairly, regardless of age, many industries still overtly discriminate against them. The advertising industry is a particular offender, either ignoring older people altogether or presenting them in caricatures or negative stereotypes. The authors suggest that regulation or legislation…
Adaption-Innovation and Domain-Specific Innovativeness
Reported is a study of the relationship between a global measure of adaption-innovation (Kirton's Adaption-Innovation Inventory) and a domain-specific measure of consumers' innovativeness (Goldsmith and Hofacker's Domain Specific Innovativeness Scale). For a convenience sample of 26 adult consumers there was, as expected, no significant correlation between scores on the two scales
Inhabiting the contradictions
This paper contributes to debates on post-feminism and the constitution of contemporary femininity via an exploration of young women’s alcohol consumption and their involvement in normative drinking cultures. We view femininity as a profoundly contradictory and dilemmatic space which appears almost impossible for girls or young women to inhabit. The juxtaposition of hyper-sexual femininity and the culture of intoxication produces a particularly d…
Every Time I Do It I Absolutely Annihilate Myself
Young people's alcohol consumption has been the focus of heightened concern over 'binge drinking' in social policy, academic research and popular culture. A normalized culture of intoxication is now central to many young people's social lives, playing an important role in the night-time economy of towns and cities across the UK. In this article we draw on the findings of a study on the significance of alcohol consumption in the everyday lives of …
Managing routine food choices in UK families
Socio-spatial authenticity at co-created music festivals
From the early days of hippie counter-culture, music festivals have been an important part of the British summer. Today they are commercialised offerings without the counter-cultural discourse of earlier times. Drawing on participant observation, interviews and focus groups conducted at a rock festival and a smaller boutique festival, the paper examines how their design, organisation and management are co-created with participants to produce auth…
Living production-engaged alternatives
In this study we draw on varied theoretical perspectives to explore and gain an alternative understanding of consumption at New Consumption Communities (NCCs). Intrinsic to the notion of NCCs is a sense of community between production-engaged consumers who question market practices deemed inadequate or unfair. Reported findings are part of a three-year ethnographic research project and suggest that such communities have been overly perceived as p…
Advertising in an ageing society
Age discrimination is one of the last forms of discrimination yet to be tackled by legislation. Despite the call of the United Nations for older people to be treated fairly, regardless of age, many industries still overtly discriminate against them. The advertising industry is a particular offender, either ignoring older people altogether or presenting them in caricatures or negative stereotypes. The authors suggest that regulation or legislation…
Exploring Women's Retirement
This paper reports on an exploratory study examining women's views about and experiences of retirement. It has long been recognized that women's careers often follow a different path than men's due to the differential impact of family and domestic responsibilities and their relative underrepresentation at higher levels of organizations. However, many studies of retirement have implicitly assumed a conventional male career as the norm, where retir…
We achieve the impossible’
In this article, we explore the notion of freedom as a form of governance within contemporary consumer culture in a sphere where ‘freedom’ appears as a key component: outdoor music-based leisure events, notably music festivals and free parties. ‘Freedom’ is commodified as central to the marketing of many music festivals, which now form a highly commercialised sector of the UK leisure industry, subject to various regulatory restrictions. Free part…
Sociological Ambivalence and Funeral Consumption
This article builds on Hillcoat-Nallétamby and Phillips' (2011) conceptualization of sociological ambivalence within the relational framework to examine a particular consumption practice, the funeral. We develop understanding of social, cultural and relational issues that arise from the experience associated with funeral-arranging. This is not a voluntary behaviour but one engaged with through force of circumstance and which involves commercial a…
Acculturation and identity
This paper presents a research study examining the acculturation and identity of second‐generation Indian Punjabis. It focuses on how they balance their lives between two cultures and reflects on the nature of second‐generation integration in light of cultural context, situational factors, ethnicity and consumption, presenting the conflicts and tensions experienced by participants. The paper reviews existing propositions with regard to acculturat…
Students and the Consumer Credit Market
The rise in access to complex consumer credit arrangements has taken place against a backdrop of a call for increased individual responsibility. Consumers are required to behave in a way which recognizes both their rights and responsibilities. But how much responsibility should they be expected to shoulder in critical areas of complex choice? Students represent a particular group of novice, sometimes vulnerable and often targeted consumers, who m…
Understanding Individual Voluntary Giving as a Practice
This research examines individual voluntary giving as an integrative practice. Our research speaks to the new funding challenges traversing the British arts sector. Historically reliant on government funds, increasingly regional non-profit arts organisations must diversify their income sources and target a range of voluntary givers. By drawing on practice theories and interpretive qualitative data, we illuminate how giving understandings, procedu…
Man Thou Art Dust
In response to recent calls for further cross-disciplinary research on austerity and a deeper sociological understanding of the impact and aftermath of the economic crisis on individuals and societies, this article builds on extant austerity literature through an exploration of its effects on European men. Informed by theories of liminality and rites of passage, this qualitative investigation examines the experience of austerity from the perspect…
Empowerment, waste and new consumption communities
Purpose This paper aims to explore the diverse and complementary resistance and waste‐reduction practices adopted by UK‐based New Consumption Communities, and whether such behaviours empower them to achieve their environmental and social goals. Design/methodology/approach The methodology can be broadly classified as critical ethnography, which acknowledges the researcher's own subjectivity, how the informants are treated and represented, and the …
Adaption-Innovation and Domain-Specific Innovativeness
Reported is a study of the relationship between a global measure of adaption-innovation (Kirton's Adaption-Innovation Inventory) and a domain-specific measure of consumers' innovativeness (Goldsmith and Hofacker's Domain Specific Innovativeness Scale). For a convenience sample of 26 adult consumers there was, as expected, no significant correlation between scores on the two scales
The Spectrum of ( Explacit ) Knowledges in Firms and Nations
Advertising in an ageing society
Age discrimination is one of the last forms of discrimination yet to be tackled by legislation. Despite the call of the United Nations for older people to be treated fairly, regardless of age, many industries still overtly discriminate against them. The advertising industry is a particular offender, either ignoring older people altogether or presenting them in caricatures or negative stereotypes. The authors suggest that regulation or legislation…
Leisure and Tourism Services and the Older Innovator
In the light of changing demographics this article seeks to identify whether 'older' consumers are innovative in their consumption behaviour. A domain specific scale is used among up-market consumers for leisure and tourism services. This scale has been extensively applied to consumers to identify predisposition towards innovative behaviour for specific products and services. A postal survey identified 'older' consumers as having a relatively hig…
Understanding the Consumer
Uniting marketing theory and practice in a consumer-centric approach, this book challenges the lip service usually paid to this concept and demonstrates that a fundamental understanding of the consumer is critical to the future of effective marketing
Managing routine food choices in UK families
Empowerment, waste and new consumption communities
Purpose This paper aims to explore the diverse and complementary resistance and waste‐reduction practices adopted by UK‐based New Consumption Communities, and whether such behaviours empower them to achieve their environmental and social goals. Design/methodology/approach The methodology can be broadly classified as critical ethnography, which acknowledges the researcher's own subjectivity, how the informants are treated and represented, and the …
Communities and consumption
Caring for the community
Purpose The symbolic and social roles of waste are explored through a small sample of UK and Brazilian consumers from urban and rural communities. These findings are relevant in highlighting the importance of considering socio‐cultural differences in waste policies. Design/methodology/approach Following an ontologically realist and epistemologically interpretive perspective on waste a series of semi‐structured interviews was conducted in English …
Re-framing ‘binge drinking’ as calculated hedonism
Every Time I Do It I Absolutely Annihilate Myself
Young people's alcohol consumption has been the focus of heightened concern over 'binge drinking' in social policy, academic research and popular culture. A normalized culture of intoxication is now central to many young people's social lives, playing an important role in the night-time economy of towns and cities across the UK. In this article we draw on the findings of a study on the significance of alcohol consumption in the everyday lives of …
Students and the Consumer Credit Market
The rise in access to complex consumer credit arrangements has taken place against a backdrop of a call for increased individual responsibility. Consumers are required to behave in a way which recognizes both their rights and responsibilities. But how much responsibility should they be expected to shoulder in critical areas of complex choice? Students represent a particular group of novice, sometimes vulnerable and often targeted consumers, who m…
Living production-engaged alternatives
In this study we draw on varied theoretical perspectives to explore and gain an alternative understanding of consumption at New Consumption Communities (NCCs). Intrinsic to the notion of NCCs is a sense of community between production-engaged consumers who question market practices deemed inadequate or unfair. Reported findings are part of a three-year ethnographic research project and suggest that such communities have been overly perceived as p…
Acculturation and identity
This paper presents a research study examining the acculturation and identity of second‐generation Indian Punjabis. It focuses on how they balance their lives between two cultures and reflects on the nature of second‐generation integration in light of cultural context, situational factors, ethnicity and consumption, presenting the conflicts and tensions experienced by participants. The paper reviews existing propositions with regard to acculturat…
Inhabiting the contradictions
This paper contributes to debates on post-feminism and the constitution of contemporary femininity via an exploration of young women’s alcohol consumption and their involvement in normative drinking cultures. We view femininity as a profoundly contradictory and dilemmatic space which appears almost impossible for girls or young women to inhabit. The juxtaposition of hyper-sexual femininity and the culture of intoxication produces a particularly d…
Exploring Women's Retirement
This paper reports on an exploratory study examining women's views about and experiences of retirement. It has long been recognized that women's careers often follow a different path than men's due to the differential impact of family and domestic responsibilities and their relative underrepresentation at higher levels of organizations. However, many studies of retirement have implicitly assumed a conventional male career as the norm, where retir…
Sociological Ambivalence and Funeral Consumption
This article builds on Hillcoat-Nallétamby and Phillips' (2011) conceptualization of sociological ambivalence within the relational framework to examine a particular consumption practice, the funeral. We develop understanding of social, cultural and relational issues that arise from the experience associated with funeral-arranging. This is not a voluntary behaviour but one engaged with through force of circumstance and which involves commercial a…
We achieve the impossible’
In this article, we explore the notion of freedom as a form of governance within contemporary consumer culture in a sphere where ‘freedom’ appears as a key component: outdoor music-based leisure events, notably music festivals and free parties. ‘Freedom’ is commodified as central to the marketing of many music festivals, which now form a highly commercialised sector of the UK leisure industry, subject to various regulatory restrictions. Free part…
Socio-spatial authenticity at co-created music festivals
From the early days of hippie counter-culture, music festivals have been an important part of the British summer. Today they are commercialised offerings without the counter-cultural discourse of earlier times. Drawing on participant observation, interviews and focus groups conducted at a rock festival and a smaller boutique festival, the paper examines how their design, organisation and management are co-created with participants to produce auth…
Man Thou Art Dust
In response to recent calls for further cross-disciplinary research on austerity and a deeper sociological understanding of the impact and aftermath of the economic crisis on individuals and societies, this article builds on extant austerity literature through an exploration of its effects on European men. Informed by theories of liminality and rites of passage, this qualitative investigation examines the experience of austerity from the perspect…
Understanding Individual Voluntary Giving as a Practice
This research examines individual voluntary giving as an integrative practice. Our research speaks to the new funding challenges traversing the British arts sector. Historically reliant on government funds, increasingly regional non-profit arts organisations must diversify their income sources and target a range of voluntary givers. By drawing on practice theories and interpretive qualitative data, we illuminate how giving understandings, procedu…
The Porous Sheath and Everyday Fashion Sharing
This study examines everyday fashion sharing through the lens of Erving Goffman’s concept of the sheath. Drawing upon 40 qualitative interviews, we extend the concept generatively, beyond its egocentric function as a personal bodily territory encasing the body, by establishing its social, utilitarian and hedonic functions in the social order of everyday fashion sharing. These functions enable consumers to express, strengthen, explore and perform …
Sociology (16 works) · Political science (14 works) · Social science (11 works) · Business (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Economics (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Consumption (sociology (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Cultural Industries and Urban Development (5 works)