Gender Talk Series with Anna Fyrberg Yngfalk

This GEXcel seminar will take place on Zoom. If you wish to attend please contact Jennie Särnmark at jennie.sarnmark@kau.se. Please remember to register the latest by December 6th! The link will then be sent out the day before the seminar to the registered e-mail. 

Service with a Smile? The Diffusion of Consumer Violence through Mundane Service Consumption
Anna Fyrberg Yngfalk, Karlstad University

The present study analyses the occurrence of consumer violence towards retail service workers uncovered by the #metoo movement through the notion of consumer sovereignty. We critically analyse how mundane retail service interactions are framed by a consumer sovereignty discourse, that is a central tenet of contemporary neoliberal marketing, and how this generate power and gender imbalances through a reinforcement of the consumer and a reduction of the service worker.

Moreover, we illustrate how neoliberal market(ing) ideals create a conformable service worker subjectivity that upholds consumer supremacy even in destructive situations and how this arranges for a normalisation of consumer violence. We also highlight how the hegemonic nature of the customer discourse leads to an insensitivity to alternative, more equally orientated world views that could be drawn on for resistance and change.

Anna Fyrberg Yngfalk is an Associate Professor in Business Administration at CTF and Karlstad Business School, Karlstad University and affiliated researcher at Centre for Gender Studies at Karlstad University. Her research is in the area of critical marketing and she is interested in the politics of marketing, and most recently she is working with a project on consumer violence in the service/retail setting.