Connoisseurship consumption community and its dynamics.
| Autor | Quintao, Ronan Torres |
1 Introduction
Researchers in the consumer culture field have investigated many types of consumption communities. Schouten and McAlexander (1995) introduced the subculture of consumption as an "analytic category for understanding the objects and consumption patterns with which people define themselves in our culture" (p.44). Some subculture of consumption studies address specific brands (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001), such as Star Trek (Kozinets, 2001), Harley Davidson (Schouten & McAlexander, 1995), Apple (Muniz & Schau, 2014), or Macintosh (Belk & Tumbat, 2004) that link members. Others explain the characteristics of temporary communities (Arnould & Price, 1993; Belk & Costa, 1998; Kozinets, 2002a), geographic communities (Weinberger & Wallendorf, 2012), and heterogeneous communities (Thomas, Price, & Schau, 2013).
The characteristics of the connoisseurship consumption communities have been described by some of these researches in the consumer culture field; however no research has yet identified and explored the forces and tensions between the members of this serious leisure consumption community and its dynamics. What are the dynamics of the connoisseurship consumption community? What are the forces and tensions that drive this serious leisure consumption community? Drawing on Stebbins' system (1979), we will focus this analysis on the members of the specialty coffee consumption community: the baristas (Professionals), connoisseurs consumers (Amateurs), and regular consumers (Public), to understand the dynamics of the community. In taking a socio-cultural approach, we interpret our qualitative data on specialty coffee consumption by drawing on key concepts of serious leisure and consumption communities.
Prior consumer research has studied serious leisure consumption pursuits among climbers of Mount Everest (Tumbat & Belk, 2011), collectors (Belk, 1988), Star Trek aficionados (Kozinets, 2001), members of running clubs (Thomas et ah, 2013), mountain man rendezvous re-enactors (Belk & Costa, 1998), and do-it-yourself home improvers (Moisio, Arnould, & Gentry, 2013), and have addressed amateur consumer behavior (Belk, 1995; Karababa & Ger, 2011; Martin & Schouten, 2014). Less attention has been focused on the forces that drive the serious leisure consumption communities and connoisseurship communities.
The context of specialty coffee was chosen for study because it has several important features such for consumers' (anti-corporate) experiences of globalization (Thompson & Arsel, 2004), emotional branding, and doppelganger brand image (Thompson, Rindfleisch, & Arsel, 2006), hegemonic brandscapes (Thompson & Arsel, 2004), boycotts, and outsourcing of politics (Simon, 2011), Coffee culture and consumption have been studied in Japan (Grinshpun, 2013), and coffee's role in global consumer culture in Scandinavia (Kjeldgaard & Ostberg, 2007). Furthermore, specialty coffee allows for a variety of serious leisure pursuits, like professional specialization (baristas or other professionals who brew coffee), training (public coffee cupping courses, coffee tastings, coffee seminars), equipment acquisition (espresso machines, grinders, brewing equipment), competitions (world and regional barista championships, brewers cup championships, cup tasters championships), and consumption with different audiences (public, friends, family, coworkers).
On the basis of our qualitative study of connoisseurship consumption in the specialty coffee context, we develop a broader theoretical account that builds on the notion of consumption community. We argue that connoisseur consumers participate in the connoisseurship consumption community, which is described using Stebbins's (1979) P-A-P system--professional--amateur --public. This heterogeneous community (Thomas et al., 2013) is composed of outstanding baristas (professionals who prepare the coffee), connoisseurs (amateurs), and regular consumers (public). The forces that drive the community, as identified in this study, are the production of subcultural and social capital, emulation, and tensions between the members of the community regarding the subcultural and social capital acquired. In the next section, we review theory about connoisseurship consumption, serious leisure, and amateurs, define subculture of consumption and heterogeneous community, and describe the context of the research. After that, we present the methods used in our qualitative research, and describe our research findings. Finally, we discuss the results and consider future research.
2 Connoisseurship Consumption and Serious Leisure
Connoisseurship is expressed through consumption practices, even if the object itself is widely consumed, as in the case in the coffee context, or ignored by other consumers. Through connoisseurship, consumers produce a certain subjectivity (Holt, 1998). Connoisseurship means applying a highly nuanced schema in order to understand, evaluate, and appreciate consumption objects (Holt, 1998). According to netnographic research conducted by Kozinets (2002b) in the 1990s, coffee connoisseurship, taste refinement practices increased and were frequently taught on the online newsgroup that he followed. He notes that "Starbucks simultaneously raised the consciousness of coffee connoisseurship, the demand for coffee shops, the sales of coffee-flavored ice cream and cold drinks, and the market price of a cup of coffee" (2002b, p.66). Elliot (2006) reinforces Kozinets's findings. According to Elliot, "Starbucks distributes a twenty-two-page pocket-sized guide that provides thirty-eight key terms necessary to order coffee" (2006, p.233), distinguishing aromas and shades of taste and allowing connoisseurs to demonstrate their education. She also explains that coffee connoisseurs use "geography to illustrate both their knowledge and their taste preferences" and by ordering Sumatra, Kona, New Guinea Peaberry, Brazil Ipanema Bourbon, and the like, the coffee connoisseur "orders a place in a cup" (Elliott, 2006, p.233).
To develop their consumption practices, the members of connoisseurship consumption community engage in serious leisure pursuits. Leisure is an "uncoerced, contextually framed activity engaged in during free time, which people want to and, using their abilities and resources, actually do in either a satisfying or a fulfilling way (or both)" (Stebbins, 2012, p.4). Gelber (1999, p.7) points out three fundamental assumptions about the nature of leisure activities:
1) they take place in time that is free from work, which includes personal, familial, and home care activities necessary for life maintenance;
2) they are voluntarily undertaken; and 3) they are pleasurable. Gelber emphasizes, "Activities that are understood as work, including nonremunerated labor such as family care or schoolwork, no matter how pleasurable, are not leisure" (1999, p.7). For many consumers, leisure is a way to find personal fulfillment, identity enhancement, self-expression, and the like, and leisure becomes an opportunity to improve their own work (Stebbins, 1982). Seeking to adopt those forms of leisure that will yield the greatest payoff, connoisseur consumers "reach this goal through engaging in serious rather than casual or unserious leisure" (Stebbins, 1982, p. 253).
Participants involved in serious leisure identify strongly with their chosen pursuits, and they invest significant personal effort based on special knowledge, training, or skills, and sometimes all three. Some of them tend to have careers in the areas of their serious leisure endeavors, becoming professionals (Stebbins, 2007). Serious leisure practitioners "are not dependent on whatever remuneration they derive from it" and "they are freer than breadwinners to renounce their leisure," but they are usually "more obliged to engage in their pursuits than are their unserious counterparts" (Stebbins, 1982, p.255). According to Stebbins (2007), amateurs, such as hobbyists and volunteers, participate in one type of serious leisure. They pursue an activity chosen because of its strong appeal (Stebbins, 1982). They refuse to remain a "player, dabbler, or novice at this leisure, searching for durable benefits, transforming the activity into an avocation in which the participant is motivated by seriousness and commitment" (Stebbins, 1982, p.258).
Connoisseur connoisseurs are nevertheless amateurs (Ahuvia, 2005; Holt, 1998; Kozinets, 2002b). But even for amateurs, there is always a public that can be composed of friends, relatives, neighbors, or other amateurs engaged in the same activity. The public learns by "interacting with the work and, frequently, with other people in relation to the work" (Becker, 1982, p.64). Amateurs are oriented "by standards of excellence set and communicated by those professionals" (Stebbins, 1982, p. 259). In the P-A-P system, the term "amateur" can be used only with activities that constitute, for some, a professional work role. There have always been professionals, but what is new is the rise of the amateur (Hennion, 2004, p. 142). Professionals often enjoy a great deal of respect, not only because of their high "subcultural capital" (Thornton, 1996), but also from their role in defining and creating it. What used to be just a hobby now has become a pseudoprofession. When professionalization occurs (see Larson, 1977), "those who retained their serious, albeit part-time, commitment to the activity were gradually transformed into amateurs" (Stebbins, 1982, p.263). However, amateurs cannot perform the activities as outstanding professionals in their fields do (Stebbins, 1979). Becker (1982) confirms this in the art world, explaining that amateurs do not know all the things that wellskilled professionals know. The Stebbins' P-A-P system is based on rituals (Rook, 1985) performed in a way that strengthens the connections between the system's participants helping to build a connoisseurship consumption community.
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