Abstract
Drawing from the way the artist Piet Mondrian constructs objects in his paintings, we offer an epistemology for consumer research based on a five-step process for constructing the object of research. We show how the five steps fit with both existential phenomenology and the context of context approach. We also contribute to the current epistemological debate in consumer research showing commonalities between these two paradigms, often considered antagonistic due to their different unit of analysis. Finally, we encourage the shift towards art in consumer research, by studying artists to rethink the relationship between researchers and their objects of research.
But the interrogation of painting in any case looks toward this secret and feverish genesis of things in our body. (Merleau-Ponty, 2002: 30)
Introduction
The above quotation refers to the painter’s return to things as they experience them. The return to things, as theorized by Merleau-Ponty and the phenomenology movement, is not specific to art. In fact, it has influenced consumer research deeply, especially the ‘humanistic/experientialist discourse’ that flourished since the 1980s to counter the positivist paradigm (Thompson et al., 2013: 156). Existential phenomenology, characterized by the quest for a first-person description of personal lived worlds, gives primacy to individual experiences, meanings and identity projects (Thompson, 1996; Thompson et al., 1989, 1990).
Yet, as some authors expressed concern that the existential-phenomenological lens was too micro-individual, they called for transcending the individual level of analysis (e.g. Askegaard and Linnet, 2011; Firat in Bradshaw and Dholakia, 2011; Moisander and Valtonen, 2006; Moisander et al., 2009). Among these calls, Askegaard and Linnet (2011) built on the work of Morin to argue for an epistemology that would focus on the context of context, in this case ‘divisions of the societal class, historical and global processes, cultural values and norms’ (Askegaard and Linnet, 2011: 396).
In this article, we suggest that neither phenomenology nor the context of context approach can be reduced to their units of analysis. Instead, we argue for commonalities between these two non-positivist paradigms. Such commonalities may be grounded in the way both paradigms consider the relationship between researchers and their object of research 1 (Bourdieu et al., 1991).
In order to further investigate the relationship between researchers and their object of research, we suggest drawing on the relationship between painters and the object they paint. In doing so, we choose to follow the piece of epistemological advice Merleau-Ponty gave the researchers: to draw their inspiration from painters, so as to curb a tendency to treat the object of research ‘as though it were an object-in-general, as though it meant nothing to [them]’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2002: 9). In other words, we put into practice the claim by Merleau-Ponty (2002) that researchers should learn from artists a way to ground themselves and their object of research, in order to forgo once and for all the vagabond, artificial, positivist endeavour.
We build our rationale on the paintings of Piet Mondrian, shedding light on five guiding principles in the way he constructed objects in his artwork. We then transpose these principles as a five-step process for constructing the object of research. We finally show how these five steps fit with both phenomenology and the context of context approach, thus finding commonalities between apparently antagonistic paradigms (Nemeth, 1994, 2007; Tadajewski, 2010, 2012).
Our contribution is threefold. First, we contribute to the current epistemological debate in consumer research, transcending the unit of analysis issue. Furthermore, we add to previous attempts at drawing commonalities between apparently antagonistic paradigms, by reconciling phenomenology and the context of context approach. Finally, we contribute to the art turn in consumer research through our idea to learn from the way artists relate to their objects, in order to rethink our own relationship with our objects of research. Thus, we decisively break away from the positivist paradigm as we draw up an epistemology for consumer research.
Our first part introduces existential phenomenology, the ‘context of context’ approach and the artistic turn in consumer research. This is followed by an explanation of the method we used to interpret artwork by Mondrian. Finally, we list five interpretation outlooks on the way Mondrian constructs objects in his artworks, and transpose them into a five-step process for constructing the object of research. We underline how every step fits with both phenomenology and the context of context approach.
Can the paradigms of existential phenomenology and the context of context approach be reconciled?
Existential phenomenology has given rise to a substantial body of research focused on the individual meanings of consumer experience. Yet, Askegaard and Linnet (2011) recently called for transcending the micro-individual level of analysis by taking into account the context of context. After a short overview of these two paradigms, we justify the use of art to draw out commonalities.
Existential phenomenology: Philosophical foundations and its applications in consumer research
The phenomenological approach was introduced in the field of consumer research in the late 1980s to counter the dominance of logical empiricism (Thompson et al., 1989). This new paradigm broke with positivist attempts to express the social world as a set of rules in mathematical language. Existential phenomenology, applied to consumer research, strives for a first-person description of personal lived worlds and gives primacy to individual perspectives (Thompson, 1996; Thompson et al., 1989, 2013). The conceptual categories of researchers are therefore second to the experiential categories of consumers (Thompson et al., 1990). Instead of trying to explain the behaviour of consumers as disembodied ‘black boxes’, existential phenomenology considers them as empowered persons endowed with agency, whose behaviours should be understood.
Such a paradigm is rooted in a particular philosophical tradition, grounded in the return to things as they are (Husserl, 1992). To turn back to things means to focus on the way they exist in the conscience and reality of individuals, holding on to knowledge structures that stem from the individual construction of reality (Biemel, 2009). Taken as an injunction, it breaks down the partition between the interiority of conscience and the exteriority of the world (Romano, 2010). In other words, phenomenology argues that the body is a living hub where the self and the world meet (Küpers, 2013). The individual is caught in the fabric of the world, and the world is made of the very stuff of the body (Merleau-Ponty, 2002).
In the field of consumer research, existential phenomenology has contributed to the emergence and structuration of the ‘humanistic/experientialist discourse’ (Thompson et al., 2013: 152). Such a paradigm offered a fresh perspective on consumers’ behaviour, shedding light on its meaning and experience in relation to subjects such as animal companions (Hirschman, 1994), compulsive behaviour (Hirschman, 1992; O’Guinn and Faber, 1989), paradoxes of possession (Mick and Fournier, 1998), gift giving (Mick and Demoss, 1990), fashion discourses (Murray, 2002; Thompson and Haytko, 1997), plastic surgery (Schouten, 1991) and desire (Belk et al., 2003). Inquest into the worldview of consumers is supported by data collection through phenomenological interviews, a particularly relevant methodology in its non-directive, non-judgmental, complete and comprehensive aspects (Bergadaà, 1990; Hirschman, 1992, 1994; Schouten, 1991).
Although phenomenological papers did not ignore the structuring influence of macrosocial systems (see Thompson et al., 2013), many researchers have called for transcending the micro-individual unit of analysis (e.g. Askegaard and Linnet, 2011; Firat in Bradshaw and Dholakia, 2011; Moisander and Valtonen, 2006; Moisander et al., 2009). To do so, Askegaard and Linnet (2011) suggest focusing on the context of context.
The context of context approach: Sociological foundations and recent advocacy
Askegaard and Linnet (2011) denounced what they perceived as an overly agentic approach in most phenomenological papers. Excessive attention to the psychological context could come at the expense of the macrosocial contexts in which individual experience is embedded (Askegaard and Linnet, 2011; Earley, 2014).
Their denunciation is rooted in a yet older tradition in consumer research, embodied in the pioneering works of Levy (1981) and McCracken (1986) that introduced structuralism. The movement of sociocultural analysis has also claimed to focus on how consumers were embedded in wider contexts (Allen, 2002; Sherry, 1990). Critical studies have elaborated their research agenda through an attempt to combine historical, cultural, sociological and political influences on consumer behaviour (Denzin, 2001; Murray and Ozanne, 1991). The cultural approach has promoted culture, defined as a system of representations, as the unit of analysis and had aimed at investigating how cultural discourses and discursive practices influence one another (Moisander and Valtonen, 2006). Finally, historical analysis has advocated the necessity to bring a dynamic dimension into consumer research and to show the evolution of consumers’ taste, desires and behaviour (Dickson, 2000; Lavin, 1995).
Despite these previous calls, Askegaard and Linnet (2011: 381) call out a lack of papers that would clearly show the ‘structuring influence of market-based and social systems, which is not necessarily felt or experienced by consumers in their daily lives’. They advocate a contextualization beyond consumer experience, based on Morin’s concept of complexity. Morin argues for complex thought as an alternative to blind intelligence, as the latter tends to ‘destroy wholes and totalities’ and ‘isolate objects from their environment’ (Morin, 2005: 19). He states that there can be but vain attempts to understand the whole without the parts, and vice versa (Morin, 1990). In a dialogical approach, the best way to transcend the holistic and reductionist aporias is to understand local singularities while acknowledging integrative wholes (Morin, 1990).
Although the context of context approach seems, at first glance, opposed to the individual-centric phenomenology, we postulate that these are not antagonistic paradigms. We suggest looking into art to highlight their commonalities.
Offering an integrative, anti-positivist epistemology for consumer research through art
In the early 1980s, Hirschman and Holbrook called for more attention to the consumption of art (Hirschman and Holbrook, 1981). This seminal call lead to an agenda extension in interpretive consumer research, opening up to the study of consumer aesthetics and hedonistic consumption (Holbrook, 1980; Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982). From that point on, two different ways of conceiving the relation between art and research have structured the field (Bode, 2010).
One movement assumes that art and research are two complementary entities (Belk, 1986). Following Bode (2010), three main focuses characterize this stream of research. The first one deals with artworks, cultural objects and the whole market system as data to increase our understanding of phenomena related to consumption and marketing (Hirschman, 1987; Holbrook and Grayson, 1986; Schroeder, 2006; Visconti et al., 2010). This is exemplified by the study of pop art to increase our knowledge of materialism (Schroeder, 1992), and the careers of famous artists to extend our knowledge of personal branding (Hewer et al., 2013; Kerrigan et al., 2011; Muñiz et al., 2014; Schroeder, 2005). The second focus highlights consumers’ aesthetic experience and aims at understanding the singularity of such experience (e.g. Carù and Cova, 2006; Charters, 2006; Joy, 2000; Joy and Sherry, 2003). The third focus is on cultural production and aestheticization processes in a postmodern society. It sheds light on the aesthetic dimensions both of consumers and of mundane objects (Featherstone, 1990; Venkatesh and Meamber, 2006).
The second movement is led by researchers assuming frontiers between arts and marketing are blurred (Brown and Patterson, 2000). Indeed, there may be such commonalities between artistic and marketing creativity that marketing could be considered an art form like any other (Fillis, 2000). Thus, marketing papers should be evaluated based on aesthetic criteria (Brown, 1996). Bode (2010) goes further to promote a conceptualization of the art–science nexus based on the idea of performance as an act of ‘showing doing’ (Bode, 2010: 139). Finally, some authors advocate art – especially poetry – as the final product of research, given the specificity of poetic speech with regards to scientific language (Schouten, 1999; Sherry, 2008; Sherry and Schouten, 2002).
We suggest there might be a third way to perceive this shift towards art in consumer research. Following Merleau-Ponty, we claim that consumer researchers could learn from artists to break away from a positivist tendency to manipulate their object of research ‘as though it were an object-in-general, as though it meant nothing to [them]’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2002: 9). Indeed, consumer research may learn from arts how to ground upon things themselves and also to ground upon itself, in accordance with phenomenology. We turned to Mondrian to look closer at the relationship between artists and their object.
Interpreting productions by Mondrian
In this section, we justify building our research on the works of Mondrian, and go on to introduce the methodology used to interpret data, before closing on a brief description of the evolution of Mondrian’s style.
The choice of Mondrian
The first author experienced a powerful aesthetic encounter through observation of the museum-owned artworks of Mondrian. This reaction was based on the commonalities between the way Mondrian constructs pictorial objects and the way researchers construct their object of research. After that, she decided to go further carrying out an interpretive analysis of Mondrian’s paintings. Her approach would be supported by leading thinkers of the two paradigms this article tries to reconcile. Indeed, Merleau-Ponty built on his experience of artworks by Paul Cezanne to refine his theory of vision and think about the subject–object relation (Leconte, 2007; Merleau-Ponty, 1979, 2002). As for Morin, he saw in Michel Kirch’s photographs a ‘call for meditating on the mysteries of human condition and its integration into the Universe’ (Morin, 2011).
Besides, Mondrian joined the Theosophical Society in 1909 and was deeply influenced by its ideas (Lemoine, 1987). Theosophy advocates a unifying thought that promotes analogies between sciences and arts against an ‘epistemè that get the universe of its correspondences’ (Faivre, 1993:12). The paintings by Mondrian, thus infused with the theosophical claim of arts and sciences entanglement, seem particularly relevant to carry out our epistemological rationale.
Finally, there are many biographical data about life and work of Mondrian. Such data were useful to contextualize our inquiry of his artwork (Fillis, 2003; Kerrigan et al., 2011). In addition, Mondrian is one of the rare artists to have written texts throughout his life, thus providing useful data to confront our interpretations with.
A hermeneutic, phenomenological interpretation of paintings by Mondrian
We carried out a four-step hermeneutic phenomenological analysis of paintings by Mondrian. The first author started by analysing 47 reproductions in the Taschen book dedicated to Mondrian, a reference work. Reproduction size was the only criterion: All images that took up half a page or more were selected, in order to guarantee quality and visibility for the paintings. The selected paintings include works of art spanning the whole career of the artist. The first author concentrated single mindedly on the way Mondrian constructs objects in his paintings. Her interpretation followed an iterative dialectical process between individual paintings and the compendium as a whole, creating a continuous revision circle to cross-validate and strengthen interpretation (Holbrook et al., 1982; Thompson et al., 1990). The hermeneutic circle was mostly used to interpret discursive data. However, Ricoeur (1981) argues that all meaningful activities may be used as relevant text for this type of interpretation, de facto including works of art (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982). After an idiographic interpretation of every painting, patterns common to all artworks were identified (Thompson et al., 1989). Although the emotions from studying reproduced artwork were weaker than the author’s aesthetic experience in a museum, the book offered a useful overview of paintings by Mondrian, allowing convenient comings and goings between the 47 images of our corpus.
At a later stage, the second author took in the 47 paintings and themes identified by the first author. Following the hermeneutical group method developed by Thompson et al. (1989), the second author questioned the first author’s interpretations on three aspects: Do I share her interpretations? Do the patterns she found fit the 47 paintings? Are there themes she did not notice? The second author questioned the themes identified by the first author to strengthen validity in interpretation.
Both authors also consulted published writings by Mondrian throughout his life, gathered in two books published in 2011 on the occasion of the ‘Mondrian/De Stijl’ exhibition at Centre Pompidou. In order to overcome the issue of over-absorption in context, they focused on Mondrian’s pictorial way of constructing the object (Arnould et al., 2006; Fillis, 2007). They triangulated discursive data with pictorial data to refine the interpretive themes.
Finally, the two authors looked for additional voices to widen the hermeneutical circle. They called on others to challenge their own interpretation: an artist, a philosopher specialized in the issue of abstraction, and three students in art history. They also read eight additional books written by art critics, curators and friends of Mondrian about the life and work of the artist (see Table A1 in Appendix 1). Widening the hermeneutic circle allowed to show the commonly held meanings of the paintings (Hirschman, 1980). It does not mean that the authors were looking for universally shared interpretive themes. Rather, they wanted to distance themselves from their personal categories of thought, projections and preferences to avoid egocentric interpretations. At the end of the four-step analysis, five themes were identified to characterize the way Mondrian constructs objects in his paintings.
The evolution of Mondrian’s style
Mondrian’s first paintings were figurative. They often represented trees, mills and church fronts (Jaffé, 1987). In 1908, he distanced himself from the natural aspect of his favourite patterns by opting for non-realistic colours. This twist on observable nature evolved in 1912, when Mondrian moved to Paris and encountered the Cubists, from whom he drew his inspiration. In 1914, Mondrian outgrew cubism and moved further into abstraction. From 1915 to 1920, Mondrian painted squares layouts, sometimes dark, sometimes light, sometimes close and sometimes floating on a white background. By the early 1920s, Mondrian had gone deep into abstraction, creating Compositions of coloured rectangles separated by dark lines ‘that refuse[d] to stop where the canvas ends’ (Arnheim, 1986: 293). For two decades, Mondrian painted Compositions, varying the size and colour of rectangles as well as the thickness of the lines (Lemoine, 1987). In 1940, Mondrian moved to New York City and moved beyond the neoplastic rules he himself had drawn 20 years prior. Dark lines were first replaced by coloured ones, then lost their uniformity and became alignments of coloured squares.
Constructing the object: From Mondrian to consumer researchers
Five themes were identified to characterize the way Mondrian constructs objects in his paintings. After a presentation of every theme, we transpose them into a five-step process for constructing the object of research.
The pictorial construction of objects in artwork by Mondrian
Tearing the object apart
Even in his figurative paintings, Mondrian distances himself from mimesis (Aristotle, 2013). Such distance is evidenced by his choice of colours: blue foliage, red sky and red water. His use of lines further evidences the distortion of natural observations. Lines do not act as delimitations of natural outlines but rather make the structure of the object visible (see figure 1).
Flowering Appletree (1912), Collection of the Gemeentemuseum of Den Haag.
Fragmentation of the natural object is the root of a personal artistic approach that Mondrian christened the ‘New Plastic’: ‘It [the new plastic] annihilates the apparition of tangible reality and every expression where naturalness dominates’ (Mondrian, 2010b: 66). The artist uses colour and lines in such a way as to tear off the natural skin of objects, as noted the philosopher we talked with about Mondrian’s trees:
It’s like a purge that only keeps the lines of force, those dramatic tensions that make a tree stand up and come to us. Such a construction and such a tension between horizontality and verticality generate the figure of the ‘tree’.
This artistic act of Mondrian’s undoes his mundane relationship with an object before he reinvents it.
Establishing a unique relationship with the object
The artwork of Mondrian does not show objects the way we immediately and mundanely perceive them. Rather, it shows objects the way the artist understands and inhabits them, thus revealing ‘the deepest interiorization of the exterior and the purest exteriorization of the interior’ (Mondrian, 2010a: 39) (see figure 2).
Composition Tree 2 (1912–13), Collection of the Gemeentemuseum of Den Haag.
The abstract paintings also hold traces of the artist’s comprehension of an object, ‘Mondrian seems to believe that trying to perceive the world objectively wouldn’t make sense. Rather, he shows the world he perceives through the filter of his subjectivity, of his humanity’ (first author’s notes). Mondrian himself advocates the un-dissociable nature of the object and the painter, ‘In art, the human being cannot be forgotten and it is its relationship with “what exists,” not simply “what exists,” that creates art’ (Mondrian, 2010b). Mondrian evidences in his work that the object cannot be painted from a distanced, external point of view.
Evidencing relationships
Relationships are at the core of Mondrian’s paintings. Relationships between colours, between dimensions and between positions create a well-balanced unity. As noticed by one of the art history students and the philosopher we talked to: – While I am looking at the painting, it is constructing as a strong architecture. And the colours … The blue advances towards me as the red draws back, and so it is balanced. Nothing strays one way or another because all the dark lines are balanced as well. You could say of it that … – It holds itself together.
Composition with large red plane, yellow, black, grey and blue (1921), Collection of the Gemeentemuseum of Den Haag.
Mondrian claims that every element can only exist in the exchange with others: Yes, all things are parts of a whole: every part receives visual value from the whole and the whole receives it from its parts. Everything is made from relation and reciprocity. […] If by considering the object as a thing in itself we separate it from the whole, we lose its oppositions: we do not see the relation anymore, but only colour and shape. By observing a colour, a shape, we believe we know them, but, at the same time, the limitations of closed isolated colour depth just give the measure our limited knowledge. (Mondrian, 2010c: 10–11)
Synthesizing the changing and the unchanging
The figurative and abstract paintings of Mondrian present a synthesis of the changing and unchanging aspects of the object, as perceived by the artist. One work might show both the unique character of a particular tree and the common aspects of all trees as conceived by Mondrian, ‘I am looking at Landscape with Trees. These singular trees contain all the trees, precisely because their singularity is shown’ (first author’s notes) (see figure 4).
Landscape with Trees (1912), Collection of the Gemeentemuseum of Den Haag.
Mondrian theorizes his approach to synthesis, ‘The New Plastic tries to express the changing and the unchanging at the same time, and balanced’ (Mondrian, 2010d: 195). The paintings of Mondrian fall within the scope of a comparative, dialogical approach. Each is a system that expresses the unique and the constant aspects of observed objects. Each one is both a separate and the whole.
Being contexts embedded
The way Mondrian constructs objects is shaped by the artistic, social, cultural, geographical and historical contexts in which the paintings were created.
The Compositions created from 1920s to the early 1940s were influenced by the Dutch origins of the painter and his place in the De Stijl movement: The Dutch masons always had a reputation for imaginative utilization of brick. There is surely more than a mere coincidence here. The rectilinear division of the surface by the use of brick is a purely Dutch phenomenon, whose plastic possibilities Mondrian, and the rest of the De Stijl group, grasped. (Seuphor, 1956: 152)
Another obvious example is the radical shift Mondrian took in the early 1940s when he moved to NYC (see figure 5):
What happened to justify such an important step? A painter had changed continents: only that. What might have seemed right on one side of the ocean was no longer so on the other one. First, the black bars became brighter, and then they rocketed off in bursts, signaling Mondrian’s Victory and giving the unfinished, but complete, canvas the accents of a sublime symphony drenched in idealism and vibrant with youth. (Seuphor, 1956: 184)
Victory Boogie-Woogie (1942), Collection of the Gemeentemuseum of Den Haag.
Five themes emerged through the analysis of paintings by Mondrian, related to the construction of objects. We suggest, building on these themes, a five-step process for constructing the object of research.
A five-step process for constructing the object of research
Questioning one’s mundane relationship to the object of research
The first step, of tearing the natural object apart, consists in questioning one’s mundane relationship with the object or research. The aim of this process is to shed light on the immediate knowledge (Canguilhem, 1957), previous knowledge (Bachelard, 1968) and prenotions (Durkheim, 1982) that unconsciously shape the object as perceived by the researcher. This reflexive task is performed to explore how researchers’ paradigmatic and ideological orientations frame the “phenomenon” (Thompson et al., 1998: 115). It can also be the result of a research, as evidenced by Kjeldgaard and Askegaard (2006) who tear apart the natural object of ‘youth culture’ by revealing it as a marketer-built ideology and by Stern (1996) whose deconstructive reading of the Joe Camel campaign argues for a systematic, ‘fruitful clash of alternative points of view’ vis-à-vis the objects of research (Stern, 1996: 145).
The leading thinkers of both phenomenology and the context of context paradigms advocate questioning one’s mundane relation to the world. Indeed, Husserl made use of the concept of épochè referring to bracketing one’s prejudices about the world, with the aim to depart from a naïve natural attitude of unquestioned beliefs about the object of research: In this state of conscious reflection, the world, in a way, remains within my reach. (…) It still appears to me like it always appeared; but, in this state of reflection specific to my being a philosopher, I hold myself from the belief, inherent in my existence, that what I naturally experience is true. (…) I am not, either, re-affirming myself nor taking position: such acts as are naturally, necessarily taken in the irreflexive and naïve attitude of mundane living. I hold myself from them precisely because such attitudes presuppose the world and are therefore infused with an existential belief in the world. (Husserl, 1992: 44–45) It is first at the level of stereotypes that critical examination and free discussion perform a corrosive action; when the dialogic goes deeper, corrosion reaches the doctrines. Should it go further and become more intense, the problematizing process reaches the nexus of doctrines and may lead to question the occult and supreme power of paradigms. (Morin, 1995: 31)
Reclaiming one’s non-exteriority towards the object of research
The second step, of establishing a unique relationship with the object of research, consists in refuting one’s exteriority towards said object and reclaiming one’s impact on the data. The crisis of representation that happened in the 1990s highlighted how vain were researchers’ attempts to convey objective facts (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994; Stern, 1996). The researcher is neither external nor a neutral observer (Cova et al., 2013; Denzin, 2001; Thompson et al., 1989) Rather, they are a human being in constant interaction with others through observations and interviews, which leads to co-produced data (Bode, 2010). The researcher creates a singular relationship with the object of research and co-produces the facts they talk about in their papers (Firat and Venkatesh, 1995).
The leading thinkers of both phenomenology and the context of context paradigm also see as impossible the quest for a neutral, distant outlook on the object of research. Indeed, Merleau-Ponty (2002) defends non-exteriority to the world. He sees us as inside the world rather than suspended above it, ‘I do not see [space] according to its exterior envelope; I live it from the inside; I am immersed in it. After all, the world is around me, not in front of me’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2002: 59).
Morin shares this point of view. He postulates that complex thought depends on the acknowledgment that we, as researchers, directly participate in conceiving the object of study. ‘We are co-producers of the object that we know; we cooperate with the external world and it is precisely this co-production that grants objectivity to the object. We are co-producers of objectivity’ (Morin, 2005: 147).
Adopting a relational perspective rather than a substantial one
The third step, of evidencing relationships, consists in following a relational rather than substantial approach of the object of research (Bourdieu, 1996; Fournier, 1998). Instead of considering each individual behaviour in and for itself, we choose to evidence how the environment that individuals live in shape their behaviour and meaning structures. These environments can be microsocial (e.g. family: Epp and Price, 2008; Foxman et al., 1989; Palan and Wilkes, 1997), mesosocial (e.g. brand communities: McAlexander et al., 2002; Muñiz and O’Guinn, 2001; Muñiz and Schau, 2005; Schouten and McAlexander, 1995) and macrosocial (e.g. historical, societal, cultural and political contexts: Dholakia, 2012; Kristensen, Askegaard and Jeppesen, 2013; Maclaran, 2012). The shift in approach stresses that interactions between subjects, objects and the world collectively build individual actions and their meanings (Borgerson, 2014). The researcher connects actions, spheres of meaning and social spaces, thereby claiming that the existence of objects in individual conscience is eminently social (Earley, 2014).
The leading thinkers of both phenomenology and the context of context paradigm advocate non-dissociation between individuals and their environments on the microsocial, mesosocial and macrosocial scales. Indeed, Merleau-Ponty advocates adopting a relational instead of a substantial approach of the object of research. His concept of lifeworld theorizes the concomitance of individuals and their environment: The world is inseparable from the subject, but from a subject which is nothing but a project of the world; and the subject is inseparable from the world, but from a world that it itself projects. The subject is being-in-the-world and remains ‘subjective’ since its texture and its articulations are sketched out by the subject’s movement of transcendence. (Merleau-Ponty, 2002: 454)
Dialectic between the specific and the general
The fourth step, of synthesizing the changing and the unchanging, consists in thinking in terms of dialectic movement between the general and the specific. Comparing particular cases sheds light on their commonalities. This dialectic movement between the general and the specific may happen through highlighting structures of common differences (Kjeldgaard and Askegaard, 2006; Thompson and Arsel, 2004; Wilk, 1995) or through finding phenomenological themes (Thompson et al., 1990).
The leading thinkers of both phenomenology and the context of context paradigm claim a dialectic between the general and the specific. Indeed, for Schütz, the goal of research is to build types from a compendium of singular behaviours: Social sciences do not build thought objects that refer to unique acts performed during unique situations by unique individuals. Using methodological tools […], the social scientist replaces common-sense objects that refer to unique ones, while constructing a type of a piece of the social world, inside which only typified events happen. (Schütz, 2008: 44)
Becoming aware of one’s embeddedness in institutional contexts and thought collectives
The fifth step, of being embedded in macrosocial contexts, tackles the involvement of the researcher in institutional contexts. It increases awareness of the fact that researchers perform their tasks by the means of thought collectives (Fleck, 1986). Their social and political environments influence the theories they produce (Tadajewski, 2012). Even research programs are historical and contingent (Bode and Ostergaard, 2013). In turn, marketers play an ethical and political role in society by their use of the theories they build as researchers (Denzin, 2001; Sherry, 2000) and by the visual representations they create as practitioners (Borgerson and Schroeder, 2002). This is why the object of research should be constructed in a reflexive way, with, on the part of the researcher, constant awareness of the contexts in which they are embedded (Cova et al., 2013).
The leading thinkers of both phenomenology and the context of context paradigm claim a reflexive approach towards one’s embeddedness in institutional and social contexts. Indeed, Merleau-Ponty states that scientific proposals cannot be separated from the historical context in which they were formulated. ‘In actual facts, historical consciousness urges us to revise our view of the relation between mind and object. […] If history shrouds us, we must understand that truths cannot be attained against historical inherence but rather through it’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1960: 137).
Morin himself is of the idea that scientific proposals are embedded in the sociocultural contexts that shape them. Ideas emerge depending on the social, historical and institutional conditions in which researchers live. ‘Ideas, especially abstractions, are born from minds shaped in character and form by socio-cultural conditions, just like products and like knowledge instruments’ (Morin, 1995: 105).
Table 1 summarizes the steps of pictorial object construction by Mondrian and our process for constructing the object of research.
Constructing the object, from Mondrian to consumer researcher.
Conclusion
In this article, we offered an integrative epistemology for consumer research that goes beyond the unit of analysis debate between the upholders of both phenomenology and the context of context approach. We focused on the relation between researchers and their object of research, in order to shed light on a common nexus in both anti-positivist paradigms. Learning from Mondrian, we drew up a five-step process for constructing the object of research that falls within the scope of both paradigms.
Our contribution is threefold. First, we offer a practical epistemology for consumer research that goes beyond the unit of analysis issue undermining current epistemological debate in the field. Furthermore, we evidence commonalities between phenomenology and the context of context approach, thus reconciling paradigms often considered as antagonistic. Finally, we contribute to the artistic turn in consumer research through our idea to learn from the way artists relate to their objects, in order to rethink our own relationship with our objects of research. We invite consumer researchers to follow Merleau-Ponty’s advice too and to draw on other artists and types of arts to build epistemological rationales, leaving thereby positivism for good.
Footnotes
Appendix 1
Books used as sources for the analysis.
| Deicher Susanne (1995), Piet Mondrian, 1972–1944: Construction sur le vide, Paris: Taschen. |
| Jaffé Hans (1987), Piet Mondrian, Gennevilliers: Asmandi. |
| Kunstmuseum Basel (2013), Piet Mondrian – Barnett Newman – Dan Flavin, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz. |
| Leal Brigitte (2010), Mondrian, Paris: Editions du Centre Pompidou. |
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Acknowledgement
The authors deeply thank the editor and the three anonymous reviewers for their encouraging and constructive comments. They also thank the Mondrian Trust and The Gemeentemuseum of Den Haag for allowing the reproduction of paintings. Finally, they warmly thank Laura S. Hermann and Camille Villet for their bright suggestions and help for translation.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.