Abstract
Purpose
The aim of the current study is to investigate how consumer performativity is enacted through embodiment transformation, based on the theoretical elaboration of the body in three dimensions, namely: resistance, utopia and desire.
Theoretical framework
Based on previous literature, the study proposes a theoretical framework when embodiment transformations – i.e., politics, pleasures, and affects – overlap through consumer performativity, evoking Foucauldian concepts to understand the dispositif sustained in a consumption ethos.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was conducted by investigating the cosplay practice based on the use of an ethnographic Foucauldian genealogy.
Findings
The results evidenced three consumption embodiments based on dispositifs circumscribed amidst pairs of body dimensions: redemption, related to politics; reward, regarding pleasure; and rapport, about affection.
Practical & social implications of research
Presumably, these representations are evidence of an attempt to improve the body that represents the best way to experience this consumption ethos, which is herein called the "avatar of the self": a governing meta-body used to mediate consumption experiences through performativities.
Originality/value
Avatar of the self is an interpretation of the theoretical generalization of phenomena of consumption embodiment through performativities.
Keywords:
Cosplay; consumption embodiment; performativity; ethnography; Foucauldian genealogy