The 'New Mothers' project: an international partnership to investigate new approaches to consumer resistance
Published 23 January 2008
Dr Emma Banister and Professor Margaret Hogg, of the Department of Marketing, were awarded research funding from the Agence National de Recherche (the French government funding body equivalent to the ESRC in the UK) as part of an international team. The Principal Investigator was Professor Dominique Roux (Paris XII) and she led a group of French, Italian and British academics on a research programme entitled ‘Consumer resistance: a proposal for multi-level and cross-cultural approaches of an emerging phenomenon’.
Dr Mandy Dixon was the Research Associate on the project. Mandy has a background in social science research, both in the NHS and in South Africa where her work as a social anthropologist involved recruiting and interviewing women about the socio-cultural contexts of their pregnancies. As a mother herself, she has been actively involved in local organizations for new mothers and has a wide network of contacts in this area. She has a longstanding interest in women’s health and motherhood.
Project summary
The UK research study examined women’s experiences and consumption decisions during the transition from ‘mother-to-be’ to being new mothers. Becoming a mother is a crucial moment in women’s lives when women are faced with learning a new role, and making a number of choices about the kind of mother they wish to be (ideal self) or that they do not want to be (undesired self). In this situation, the choice of consumption vs. non-consumption of experiences, products, services or brands are powerful indicators of how they negotiate their ways around a whole set of expectations about what constitutes a ‘good mother’. Margaret presented some of the initial findings from the project at the French Marketing Association (l’AFM) conference in Paris in May 2008.
Margaret said: “By talking to women before and after the birth of their first baby we hoped to elicit their changing views of themselves as mothers, and thus shed light on the self-determination processes of consumers through the articulation of their systems of choice versus resistance. This might include things like attitudes to birth, breastfeeding and immunization in addition to more obviously consumer items such as disposable or recyclable nappies which encompass a range of debates about sustainability, green consumer behaviour and environmentalism. By exploring how women’s choices and avoidances are a powerful lever for autonomy in their individual or social roles, this research cast new light on resistance phenomena.”
Study update
Data collection is now complete. Nearly fifty first time expectant mums were interviewed, first in late pregnancy and again at three months post-partum. We were keen to include a diverse range of women in the research and were very grateful for the invaluable help we received from the local NHS community in recruiting many of our younger participants. Analysis is ongoing; and we are currently preparing a series of papers for presentation and publication.
