CØW Workshop, CBS 2nd December, 2024 Acceleration and deceleration in late-modern society: Consumers, consumption and their brands

In this workshop we will be focusing on social acceleration theory; this theory posits that humankind is being subjected to an ever‐increasing pace in the material, social, and cultural sphere (Rosa, 2013).

The accelerated passage of time can be experienced as productive (Scaraboto & Fischer, 2024) but also as stress, general anxiety, burnout (Santomauro et al., 2021) and alienation (Rosa, 2013). Consequently, the notion of deceleration has attracted researchers' attention as a consumption form to escape from this acceleration (Husemann and Eckhardt 2019)

We will be addressing the following questions:

How do consumers respond to the paradox between acceleration and deceleration? How do they reconcile these paradoxes (if at all)? How should we, as researchers, understand the nature of these consumer strategies and strategies of brands who position themselves in this new consumption field?

Scholars are participating from: CBS, King’s Business School, London, Bayes Business School, Lund University, University of Southern Denmark and other guests.