Research Assumptions and Positioning

In this section, we will explain the basic assumptions that need to be addressed during the research process. For this purpose, we use the framework suggested by Hudson and Ozanne (1988). We highlight our main assumptions from an ontological, epistemological and axiological standpoint, and further support our choice of the interpretive paradigm.

- Ontological Assumptions

From an ontological perspective, we see reality as unknown, since we cannot directly reach it. We evaluate it as relative, and portray it in the mind as a phenomenon (Perret &

Séville, 2007). We perceive it as mentally constructed based on individual members’

perceptions. We consider our ontology as relativist, meaning that it includes multiple realities that are built in an individual manner. The assumption here is that the social gathering under scrutiny is cocreated by its members. Multiple realities will be considered that will strive to incorporate various members’ perspectives. This implies that the nature of knowledge

produced will depend on the nature of the multiple realities that will be uncovered. It will also depend on the nature of the relationship between the individual, the identified stigma and the selected community.

We perceive these realities as bound by social and cultural constraints. They are constantly changing and cannot lead to a single reality (Shankar & Goulding, 2001). We consider that our context of the online community and the contemporary cultural context shape the reality that we are uncovering and is critical in understanding consumer behavior.

This means that if we were to answer the same research questions, for example in the context of a face to face community, or in a developing cultural context we would get different results. Hence, the context not only shapes reality, but is also critical in understanding the studied behavior. Our objective is to achieve a holistic view of the underlying stigma and the community. This implies that we will consider all the perspectives that can be captured (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988).

We also perceive reality as being a relative meaning, and that it cannot be separated from the observer. This infers that the object depends on the subject and that our results will vary depending on the researcher that is analyzing the data. These assumptions confirm our choice of the interpretivist paradigm. Here, we are far from the positivist view that assumes that there is a unique objective reality independent of individual perceptions. This

fundamental belief is taken for granted and considered as unproved or improvable (Lincoln &

Guba, 1985). Positivists also perceive the social world as having a fixed structure. According to this perspective, reality can be divided and measured. This means that positivism suggests a different subject/object relationship that results in a different view of the social world, than the one we are striving to achieve through this research.

When it comes to the nature of social beings, we perceive people as active creators that interact with the objective to construct their environment and create meaning. They are motivated by their inner drive (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988). They do not see the world as determined, but intentional because anything can happen (Le Moigne, 1994; Perret & Séville, 2007). We see our informants as proactive people that choose to become members of the consumption community. Their participation to community interactions is a proof of their voluntary behavior. We do not line up with the positivists who believe individual behavior to be determined and reactive.

- Axiological Assumptions

Our objective in this research is to understand stigma and communal participation from an insider perspective (Outhwaite, 2005). We see this understanding as a never ending

process that constantly evolves based on our ongoing investigation of the underlying community. We follow Shankar and Goulding’s (2001) recommendation to understand the meaning of the phenomenon. We strive to grasp the common meanings/Verstehen inside the culture or context. “The interpretive researcher’s goal is not the “truth” because it can never be proven, rather their goal is a hermeneutic understanding or verstehen” (Shankar &

Goulding, 2001, p. 2). Verstehen implies that the researcher seeks to understand the individual’s “lived experience” (C. J Thompson, Locander, & Pollio, 1989, p. 139). This means that Holistic understanding can be reached through understanding the relationship between common meanings and individual ones, and through achieving an insider view of the community.

In the present research, we seek to understand the experience of stigma within a communal context. The objective is neither technical nor emancipatory; rather it is a communicative and practical one (Ozanne & Saatcioglu, 2008). As discussed previously in the literature review, stigma is socially constructed and is relationship and context dependant (Goffman, 1963). It constitutes a deviance from the social norms, and sanctions of the

underlying social settings. Since our objective is to discover how stigma operates in the social context, we need a subjective position that is in line with interpretivism. The objective here is to grasp the meaning that community participants give to reality. Our objective does not fall in a positivist approach. Here, we do not seek to explain, and hence predict behavior. This implies that we will not be relating the variables that explain the phenomena. Understanding is our main objective (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988).

- Epistemological Assumptions

These revolve around the knowledge generated, the perception of causality and the relationship between the researcher and the project. In the present research, we are seeking for knowledge that is specific to members’ participation to the community and their experience of stigma in the French context. This is in line with interpretivism that seeks knowledge that is particular to the invested context (McGregor & Murnane, 2010). Our findings will not be valid for other cultural or social settings. Here we are investigating VLR. This means that our results pertains specifically to the stigma of being overweight and to the VLR community. We will give a special attention to the particularities of the situation. We assume that the

knowledge we generate will be idiographic. It is only applicable to this specific community

within the actual time frame and is not necessarily generalizable to other communities or across time.

During data collection, we will strive to catch all the details of members’ interactions (Hirschman, 1985). This is what Geertz (1973) terms “thick description”. The result is

thorough knowledge that is usually only generalizable within the context and not outside of it (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988). We will not seek to get an objective reality nor nomothetic statements that will be applicable to all communal contexts. Our view is in line with the interpretivist position and far from the positivist one. In fact, for positivists the knowledge generated needs to be generalizable and applicable to unlimited situations.

For this research we believe that separating the cause from the effect is unfeasible since the stigma experience for withdrawers is elaborate and evolving. It is made of entities that influence one another. We perceive reality as holistic, and believe that dividing it means altering it. We will not look for the causes that precede effects of stigma, nor the ones that precede community membership. Our perspective is that of multiple and simultaneous entities that shape the process of stigma, its outcomes and community participation. Positivists view that human behavior is preceded by a cause, will not help us uncover these elements. They believe that in order to be able to explain and predict it, causal associations need to be identified (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988).

For this work, we will strive to get thorough stigma accounts. This implies that we will have a high level of involvement and cooperation with the community. we will seek to gain an insider status of the community. This stance is necessary to get a deep understanding of the community. Seeing the researcher as a privileged truth holder, like the positivist do, will not enable to achieve the thorough understanding needed here. Here, we are siding with the interpretivists who believe that there is an interaction between the researcher and the informants, and that the research result is a cooperative effort (Perret & Séville, 2007). The researcher is considered as a part of the social situation under scrutiny and has no higher status than the informants. Throughout the investigation, the scholar moves from the spectator position and becomes part of the research (Bergadaà & Nyeck, 1992).

Positivists believe that the researcher is separate from the subject and that one does not influence the other. We believe that here, understanding cannot happen without the personal involvement of the researcher within the community. Yet, in order to overcome the bias that our personal background may bring, we will be self-reflexive. We will aim to identify our

prior knowledge and experiences and reflect on how they may impact our research outcomes.

According to Denzin and Lincoln (2005, p. 6) “the interpretive bricoleur understands that research in an interactive process shaped by his or her own personal history, biography, gender, social class, race and ethnicity, and by those of the people in the setting.”

- Positioning this Research

Our research is part of the Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) research field. After several scattered efforts to use interpretivism in consumer research, the paper of Arnould and

Thompson (2005) in 2005 labeled this filed as the Consumer Culture Theory. They defined it as a consumer research subfield that focuses on consumption from its socio-cultural,

experiential, symbolic and ideological aspect. It studies consumers using macro, interpretive and critical approaches. This has been followed by the creation of an annual conference since 2010 and the journal of “Consumption, Markets and Culture”. For more information about CCT please refer to the website: consumerculturetheory.org.

This work enriches previous efforts within the CCT field to study “marketplace cultures”

(Arnould & Thompson, 2005). We share the view with the consumer culture theory field that engaging in consumption activities within a community context involves social processes that entail for example notions of, power relations, social status negotiations, reframing of norms and enhances collective identity formation. We believe that understanding the underlying communal social processes are key to grasping how the community contributes in distancing consumers from the stigma of being overweight.

This work also falls within the transformative consumer research movement that emerged from the association of consumer research (Mari, 2008; Mick, Pettigrew, Pechmann, &

Ozanne, 2011; Ozanne & Dobscha, 2006). David Mick started this subfield in 2005 (Mick, 2006). Its objective is to support research that improves consumer well-being and hinders the negative aspects of consumption. The desire to find ways to alleviate stigmatization has been within our axiology since the beginning of the project. The stigma of overweight is

exacerbated by marketing effort that encourage eating more, consuming diet products and established thinness as a beauty ideal. It was important for us to distance ourselves from consumer research streams that contribute to the proliferation of these messages. We wanted to inscribe ourself within a purposeful consumer research approach whose objective is to find ways to improve the stigmatized’s well being and alleviate the harm that our research field is

contributing to. Hence we have participated with this project to two of the biannual TCR conferences with our topic. The first participation resulted in a collective paper about food and health moralities (Askegaard et al., 2014) which was published in the Journal of Marketing Management. The second participation resulted in a paper conceptualizing marketplace stigma (Mirabito et al., 2016) which was published in the Journal of public policy and marketing.