Therapeutic servicescapes and market-mediated performances of emotional suffering

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Higgins, Leighanne and Hamilton, Kathy (2019) Therapeutic servicescapes and market-mediated performances of emotional suffering. Journal of Consumer Research, 45 (6). pp. 1230-1253. ISSN 1537-5277 (https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucy046)

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Abstract

We introduce the concept of therapeutic servicescapes, defined as consumption settings where emplaced, market-mediated performances compensate for socio-cultural dilemmas. Our focus is on the localization of emotions which are emplaced in specific socio-spatial features and collectively reproduced through ritualized consumer performances. This ethnographic study of religious pilgrimage consumption reveals that the therapeutic servicescape comprises three features: evocative spaces, ideological homogeneity and restorative emotion scripts. These servicescape features catalyze the consumer rituals of therapeutic relations, therapeutic release and therapeutic renewal. Our theorization of therapeutic servicescapes offers three contributions. First, we reveal how emotions are socially and geographically orchestrated and transformed in marketplace settings. Second, we demonstrate how therapeutic ritual performances reproduce emplaced, market-mediated emotion and compensate for embodied emotional restrictions. Third, we demonstrate how the negotiation of emotional ordering guides the therapeutic dialogue between religion and the marketplace.

ORCID iDs

Higgins, Leighanne and Hamilton, Kathy ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5342-6166;
  • Item type:Article
    ID code:63957
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    30 April 2019
    Published
    11 May 2018
    Published Online
    26 April 2018
    Accepted
    Notes:This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Consumer Research following peer review. The version of record is available online at: https://academic.oup.com/jcr.
    Subjects:Social Sciences > Commerce > Marketing. Distribution of products
    Department:Strathclyde Business School > Marketing
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:08 May 2018 14:09
    Last modified:14 Jul 2025 00:16
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/63957
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