Cultures of Unruly Bricolage: ‘Debadging ’ and the Cultural Logic of Resistance

Arnould and Thompson note that the “marketplace has be-come a pre-eminent source of mythic and symbolic resources through which [people] construct narratives of identity ” (2005: 871). Not only do consumers “actively rework and transform symbolic meanings ” (ibid: 871), but in everyday practices they use “marketplace cultures [to] define their symbolic boundaries through an ongoing opposition to dominant lifestyle norms and mainstream consumer sensibilities (ibid: 874). The paper examines identity work done with cherished possessions, in this case cars. By means of a netnography we focus on everyday practices where consumers rework brand identity towards their local identity projects