The Embodiment of Consumer Knowledge

Abstract An investigation into the embodiment of consumer knowledge is presented, drawing on ethnomethodology and allied field conversation analysis. Analyzing video recordings 189 service encounters at ticket desk an art gallery, study explores knowledge, how witnessable from quotidian details customers’ embodied conduct, they talk, move their bodies, gesture, handle objects, cast gaze. Consumer shown to be socially organized, with social considerations informing what customer should know, faulty assertions claims treated. In way firms approach article describes might create or undermine interactive value. This breaks new ground by demonstrating that relevant for understanding actions consumers, not only as a result cognitive processes but also it embodied.