Reverse Stigma in the Freegan Community

Document Type

Article

Department or Administrative Unit

Management

Publication Date

9-2014

Abstract

Freegans are anti-consumers who sustain themselves through dumpster diving and the consumption of disposed goods. Mainstream consumers consider Freeganism dirty and tainted—a stigma. Through a qualitative investigation of Freeganism and its practitioners, this research contributes a multi-dimensional framework of reverse stigma. The framework explicates the mechanisms by which stigmatized individuals re-direct stigma onto normative culture. Specifically, these mechanisms are ideological reversal, practice reversal, and resource reversal. While past research emphasizes defensive, self-directed stigma management strategies, this research shows that some communities adopt offensive, others-directed strategies to reject their stigmatized status and redirect the stigma to normative others.

Comments

This article was originally published in Journal of Business Research. The full-text article from the publisher can be found here.

Due to copyright restrictions, this article is not available for free download through ScholarWorks @ CWU.

Journal

Journal of Business Research

Rights

Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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