Abstract
This article aims to investigate how the practice of collaborative consumption, which privileges the "use" in detriment of "possessions" of goods, influences the construction, reconstruction and deconstruction of consumer identity. The practice of coworking was chosen as a means to conduct the research. The study was theoretically based on the themes: culture and consumption, collaborative consumption, coworking and identity. Using a qualitative, ethnographic methodology, the study focused on people who use coworking to work, and sought to identify and analyze aspects related to their consumption habits and identity traits. The study collected the data through participant observations and in-depth interviews, producing results that enabled the articulation with the CCT - Consumer Culture Theory. It was found that the collaborative consumption is part of the social and cultural universe of this group of consumers to the extent that, in addition to coworking, this is an environment that presupposes collaboration. The fact that they are working in this environment and living with other people in the same situation, makes this climate of collaboration extrapolate the walls of coworking and influence them in order to adopt other attitudes and collaborative habits, which shows a relationship between consumption and identity.
Highlights
Leads us to understand that people define themselves through their individual tastes and preferences
We will make a comparison exercise between the notes made in the field diary, the analyzes of the in-depth interviews and the secondary data collected over the six months of empirical research
To facilitate the reader's understanding, the discussions will be presented in sub-sections, distributed according to the categories: "Consumer Habits", "Consumer Identity", "Why Share", "Collaborative Consumption", "Coworking" and "Relationship Identity vs. collaborative consumption"
Summary
Leads us to understand that people define themselves through their individual tastes and preferences. By buying, we establish ourselves as "authentic" human beings and we trace our profile - which is continually transformed, since people vary their tastes and preferences Consistent with this thinking, Belk (1988) argues that our goods are the major contributor to the reflection of our identities and there is no longer how to understand consumer behavior unless we seek to understand the meanings that consumers give to their possessions. Other forms of provision different from the traditional movement of buying and selling goods (Barbosa & Campbell, 2006, p.25) One of these new "manifestations" of consumption and that is the object of analysis of this article is the collaborative consumption. A coworking office is usually characterized as a place where it is possible to rent a work table for a flexible period of time where entrepreneurs, freelancers, artists and researchers, among others, share the same working environment and have the possibility to create contact networks and share experiences and information (LEFORESTIER, 2009)
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