PhD student Jannsen Santana received a best paper award for his research aiming to understand unsustainable consumption rituals in collective experiences, and potentially re-design them towards more sustainable alternatives.

Jannsen Santana, who is currently doing a thesis under the supervision of professor Olivier Badot as well as a postdoctoral researcher at emlyon business school’s Lifestyle Research Center, was rewarded for his paper entitled Head in the clouds, and waste all-around: unsustainable consumer rituals in collective spiritual experiences, which he presented at the Theorising Consumer Culture V: Doing Consumption Differently joint event between The University of Queensland Business School and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and starts with this observation: “The environmental impact of spiritual experiences has been noticed, for instance, in the spiritual offerings that contribute to the pollution of the River Ganges in India or in the incredible amount of 100 million plastic water bottles dumped by in Mecca’s main pilgrimage.”

This research symposium was the fifth in the annual Theorising Consumer Culture series, and its aim was to encourage participants to develop new approaches to understanding consumption in developing/emergent economies. “We shared great ideas on how to do consumption differently,” Jannsen Santana adds. “I’m so honored and grateful for all the feedback and exchange we had.”

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