Doing marketing differently: an artnography of cathartic consumption in trauma

This work illustrates what kinds of consumption emerge during a traumatic life event, theorising the interweaving of trauma and catharsis through the medium of art and craft consumption. The methodological context sits within a non-representational theory where the data are narrated through the purchases and findings, physical, emotional and cognitive engagement with art and craft materials, through to the eventual place, value and story of the made artefact itself. The work presents three main contributions: an empirical understanding of therapeutic art consumption within trauma; a methodological experiment in how using non-representational theory centred on creative processes can develop worthy modes of data collection, organisation, and analysis; and the theoretical development of a consumption framework towards a theory of cathartic consumption during trauma.