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What makes a good paper?
Analytic and Continental ideals in
consumer culture theory
Domen Bajde
University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark, and
Ahir Gopaldas
Fordham University, New York City, New York, USA
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to illuminate the characteristics of Analytic and Continental scholarship to
generate a deeper appreciation for both writing styles in the consumerculture theory (CCT) community.
Design/methodology/approach –Two CCT researchers discuss the merits of Analytic and Continental
scholarship in an accessible dialogical format.
Findings –Analytic ideals of scholarship, espoused by eliteacademicjournals, include conceptual
rigor, logical claims, theoretical coherence, researcher agnosticism and broad generalizability.
Continental ideals of scholarship, more likely to be espoused by niche and/or critical journals, include
creative writing, holistic interpretation, intellectual imagination, political provocation and deep
contextualization.
Originality/value –This dialogue may build more understanding across variously oriented scholars,
literatures, and journals in the CCT community.
Keywords Interpretive consumer research, Philosophy of science, Consumer culture theory,
Analytic philosophy, Continental philosophy
Paper type Technical paper
As a multidisciplinary field of research, consumer culture theory (CCT) has a long tradition
of epistemological debates (Belk et al., 2012;Thompson et al., 2013). CCT scholars have
vigorously debated the merits of different research paradigms (Brown, 2001;Hudson and
Ozanne, 1988), data collection methods (Belk, 2007;Goulding, 2005) and interpretive
orientations (Arnold and Fischer, 1994;Spiggle, 1994). However, until recently, too little
attention has been paid to the articulation or writing of CCT knowledge (Brown, 2004),
especially in the form of peer-reviewed journal articles (Figueiredo et al.,2017;Fischer et al.,
2017;Gopaldas, 2016;Hogg and Maclaran, 2008).
In the following dialogue, two CCT researchers discuss a crude but enduring distinction
between Analytic and Continental styles of knowledge articulation from early twentieth
century debates in the discipline of philosophy (Blattner, 2017;Brogaard and Leiter, 2011;
Gutting, 2012;Jones, 2009;Levy, 2003;Table I). The Analytic-Continental distinction serves as
a useful device for understanding epistemological tensions in the CCT community’s
approaches to crafting manuscripts. Analytic ideals of scholarship, espoused by elite academic
journals, include conceptual rigor, logical claims, theoretical coherence, researcher agnosticism
and broad generalizability. Continental ideals of scholarship, more likely to be espoused by
niche and/or critical journals, include creative writing, holistic interpretation, intellectual
imagination, political provocation and deep contextualization.
QMR
22,3
270
Received 18 July2017
Accepted 21 December2017
Qualitative Market Research: An
International Journal
Vol. 22 No. 3, 2019
pp. 270-277
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1352-2752
DOI 10.1108/QMR-07-2017-0112
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1352-2752.htm
This dialogue emerged from a qualitative research workshop hosted by Pilar Rojas Gaviria
and Daiane Scaraboto at the School of Administration at the Pontifical Catholic University
of Chile in Santiago in early 2017. Domen Bajde is an Associate Professor of Consumption,
Culture and Commerce in the Department of Marketing and Management at the University
of Southern Denmark in Odense. Ahir Gopaldas is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at
the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University in New York City.
Domen Bajde: Hi Ahir, I’ve recently read your tutorials on how to craft manuscripts for
publication (Figueiredo et al., 2017;Fischer et al.,2017;Gopaldas, 2016). While I find them
quite helpful for publishing in top American journals, I’m also somewhat troubled by them.
Ahir Gopaldas: Thanks, Domen. What’s troubling you?
Bajde: Well, they all seem very analytic.
Gopaldas: Hmm, why is that a problem?
Bajde: It is not necessarily a problem, but I feel that you are advancing a very particular
style of scholarship, without being attentive to alternative possibilities.
Gopaldas: What alternatives do you have in mind?
Bajde: When I said analytic, I was referring to the classic distinction in philosophy between
Analytic and Continental ideals. My colleague, Søren Askegaard, and I believe that this
Table I.
Comparison of
analytic and
continental ideals
Dimension The analytic tradition The continental tradition
Core ideals Emphasis on abstraction, agnosticism,
clarity, coherence, consistency,
generalizability, parsimony, precision,
reason, rigor, science and systematicity
Emphasis on creativity, critique, depth,
experience, history, holism, imagination,
metaphor, originality, phenomenology, politics
and transcendence
Writing
styles
Convergent, disciplined, and sometimes dry
writing styles, inspired by logic and the
sciences
Divergent, playful, and sometimes convoluted
writing styles, inspired by the arts and
humanities
Theoretical
aims
Analysis; developing precise definitions of
key concepts and linking these concepts
with logical claims based on data and
theory
Synthesis; developing critical, holistic, and
imaginative analyses of contemporary social
issues and linking them to interrelated issues
Logics of
progress
Each empirical study makes a novel but
additive contribution to a widely
established theoretical puzzle embedded in
a communally shared research paradigm
Each grand theorist aspires to articulate a
radically original interpretation of the world,
with few presuppositions, sometimes invoking
the ideas of other grand theorists
Use of
contexts
Using real-world sites as contexts for the
development and clarification of
generalizable theories
Examining real-world sites for their inherent
significance and engaging with the politics of
those contexts
Critiques Continental thinkers view Analytic
scholarship as formulaic, lifeless,
mechanistic, overgeneralized, rigid,
soulless, stifling, and uncritical
Analytic thinkers view Continental scholarship
as descriptive, esoteric, fanciful, overreaching,
self-indulgent, sloppy, speculative, and
unsystematic
Notes: The contents of this table are inspired by the dialogue reported here as well as prior commentaries
on Analytic and Continental ideals in philosophy (Blattner, 2017; Brogaard and Leiter 2011; Gutting, 2012;
Jones, 2009;Levy, 2003)
What makes a
good paper?
271
historic philosophical distinction could serve as a good framework for distinguishing
between styles of interpretive consumer research as well.
Gopaldas: Analytic with a capital A, I’m with you now.
Bajde: Yes. The Analytic tradition is famous for its devotion to building a coherent set of
concepts, or building a conceptual lingua franca, so to speak. In essence, the Analytic
tradition is all about analyzing concepts.
Gopaldas: Right, and the Continental tradition has a more literary, holistic and often
metaphorical way of discussing things. Continental writing also tends to be more political in
the sense of wanting to expose, critique or alter the status quo, is that right?
Bajde: Yes. Of course, there is no clear line between the two, and they cannot be neatly tied
to a particular geographical region, but the Continental approach does seem to fare better in
Continental Europe, while the Analytic approach has been more influential in North
America. Then again, thegeographies are becoming increasingly porous andcomplex [...]
Gopaldas: For sure, but the Analytic and Continental labels still hover over contemporary
debates in philosophy, so let’s stick with the distinction. Would it be fair to say that Analytic
genres of philosophy are more influenced by logic, mathematics and the natural sciences,
while Continental genres are more aligned with the fine arts, literature and the humanities?
Bajde:Definitely. And the tension between the two styles of scholarship is felt not just in
philosophy, or interpretive consumer research, but across the social sciences.
Gopaldas: So I think you’re saying that the tutorials are steeped in Analytic ideals. I see
that. The tutorials are definitely emphasizing clarity, logic, precision, rigor, systematicity,
etc. [...] all Analytic ideals.
Bajde: Yes, the Analytic tradition values clear-cut definitions of concepts and logical
relationships between concepts, but more than that, an Analytic approach insists on
choosing a particular theoretical conversation and –quoting your tutorial now –sticking to
that conversation from front to back (Gopaldas, 2016).
Gopaldas: Sure Domen, I can see your point about the tutorials stemming from an Analytic
tradition of social science, but it’s hardly my decision to advocate that orientation. I was
trained as such at CCT conferences, schools and workshops. And rightly so! The Journal of
Marketing (JM), the Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) and virtually all of the Financial
Times 50 (FT-50) journals that business school faculty are institutionally pressured to
publish in all unequivocally demand Analytic qualities. Adopting an Analytic orientation is
one of the many ways in which CCT has legitimated itself as “a viable disciplinary brand”
within mainstream business academia (Arnould and Craig, 2005, p. 868; Coskuner-Balli,
2013).
Bajde: Even so Ahir, here’s what I wonder. What do we gain and what do we lose by
adopting an Analytic style of writing that promotes a particular view of knowledge
creation?
Gopaldas:I’m all for plurality in terms of methods, theories and –now that you make me
think about it –writing styles as well.
QMR
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Bajde: I wasn’t paying much attention to it before either, but then I saw the piece that you
wrote with Eileen Fischer and Daiane Scaraboto, “Why Papers are Rejected,”and it got me
thinking [...] Several of the reasons for rejection are related to staying within a particular
theoretical conversation (Fischer et al., 2017). A conversation you need to pick from the start,
a conversation that defines the problems you address, and a conversation that you need to
make a contribution to. How about starting new conversations?
Gopaldas: Oh, there’s certainly nothing wrong with starting new theoretical conversations,
but I think good scholarship always acknowledges what came before. “Standing on the
shoulders of giants”is the Academy’s motto. I think if you don’t situate your own work in
prior work, you run the risk of reinventing the wheel.
Bajde: That makes absolute sense when you boil it down to an engineering problem.
Playing the Devil’s advocate though, we are not engineers. We don’t work with wheels.
Can you imagine telling a poet not to reinvent the idea of love because that’salready
been covered by another poet? Or, imagine saying that the poet should mention what
existing conversation their poem is joining, preferably one published within the same
publishing house because otherwise, they are not being respectful to those that have
inspired them.
Gopaldas: LOL, that analogy is hilarious and effective! I think staunch defenders of the
Analytic tradition would say that we should be more like engineers or scientists than poets.
In a scientific paradigm, many individuals methodically, incrementally, and humbly
contribute to a larger project, piece by piece. That said, there are many Continental scholars
in our field and we want them to have a strong presence in our field’s journals too. Let’s just
say for a moment that there’s ample room for both genres of scholarship, what do you see as
the benefits of a more Continental approach to writing, one that’s less incremental and rule-
bound, more holistic and adventurous [...].
Bajde: The benefits of a Continental style? It’s similar to asking how the arts and
humanities help us see the world. You can find several calls for heteroglossia in CCT
(Thompson, Arnould, and Giesler, 2013), but oddly when it comes to writing style, this
sometimes seems to be a luxury that we can’t afford, or won’tpermit.
Gopaldas: When I think of the upside of Continental writers, be it Baudrillard or Foucault, I
think of big, bold, breakthrough ideas, so originality is one upside. I also think Continental
theorists are much more likely to engage with the politics of their research contexts, whereas
Analytic researchers aspire to build generalizable theories across contexts. Imagine, for
instance, a Continental paper and an Analytic paper both tackling the same contemporary
issue, say ethical consumerism. I imagine that the Continental paper will be an impassioned
critique of ethical consumerism as a faulty neoliberal solution to socioeconomic problems
(Binkley, 2008). Meanwhile, the Analytic paper will probably just use ethical consumerism
as an empirical context in which to theorize a general concept, such as consumer sentiment
(Gopaldas, 2014). Perhaps the emphasis on Analytic ideals is keeping our field from making
really original, provocative, and transformative arguments about contemporary consumer
culture.
Bajde:It’sdefinitely a challenge to make radical breaks with existing theory if the
underlying mode of theorizing is a formulaic, piece-by-piece building of concepts and their
interrelationships. If the main point of an Analytic approach is to choose a theory from the
start and then seek to add to it, how can you make a radical break? Mind you, there are also
What makes a
good paper?
273
serious disadvantages to taking more liberty with language and argumentation. Continental
texts are often much harder to decipher, and they don’t travel as easily. The Continental
style can become an excuse for sloppy scholarship, hiding behind convoluted prose.
Gopaldas: And writing about a phenomenon without a systematic review of your peers’
work seems rather narcissistic. Sure, Analytic scholarship is humble, “piece-by-piece”
theorizing within a community of scholars, but Continental ideals can result in a series of
overreaching, grand theories with few interconnections among them. I think one runs the
risk of saying the same things as others have, just dressed up in new vocabulary. Or at the
very least, it’s difficult for reviewers to assess –is this a new theory or just an old theory in
new words?
Bajde: Ahir, I would say that anyone who cannot assess that difference is a poor reviewer. If
the work allows you to see the world in a new and interesting way, then it is new. If the work
doesn’t change your perspective, then it isn’t new. For a Continental text, this time-consuming
assessment needs to be done every time, whereas a more Analytic piece can be quickly
dismissed purely on grounds of not defining the conversation properly, or failing to follow the
terms of the chosen conversation, or not choosing a conversation that fits the journal [...].
Gopaldas: Let’s take stock. I think we’re in agreement that an Analytic style emphasizes
conceptual rigor, theoretical coherence, and broad generalizability, whereas a Continental
style values imagination over systematicity and contextualization over abstraction. But are
we really saying that both styles don’t already co-exist in the pages of our community’s
journals, including not just JCR and JM, but also Consumption, Markets, and Culture (CMC),
Journal of Consumer Culture (JCC) and Qualitative Market Research (QMR)?
Bajde: Ahir, I am sure that they do. I see things less in terms of categories and more along a
spectrum, wherein no journal is purely Continental or Analytic, the same with authors and
papers. Yet overall, I am tempted to say that the mantra that “we study a context to build a
theory”is becoming dogma. It’s a very Analytic idea. Why do all of our contexts need to be
a context of something more general to be worth studying? If a context is not a good case of
a more generalizable phenomenon, then the research tends to be considered too descriptive
by the Analytic-minded.
Gopaldas: And maybe even esoteric.
Bajde: Don’t forget self-indulgent!
Gopaldas: Domen, I think it’s also worth noting that most of the original Continental
scholars published books that were only lightly edited. They did not publish rigorously
peer-reviewed journal articles. And that lack of rigorous peer review allows scholars’unique
voices to shine through.
Bajde: You are right. Analytic writing is more aligned with the relatively short length
and frequent pace of journal article publications. However, I think Continental writing
can work in shorter formats too. It just requiresreviewersandeditorstobemoreopen
to such work.
Gopaldas: As someone primarily socialized in a more Analytic approach to CCT research,
I’m not sure I am fully aware of its critiques. What would you say are the corresponding
stereotypes of Analytic work?
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Bajde: Flat, soulless, mechanistic, stifling, lifeless, trite, superficial, overgeneralized, hyper-
stylized (while pretending to be a-stylistic) and above all, not particularly critical. I guess
worrying about fitting into and extending extant conversations makes it hard to be overly
critical towards them.
Gopaldas: Wow, let me digest all those critiques for a moment [...] I think you’re right that
CCT articles published in JCR and JM can be rather overgeneralized, mechanistic, hyper-
stylized, and so forth. But an Analytic scholar would probably reframe those characteristics
as abstraction, consistency and parsimony. And I’m less sure that you’re right about the
lack of criticality with regard to extant conversations. Most papers I review begin with a
major problematization of prior scholarship –not just some minor quibble, but a major
critique.
Bajde: Well, I am not talking about any journal in particular and you did ask about
stereotypes of Analytic research. In fact, thinking about it some more, one could argue that
an Analytic approach would invite more debate and critique, because it orients authors to
consider each other’s work more.
Gopaldas: Domen, I wonder if CCT has already found a way to mix and match ideals from
both Analytic and Continental traditions. If we compare interpretive consumer research
across the decades, I think we can see considerable epistemological diversity in its
theoretical evolution from micro-social to macro-social concerns, from structural to post-
structural theorizing, and from somewhat a-political and a-historical interpretations to
historically informed, political commentaries (Arnould and Craig, 2005;Askegaard and
Linnet, 2011;Thompson et al.,2013). I see both Analytic and Continental ideals in this
evolution.
Bajde: Agreed. That’s why we might want to think of Analytic and Continental traditions
less as styles of knowledge production and more as styles of knowledge articulation. You
can articulate existential phenomenology in a very Continental manner or you can articulate
it in a more Analytic style.
Gopaldas: That’s a useful clarification.
Bajde: Having said that, the articulation style will of course always exert an impact on all
the other aspects of knowledge production. I would say all the more so in the Continental
tradition, where the style tends to be more conversationalist.
Gopaldas: Conversationalist?
Bajde: What I mean by conversationalist is that it tends to be written in a style where the
twists and turns of prose (or poetry) reveal insights that might otherwise escape the cold,
rule-bound logic of Analytic argumentation. Think of Nietzsche, or Derrida. The fact that it
is hard to impose a one-track reading on what they are saying can work to their
disadvantage, but it also stimulates thought, complicates our understandings of the world,
and provokes discussion.
Gopaldas: To be frank Domen, I recognize the extent to which Analytic ideals outweigh
Continental ideals in JCR, JM, and other FT-50 journals, but I just don’t see those journals
changing their styles anytime soon. In fact, CCT articles might already be the Continental
extreme in the pages of those journals.
What makes a
good paper?
275
Bajde: Yes, everyone is Analytic to someone, and Continental to someone else.
Gopaldas: True. As I see it, the most realistic outlets for untamed Continental scholarship in
our field are CMC,JCC and QMR.
Bajde: I am not that pessimistic. Even when it comes to the elite journals. As soon as we
start to be attentive to these differences in style, there’s an opportunity for broader inclusion.
After all, we are the journals. We are the reviewers. Some of us are also editors and associate
editors. If we continue to unconsciously reproduce a single style, then we can hardly blame
the journals.
Gopaldas: I confess that I have been an overly Analytic reviewer on some Continental
manuscripts in the past. But I promise to change!
Bajde: And I’m sure I have been an overly Continental reviewer on some Analytic
manuscripts.
Gopaldas: At the very least, I hope that our conversation builds more understanding across
variously oriented scholars, literatures and journals in the CCT community.
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Corresponding author
Ahir Gopaldas can be contacted at: agopaldas@fordham.edu
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