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This study aims to understand the progressive marketization of health data collection and use, through a study of its historical development in France, from the 1930s to the present day.

The authors collected a set of legal, institutional, political and media data. These came from the INA (National Audiovisual Institute), the French national newspaper websites and the websites legifrance.gouv.fr and vie-publique.fr. The authors then conducted a thematic content analysis.

The study results highlight the changes in the health-care system related to the increased use of data in France over three major periods. The first period – 1930s to 1980s – is marked by the creation of the French social security system to collect large sets of data to better manager people’s health care. The second period – 1980s to 2000s – is characterized by the adoption and assimilation of tools to manage patient data through several national and European regulations. The last period – 2000s to the present – saw the introduction of measures in favor of the digitalization of health care, and consequently of data, in parallel with the advancement of digital technologies in general. The institutional dynamics in healthcare have evolved with the nature of the actors and their practices, in connection with new perceptions about health data.

This research sheds light on the historical transformation of health data collection and use in France, revealing the involvement of diverse stakeholders, the discourses driving data development and the need for regulation. It exposes the dual nature of health data collection and use, initially sanctioned by the state and public entities but later exploited for private interests.

This research studies how current social and environmental concerns about consumption are reviving the topic of meaning in consumption practices. In a postmodern world characterized by symbolism in consumption and a global “crisis of meanings”, ethical and responsible consumption behaviors are studied through their contribution to identity construction. A responsible consumption typology based on the meanings given by the narrators is suggested; it distinguishes the acts of “moral conformity” from the deep critical postures, the latter of which derive either from political essence or a desire for liberation from the consumption “system”.

The goal in this research is to offer a new interpretation of activism by focusing not on the various ideologies but on the order of worth that coordinates activism.

Ethnographic approaches of participant observation and nondirective interviewing were the methods used in this study.

Drawing on the order models (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991), the authors introduce the existence of an “activist order.” This order is composed of rules that coordinate activists’ practices. Activists draw on this “activist order” to justify their practices but also to criticize other orders such as the market order.

This “activist order” serves as the structure underpinning both activists’ institutional frameworks (such as CSA and LETS) and their actions (e.g., antiadvertising campaigns). This paper also has implications for our understanding of the relationship between the Marketplace and consumer movements. The authors demonstrate that people navigate between different order of worth, from the market order to the “activist order” and vice versa.

Based on Latour’s view that humans and non-humans swap properties, this paper explores whether objects embody similar properties as human beings and whether these properties per se orient dispossession practices.

This study adopts Latour’s pragmatogonies as a theoretical perspective to explore the complex interplay between humans and non-humans in the context of dispossession. Thirty-two in-depth interviews focus on the object itself (its characteristics, qualities, and capacities in association with its endo and exo relations) to understand how objects act on dispossession.

The results depict objects as consisting of various material elements and possessing symmetrical properties as humans to facilitate, hinder, and channel dispossession. Objects emerge as having genealogies, undergoing physical changes, adapting to misfortunes, and having citizenship duties.

Our analyses reveal a complex network of people and things; all acting in the course of dispossession. We call for further research on object–subject networks/assemblages as dynamic and co-productive. We suggest that research focus should be on what objects might become or how they connect and evolve as they deteriorate, shift, and renew in interaction with their environment.

Our study challenges the dichotomy between material objects and human beings. We underline that objects are not ephemeral and transient but they are moving and circulating as they deteriorate, transform, enact new roles, and construct evolving identities.

This paper aims at revealing the process of identity reconstruction for individuals who have acquired sensory disabilities, as well as the contribution of consumption to this process.

The data was collected through both interviews conducted in France and autobiographical accounts.

When disability occurs, individuals go through a rite of passage that shapes their identity reconstruction process. Two forms of liminality appear: acute and sustained liminality. These phases can foster or hamper individuals’ identity reconstruction.

The mechanisms leading from one stage of the identity reconstruction process to another should be deepened through further research.

Given the fluctuating behaviors of consumers with disabilities, especially in view of their identity reconstruction process, this research encourages retailers and public policy actors not to consider them as a homogeneous consumer segment.

While scholars dealing with consumers with disabilities have mainly focused on the accessibility of the marketplace, this research disentangles their identity issues.