ABSTRACT

This study adds to the growing body of research on consumption in global mobility, illustrating how mobile consumers navigate their economic reality by managing relationships with banks in different countries. Previous research argues that global mobility enables the liquid consumption logic that is access based, ephemeral and dematerialised. Drawing upon insights from 31 in-depth interviews with globally mobile professionals, we discuss how the flexibility of globally mobile consumption combined with the rigid and regulated nature of the financial services industry enable liquid, solid, and hybrid consumption logics. We argue that multiple relationship logics manifesting in global mobility represent a case of solidification of liquid consumption, showing that managing the flows of economic capital across multiple countries requires not only extreme flexibility but also structure. This allows mobile consumers to manage the uncertainties of liquid modernity by combining their flexible mobile existence with solid anchoring points in chosen localities.

摘要

这项研究增加了越来越多的关于全球移动消费的研究，说明移动消费者如何通过管理与不同国家银行的关系来驾驭他们的经济现实。先前的研究认为，全球流动性支持基于访问、短暂和非物质化的流动性消费逻辑。基于对全球移动专业人士的 31 次深度采访，我们讨论了全球移动消费的灵活性与金融服务行业的严格和监管性质相结合，如何实现流动、固体和混合消费逻辑。我们认为，在全球流动中表现出的多重关系逻辑代表了液体消费固化的情况，表明管理跨多个国家的经济资本流动不仅需要极大的灵活性，还需要结构。这允许移动消费者通过将他们灵活的移动存在与选定地点的稳固锚点相结合来管理流动现代性的不确定性。