Mobilising collaborative consumption lifestyles: a comparative frame analysis of time banking

AbstractIn this paper we elaborate how the framing of lifestyle-based collaborative consumption impacts local mobilisation. We present time banking as a collaborative consumption lifestyle emerging from literatures on collaborative consumption and lifestyle movements. The cultural processes of meaning making and practices of framing, through which time banks mobilise constituents and entice collective action, are examined through naturally occurring text interpreted for diagnostic, prognostic and motivational framing. These three framing tasks further illuminate the change aimed for in local lifestyles. The data were collected from time banks in three European metropolitan areas. The findings highlight framing as a practice that challenges traditional monetised ideology of exchange in orthodox economic theory and the hegemonic understandings of consumption. This paper advances the recent discussions on lifestyle movements engaging in meaning creation practices impacting the everyday actions of consumers in local communities.