Staying with the trouble: towards a theory of postdigital consumer culture

Existing research offers ample insights into the impact of digital technology on consumers and consumption. Yet, theorisations of the broader, consumer culture-level effects of digitalisation remain scarce and are largely limited to digital commodities, practices and intermediaries, while phenomena such as the analogue revival remain peripheral to this discussion. A more holistic approach can be found in postdigital theory, which looks beyond new technologies and their affordances to the wider cultural context shaped by digitalisation. Drawing on findings from a qualitative study of board game consumption in the UK, which involved ethnographic participant observations conducted at 24 social board gaming venues and 50 in-depth interviews with gamers, meetup organisers, business owners and employees, this paper outlines the contours of postdigital consumer culture. In postdigital consumer culture, digitalisation does not merely produce new technosocial entanglements and imaginaries but also transforms the meaning and value of already existing, pre-digital commodities and consumption practices. Although this transformation is driven by a societal sense of uneasiness about the increasing digitalisation of everyday life, postdigital consumer culture is physically, economically and discursively supported by digital technology. Rather than seeking to resolve this dialectic, the paper builds on postdigital theory and Donna Haraway’s provocation of ‘staying with the trouble’ to draw attention to the diversity and fluidity of individual perceptions and experiences of postdigital consumption, bringing into focus new pressures and expectations, new social and cultural divisions, and new ideals and imaginaries represented in postdigital consumer culture.