Topic: Nordic Consumer Culture
The Nordic region offers a distinctive consumer culture characterized by “conspicuously strong ideological contradictions” (Ulver, 2019, p. 52). Societies are both egalitarian and status-conscious, individualistic yet reliant on collective welfare systems, and modest yet aspirational. Central to this culture is the Nordic welfare state that creates a unique alliance between the state and the individual. The state ensures universal provision of basic human rights while enhancing individual autonomy (Molander et al., 2013). As Ulver (2019) notes, this creates a marketplace where state and individual interests align rather than conflict. While all Nordic countries appear to accommodate and reconcile these ideological contradictions (Byrkjeflot, 2001), our understanding of how these paradoxes manifest in consumption practices, market formations, and consumer identities remains limited.
Existing research on Nordic consumer culture highlights the region’s distinctive characteristics but lacks comprehensive integration across levels of analysis. Previous studies have examined hegemonic brandscapes (Kjeldgaard & Ostberg, 2007), culturally specific phenomena like “hygge” (Linnet, 2011), value regimes in Nordic branding (Andersen et al., 2021), consumer movements navigating Nordic regulations (Weijo et al., 2018), alternative food markets (Leipämaa-Leskinen, 2021; Bhatnagar et al., 2024), welfare exports (Bjerregaard & Kjeldgaard, 2019), mythologies in advertising (Pietilä et al., 2019), immigrant experiences (Hokkinen, 2023; Ogada & Lindberg, 2022), and tensions between neoliberal and welfare state regimes (Martin et al., 2019). While this scholarship has grown, gaps remain, and key questions are still unanswered. How do consumers navigate increased market responsibility as the state retreats? How do political projects around gender equality or environmental values influence everyday consumption? How does immigration challenge Nordic egalitarian ideals in consumer contexts? These questions highlight the need for research connecting welfare state structures to specific consumption practices across individual, market, and policy levels.
The purpose of this special issue is to facilitate the publication of research offering novel, critical, and contextually grounded approaches to Nordic consumer culture as a contested and negotiated space. Our aim is to advance scholarship on the unique mix of state, market, and consumers in Nordic contexts, focusing on how consumption practices reflect and perpetuate meanings that may differ from, but also unexpectedly converge with, Anglo-American and Continental European consumer research. We welcome submissions that critically analyze Nordic market dynamics, explore the paradoxes inherent in Nordic consumer culture (such as tensions between egalitarian ideals and status competition, individual autonomy and collective solidarity, trust in the state and scepticism toward commercial institutions), and investigate both continuities and ruptures in Nordic consumption patterns. We especially encourage innovative methodologies, interdisciplinary perspectives, and contributions that address how macro-level contexts—such as welfare state policies, cultural myths, political ideologies, and institutional thought styles—shape the possibilities and constraints of consumer practice, thereby building a more comprehensive understanding of Nordic consumer culture.
List of Topic Areas
- State-market-consumer relations and welfare consumption
- Neoliberalization and privatization of welfare services
- Nordic imaginaries, myths, and branding
- Sustainability, nature consumption, and friluftsliv
- Immigration, minorities, and consumer integration
- Indigenous consumption and colonial legacies
- Gender, family, and domestic consumption practices
- Egalitarianism, conformity, and status distinction
- Consumer resistance and alternative markets
- Digitalization and platform consumption
- Dark consumption, Nordic Noir, and dystopian aesthetics
- Trust and distrust in state institutions
- Nordic brands and cultural exports
- New Nordic movements and manifestos
- Contradictions in Nordic consumer culture
Submissions Information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/qmr
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/qmr#jlp_author_guidelines
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.
Key Deadlines
Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 01/05/2026
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 20/12/2026
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