Commodification and Resistance: Theoretical Implications Drawn from a Mobile Recreational Community

Abstract

Drawing on interview, survey, and long-term participant observational research in the BMW motorcycling community, we analyze issues related to the commodification of riding. We use Hill-Collins’s (1999) “both/and” approach in our data analysis. Specifically, we draw on Adorno’s (1991) and Marcuse’s (1964) theories of the commodification of popular culture and the power of the “culture industry” to market non-essential products. We find that Marx’s (Marx and Engels 1988) theory of ways to attain “species-being” have the potential to be expanded via serious leisure activities (e.g., motorcycling) even as some are caught up in the discursive power of the culture industry.