Abstract Existing research typically treats body awareness as a subset of self-awareness, which emphasizes identity and appearance at the expense of embodied sensations. This article offers a corrective by reconceptualizing consumer body awareness as a distinct, cultivated capacity, defined as the ability to notice, make sense of, and respond to exteroceptive, proprioceptive, and interoceptive sensations with the help of marketplace resources. Prior studies show that consumers are increasingly turning to the marketplace to find bodily reconnection and seek relief from the disembodied pull of digitalized, market-mediated life. Research also shows that although marketplace resources can help build body awareness, they can also distract from it. What the literature does not explain is how consumers engage with marketplace resources as their body awareness evolves. Building on an ethnographic inquiry into ultra-running, this article introduces a four-stage process of cultivating consumer body awareness: attuning, listening, connecting, and integrating. Findings show how marketplace resources both enable and obstruct body learning across these stages, ultimately recalibrating consumption choices and brand relationships.

Abstract The ongoing rise of liquid consumption manifests in the growing popularity of ephemeral, access-based, and dematerialized forms of consumption that contrast with traditional solid forms of consumption characterized by possession and strong object relationships. The literature already presents a robust understanding of what makes liquid and solid consumption appealing to consumers. What has received less attention is the co-existence of liquid and solid consumption in consumers’ lived experiences. Furthermore, the literature does not explain how the balance that consumers achieve between liquid and solid consumption fluctuates over time. This study illuminates the co-existence of liquid and solid consumption through a phenomenological inquiry of subscription-based clothing libraries, a context where solid personal possessions frequently mix with liquid accessed items in everyday use. Findings show that changes in consumer desire play a major role in consumer decisions to liquify or solidify consumption, especially over time. Overall, the study provides new theoretical insights into liquid and solid consumption, consumer desire, and burdens of access-based consumption.