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The idea that countercultural consumer movements permeate into the commercial mainstream is a staple notion in sociology and cultural studies (eg, Hebdige 1979; Frank 1997; Gladwell 1997; Heath and Potter 2004). This idea of co-optation is also central to consumer culture theory (eg, Schouten and McAlexander 1995; McCracken 1997; Kozinets 2002; Holt 2002). Together, these existing studies present two alternative theoretical explanations of co-optation. Either countercultural movements are autonomous systems where consumers enjoy community, gift giving, and cultural creativity until commercialism creeps in and destroys the counterculture’s subversive distinctiveness (Gladwell 1997; Hebdige 1979). Or countercultural rebellion “simply feeds the flames [of consumer capitalism], creating a whole new set of positional goods for these new rebel consumers to compete for”(Health and Potter 2004, 322).

This session, a joint effort by scholars in sociology, cultural studies, and consumer culture theory, will present recent advances in co-optation theory grounded in three completed empirical studies. From our perspective, existing theories are predisposed to interpret co-optation as an overly functionally integrated and internally consistent process of cultural mainstreaming, and conversely to overlook some of its commercial and political qualities. Our interdisciplinary reading offers a critical rethinking of many now taken-for-granted assumptions about cultural rebellion, creative consumption, the process of co-optation, and, more broadly, marketplace politics itself.