Marketing

Engineering

Philosophy

Ecology

Aerospace engineering

Exchange value

Biology

Economic system

Sustainability

Adam smith

Economics

Anthropology

Capitalism

Circulation (fluid dynamics)

Business

Neoclassical economics

Environmental ethics

Politics

Political science

Epistemology

Sociology

Ontology

Sociality

Animism

Journal of Marketing Management

Sustainability is a wicked social problem, one difficult to solve because market capitalism inevitably produces ecological precarity. Consequently, marketing requires a paradigm shift. To address this problem, this research investigates a renewal of resource circulation theory and offers a glimpse of a sustainable neo-animist system. Neo-animist theory suggests new perspectives towards a more sustainable eco-economy of persons. Neo-animism foregrounds an alternative subjectivity to that inscribed in the modern social imaginary. Neo-animism is defined by the relationality of persons, the contingent extension of the principle of sociality to other living beings, and the recognition that all living beings are in communicative relations with significant others. Further, in a neo-animism framework resources circulate through transitive value co-creation processes, gifting, reciprocal exchange, and predation. Neo-animism provides an alternative to the dominant social exchange paradigm in marketing and addresses the challenges to sustainability identified in marketing and consumer research.

Ontology and circulation: towards an eco-economy of persons