Crossing the line: Transgressive consumption and boundary play in the Gothic subculture - Professor Christina Goulding, Birmingham University

Event Date: 13 March 2024

Speaker: Christina Goulding, Professor of Marketing at Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham

Biography: Christina Goulding's current research interests include transgressive consumption, atmospheres and consumption, and situations of absence and presence. She has published her work in a wide range of journals including Journal of Consumer Research, Psychology and Marketing, Annals of Tourism Research, and Consumption, Markets and Culture. She has served as Associate Editor for Journal of Consumer Research and is Associate Editor for Annals of Tourism Research. She currently leads a research group within the department with a focus on culture and consumption.

Abstract: Drawing on data collected primarily at the Whitby Goth Festival, North East England, I adopt transgression as an analytical lens grounded in the ideas and practices of ‘boundary crossing’. I suggest a framework of transgressive consumption mediated by and enabled through, 'spaces of transgression'.  and transgressive embodiment. Central to this  are transgressive bodies and transgressive practices. I discuss how ‘reordering’ techniques, often in the form of violence, are employed when the doxa of normality is challenged through the crossing of boundaries between the mainstream and those who would ‘transgress’.

Published: 30 October 2025