Russell Belk
September 25, 2009

The Shidler College of Business
cordially invites you to the

Shidler Seminar Series

MKT Guest Speaker

Russell Belk
Kraft Foods Canada Chair in Marketing
Schulich School of Business
York University

Friday, September 25, 2009
3:00 - 4:30 p.m.

Location: Shidler College of Business, D204

Yours, Mine, and Ours:
Owning, Extended Self, and Sharing

Rather than distinguishing mine and yours, sharing defines something as ours. Sharing includes joint ownership, lending and borrowing, pooling and allocation of resources, and use of public property. Based on depth interviews, I contrast recollections of early childhood sharing versus later dating and marriage experiences, during which the boundaries of you/me/us and yours/mine/ours are formed and reformed. Children first learn that some spaces and things are private, while others are shared. Parents, teachers, religious figures, and media teach that sharing is good. But for many, experiences with friends teach that sharing can be dangerous. Becoming a couple substantially redefines the boundaries of self, leading to sharing even intimate possessions. Marriage is more likely than cohabitation to involve pooled common possessions including bank accounts, credit cards, and debt. The nature and permeability of extended self are both critical to willingness to share beyond the immediate household. Based on these findings and a theoretical literature, an understanding of sharing is developed that draws on prototype theory. Rather than Aristotelian definitions, prototypes of sharing, gift-giving, and commodity exchange are developed and contrasted in order to distinguish these three key aspects of consumption and distribution behavior.

About Russell Belk

Russell Belk is Kraft Foods Canada Chair in Marketing, Schulich School of Business, York University. He is past president of the International Association of Marketing and Development, and is a fellow, past president, and Film Festival co-founder in the Association for Consumer Research. His awards include the Paul D. Converse Award and the Sheth Foundation/Journal of Consumer Research Award for Long Term Contribution to Consumer Research. His research involves the meanings of possessions, collecting, gift-giving, materialism, and global consumer culture.