When Conscious Consumerism Backfires: A Critical Study on Social Exclusion, Partnerships, and White Saviorism

Purpose: What factors influence conscious consumerism, especially related to race and gender identities? This scholarship explores three white women-led social responsibility organizations’ (SROs) aspirations to encourage conscious consumerism as well as factors that influence conscious consumerism. Design/methodology/approach: Using the Black feminist thought and sustainability development theory, the data were analyzed using a thematic analysis to explore the activation of the white savior industrial complex (WSIC) in SROs. Interviews provided in-depth knowledge of the SRO culture including, but not limited to, insight on social exclusion and partnerships. Findings: Noonday Collection, Sseko Designs, and Trades of Hope, all SROs, aspire to be dedicated to people, planet, and profit and encourage conscious consumerism as a means for their customer base and sales consultants to “do their part”, and yet, an unintended consequence of the SROs’ work is social exclusion and white saviorism. Originality: This scholarship investigates what can be done to dismantle the overreliance of conscious consumerism in an effort to finally strip white saviorism, and its role in the white savior industrial complex (WSIC), of its power.

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