Trust, choice and routines : putting the consumer on trial

This paper starts from Martin Hollis' framing of the problem of trust in Trust WithinReason and shows how his picture may be developed and challenged by shaping the agent of trust in the guise of a consumer. With the successful imperialism of neo-classical economics, the social actor is increasingly portrayed as a consumer. Sociological and anthropological studies however have shown that even consumers are not easily portrayed as individualistic, instrumentally rational and forward-looking agents. The paper thus sets out to explore how we can best conceptualise consumer choices, and with it, how we can re-think the notion of trust. Paired with different notions of consumer choice, trust may be seen as a self-fulfilling prophecy, as a complexityreduction device and, finally, as calculated attachment. The paper ends by considering that even market relations are imbued with trust and that consumers rely on trust as much as construct trust relations through their consumer practices.