Rachel Wood
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rachelwood.bsky.social
Rachel Wood
@rachelwood.bsky.social
960 followers 780 following 3 posts
Social media, femininity, and consumer culture.
Senior lecturer in Media, currently writing about sustainability influencers.
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Reposted by Rachel Wood
rachelwood.bsky.social
New article in Social Media + Society: A Post-Work Approach to Influencer Labor: The Paradox of Sustainability Influencers.
In which I argue that the influencer industry is not environmentally sustainable and we need a more radical approach to studying influencer labour.
A Post-Work Approach to Influencer Labor: The Paradox of Sustainability Influencers Rachel Wood Abstract How do Instagram sustainability influencers communicate criticisms of consumer culture, and try to promote more sustainable alternatives, in the context of a platform and industry that seeks to promote consumption by design? Drawing on an ethnography of Instagram influencers who advocate “zero waste” lifestyle politics, this paper argues that a “sustainability paradox” emerges from the impossibility of aligning environmental values with the commercial norms of the influencer industry. This paradox necessitates continuous negotiation and management for influencers, and routinely excludes them from pathways to paid work. As extensive research on influencer labor has shown, sustainability influencers are far from alone in being systematically marginalized from paid work because they are not “advertiser friendly” or “brand safe” according to the capitalist norms of social media platforms and the influencer industry. The paper makes two key arguments regarding the causes of, and solutions to, this problem. First, the “paradox” faced by sustainability influencers points to the irreparable unsustainability of the influencer industry and the environmentally destructive systems of production, promotion and consumption which it exists to promote. And second, solutions to the systemic problems of exploitative influencer labor cannot be found from tweaks to labor conditions in this unsustainable industry. Instead, the paper makes a case for the value of a “post-work” approach to influencer labor, which broadens critical and political imaginaries for what “influencing” might mean outside of exclusionary and environmentally catastrophic hegemonies of promotional labor and consumption.
June 30, 2025 at 9:07 AM
rachelwood.bsky.social
New article in Social Media + Society: A Post-Work Approach to Influencer Labor: The Paradox of Sustainability Influencers.
In which I argue that the influencer industry is not environmentally sustainable and we need a more radical approach to studying influencer labour.
A Post-Work Approach to Influencer Labor: The Paradox of Sustainability Influencers Rachel Wood Abstract How do Instagram sustainability influencers communicate criticisms of consumer culture, and try to promote more sustainable alternatives, in the context of a platform and industry that seeks to promote consumption by design? Drawing on an ethnography of Instagram influencers who advocate “zero waste” lifestyle politics, this paper argues that a “sustainability paradox” emerges from the impossibility of aligning environmental values with the commercial norms of the influencer industry. This paradox necessitates continuous negotiation and management for influencers, and routinely excludes them from pathways to paid work. As extensive research on influencer labor has shown, sustainability influencers are far from alone in being systematically marginalized from paid work because they are not “advertiser friendly” or “brand safe” according to the capitalist norms of social media platforms and the influencer industry. The paper makes two key arguments regarding the causes of, and solutions to, this problem. First, the “paradox” faced by sustainability influencers points to the irreparable unsustainability of the influencer industry and the environmentally destructive systems of production, promotion and consumption which it exists to promote. And second, solutions to the systemic problems of exploitative influencer labor cannot be found from tweaks to labor conditions in this unsustainable industry. Instead, the paper makes a case for the value of a “post-work” approach to influencer labor, which broadens critical and political imaginaries for what “influencing” might mean outside of exclusionary and environmentally catastrophic hegemonies of promotional labor and consumption.
June 30, 2025 at 9:07 AM
rachelwood.bsky.social
Presenting at #AoIR2024 this afternoon about my sustainability influencer research. Practiced the paper this morning and it was far too long so if you like watching someone try to talk about post work theory very very quickly please come!
November 1, 2024 at 11:40 AM
Reposted by Rachel Wood
alicebennett.bsky.social
answering the question, what is an academic and why are they like that?

newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...
Academics, it seems, are like the acquaintance who Dorothy Parker said ‘speaks 18 languages and can’t say “no” in any of them.’ The issue is not just servility, however, but a hubris that can superficially look like servility’s opposite, as when academics tell themselves that they are only humouring management while actually pursuing their own, subtly subversive agendas. But management, academics often forget, are generally indifferent to mockery or critique, however finely-crafted and devastating. They are happy enough to let us tire ourselves out. One of their favourite tactics, in fact, is to set academics onerous, pointless tasks to keep us busy. Could we gather some evidence to support our claims that the new policy is having a detrimental effect? Could we present the case for why we really need to have such things as offices? Could we fill in this consultation? Academics exhaust themselves writing meticulously argued treatises against the latest deleterious thing management wants
September 21, 2023 at 6:42 PM