Market Sensemaking for Consumers' Collective Political Agency.

This article examines how consumers collectively make sense of and politically engage with their consumption practices, identities, ideologies, and group formations, using Karl Weick's sensemaking theory as a framework. Focusing on the Gaúcho Traditionalist Movement Organization (GTMO) in Southern Brazil—a postcolonial context—the study analyzes how members interpret and negotiate novel cultural enactments, such as new musical genres, gendered clothing practices, and corporate sponsorships, through processes of noticing, labeling, framing, and articulating conflicting and aligning perspectives. These sensemaking processes enable the group to achieve compromise and consensus, thereby advancing their collective political agency (CCPA) in preserving and adapting their consumer culture amid external market pressures and internal diversity. The research contributes to understanding meso-level collective reasoning in consumer cultures, the role of group formation in sensemaking, and the particular challenges of consumption politics in postcolonial settings, while suggesting avenues for further study in similar contexts.