Race, Representation, Misrepresentation, Caricatured Consumption Tropes; and Serious Matters of Inequity and Precarity

We do not know if it is a trend or a temporally short uptick. At MGDR, we are noticing that there is some increase in significantly influential entertainment products – films, television programs, video series on streaming platforms, etc. – that strive to represent people, cultures and regions that have been marginal or underrepresented. Of course, from a ‘markets’ perspective, it makes sense – in rapidly diversifying societies such as United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Australia – to create entertainment products that supplement the large corpus of ‘mainstream’ entertainment products. In other words, the mainstream needs to start accommodating – and, we hope, merging and blending with – parallel sub-streams. Indeed, in all aspects of life, especially in the United States – and, from there, echoing worldwide – there is increasing evidence of multiracial and multiethnic representation in foodways, fashion, films and more. Given all this, we at MGDR have decided to strive to feature and analyze, in multiple issues of the journal, the emerging patterns of new or novel representations. In this issue, we focus on some films. First, the focus in on a film that, while partly cinematic fiction, also has very substantial elements of documentary-style realism. The second set of films – the original and its sequel, after a 30-year gap – deal with the relationship with the African-American culture of New York, and a mythical well-off nation in Africa

Markets, Globalization, Development: Charting the Intersections of Three Multipolar Concepts

Via this introductory article, the founding editors of MGDR welcome the global readership and potential base of contributors to this journal. This essay lays out the editors views of the three momentous concepts that form the title of this journal -- markets, globalization and development -- and the intersections of these. Of course, as a journal MGDR remains open to all views of these concepts, so long they are thoroughly researched and presented in a spirit of open dialogue and discussion

Extending the diversity conversation: Fashion consumption experiences of underrepresented and underserved women

This research brings in the voice of underserved and underrepresented women of various racial or ethnic origins and social classes, who have differing buying powers, sexual orientations, body shapes, and physical appearances, into the conversation of fashion diversity. Through a qualitative inquiry with 38 semi-structured in-depth interviews, the researchers analyzed the consumption experiences of diverse women to expose what the fashion scene is lacking. The study\u27s main contribution is the depiction of overlooked diversity categories in fashion, such as the non-White and non-Black women of color, women of average sizes, and women with characteristics that the fashion industry has long seen as flaws. For women\u27s physical and psychological well-being, the authors of this study hope to lead fashion producers and researchers into a new era of diversity and minimize certain consumer groups\u27 exclusion through discrimination, isolation, and segregation