Black Panther: Thrills, Postcolonial Discourse, and Blacktopia

Black Panther challenges traditional depictions of African nations in film by showcasing the fictional African country of Wakanda as a global technological leader, its citizens as being comfortable in global settings, and by having Wakanda deliver social aid to the US, reversing the typical global flow of assistance. Wakanda is depicted as a Blacktopia, where societies thrive beyond the reach of white supremacy as they have not been subject to colonization

How brands craft national identity

Drawing on cultural branding research, we examine how brands can craft national identity. We do so with reference to how brands enabled New Zealand’s displaced Pākehā (white) majority to carve out a sense of we-ness against the backdrop of globalization and resurgent indigenous identity claims. Using multiple sources of ethnographic data, we develop a process model of how brands create national identity through we-ness. We find that marketplace actors deployed brands to create and renew perceptions of we-ness through four-stages: reification, lumping, splitting, and horizon expansion. From this, we make three primary contributions to the consumer research literature: we develop a four-part process model of how brands become national identity resources, explore the characteristics of the brands that enable the emergence of and evolution of we-ness, and explore how our processes can address a sense of dispossession among displaced-majorities in similarly defined contexts

Where spirituality and religion meet gender and sexuality::Towards a research agenda for intersectional marketing theory

During a roundtable discussion at the 2022 GENMAC Conference, a group of researchers specializing in religiosity and spiritual consumption, using examples from their own fieldwork, reflected on how (i) researchers’ subject positioning—including their gender and sexuality—shape fieldwork in multifaceted manners; (ii) investigations of religious/spiritual fields would benefit from a heightened sensitivity to issues of gender and sexuality; and (iii) greater sensitivity to aspects of religion and/or spirituality can help gender and sexuality scholars better understand consumers and markets. Based on the above, in this commentary paper, we call for intersectional reflexivity, attention to vulnerability and discomfort during fieldwork, and critical sensitivity to the religious “context of context” during theorization. Furthermore, we argue that specific spiritual/religious imaginaries can foster new research approaches that can contribute to more nuanced fieldwork and theorization in marketing and consumer research.</p

The value in de-emphasizing structure in liquidity

In the set of commentaries on liquidity entitled “The continuing significance of social structure in liquid modernity,” three sets of authors set out to examine the relationship between liquidity and structure, value, and distinction. In doing so, they attempt to marry theories which argue against sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s central thesis that societal structures are shifting with his seminal construct of liquidity, an exercise that has mixed results. All three sets of authors have engaged with Bauman’s conceptualization of liquid modernity as well as our conceptualization of liquid consumption and its consequences. In this response to the commentaries, we clarify how we understand Bauman and how we have used his ideas in our theorizing, engage with the three sets of author’s advocacy for emphasizing the continuing relevance of structure within liquidity, and, finally, sum up how de-emphasizing structure has and can continue to lead to important new insights in marketing theory

The rise of inconspicuous consumption

Ever since Veblen and Simmel, luxury has been synonymous with conspicuous consumption. In this conceptual paper we demonstrate the rise of inconspicuous consumption via a wide-ranging synthesis of the literature. We attribute this rise to the signalling ability of traditional luxury goods being diluted, a preference for not standing out as ostentatious during times of economic hardship, and an increased desire for sophistication and subtlety in design in order to further distinguish oneself for a narrow group of peers. We decouple the constructs of luxury and conspicuousness, which allows us to reconceptualise the signalling quality of brands and the construct of luxury. This also has implications for understanding consumer behaviour practices such as counterfeiting and suggests that consumption trends in emerging markets may take a different path from the past

Brand Meaning Rigidity in China

Brands are prominent symbols in contemporary Chinese culture. Furthermore, in China, brand meanings are created at the social rather than the individual level. These socially constructed meanings result in brand meaning rigidity. That is, brands tend to have a widespread, societally agreed upon meaning, which is broadly stable across China. Consumers desire congruity between the brand, the person, and the social context, and thus we do not see individual or inconsistent cultural brand meanings. That is, rather than conflict and contested meanings, shared and stable brand meanings arise. These meanings become codified within social circles, and then within society at large. We chronicle how this meaning rigidity, or stability, across society allows brands to play an anchoring role for Chinese consumer identities in flux. This results in brand meanings that are highly structured but limited as to where they can be taken by brand managers.</jats:p