Re-imagining the marketplace: addressing race in academic marketing research

Dec 29, 2017

Sonya A Grier, Kevin D Thomas, Guillaume D Johnson

Abstract

Race is a marketplace icon. How so? By holding true to an icon’s defining characteristics: high visibility, divisiveness, and uncritical devotion. In this brief musing, we describe how despite its centrality to market activities, race is uncritically addressed in academic marketing research. We next introduce the Race in the Marketplace (RIM) Research Network, a newly-formed interdisciplinary collective of scholars and scholar-activists that seek to break race of its iconic standing and bring greater equity to markets by disseminating critical, collaborative, and transdisciplinary race-based market research that supports liberatory public policies and community actions. We close with a call to join our effort to reimagine the marketplace through the critical examination of what has been a perpetually overlooked icon in marketing academia.

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