Research Overview

My research interests are grounded in a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of markets, viewing markets as collectively negotiated and performed. It aims at comprehending the on-going ordering of markets, looking at different webs of actors involved in shaping commercial exchanges and consumer behaviour, but also at socio-cultural and political interferences impacting market configuration, viability, and regulation.

This route in marketing research, frequently referred to as the Market Studies field, adopts a more macro perspective on consumption and markets, shifting the focus from ‘the consumer’ towards the wider web of interactions in which consumers get entangled and could play different roles in shaping the market landscape.

I am particularly interested in:

Contentious markets

• Socio-technical/scientific market controversies and de/institualisation of markets.
• Networks supporting and sustaining competing market versions, and their market agencing strategies allowing the stabilisation and mobilisation of their collectives.
• The role of Science (as a system of reference) and Uncertainty in establishing/revoking market versions.
• Evolving new market versions (encouraged by innovation and the advent of digital technologies in particular).

Market ethics & sustainable markets

• Sustainable markets and the wider impact of ethical consumption/ethical anti-consumption/subversive advertising: How do sustainability drives shape market offer, encouraging innovation and impacting policies? How are these initiatives and ‘mutations’ negotiated and sustained? How are supportive networks built and enrolled to support a new industry/market vision or version? What impacts on CSR?
• The immorality of markets (e.g. contested/noxious/repugnant markets)

In terms of study contexts, I am particularly interested in:

• Sustainable farming (more precisely, the GM/Organic farming duel)
• Energy conversion (to non-fossil energy sources)
• Education (conventional vs. self-education industry)

• Research groups

Interdisciplinary Market Studies Group (Europe)

Misfires: Innovating Together For Better Markets (Europe)

Centre for technological futures (Lancaster/England)

Methods NW (Part of the North West Social Sciences Doctoral Training Partnership-NWSSDTP, aiming at promoting the depth and breadth of methodological expertise in social sciences)

• Research grant

Doctoral scholarship: The North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (NWSSDTP).