Critical Marketing Workshop
CONVENORS
Mona Moufahim, Nottingham University Business School
Mona.Moufahim@nottingham.ac.uk
Darryn Mitussis, Nottingham University Business School
Darryn.Mitussis@nottingham.ac.uk
Where is critical marketing today? Where are/should we be heading?
Critical marketing is a well-established field within marketing, with its own research
agenda and community of scholars. Several monographs and edited volumes on
critical marketing have been published (e.g., Saren et al., 2007; Skålén et al., 2008;
Tadajewski and Brownlie, 2008) which, along with special issues of ‘mainstream’
marketing journals, have established a foundation for critical engagement with
marketing theory and practice. In addition, a number of journals have emerged as
sympathetic to critical studies of marketing (e.g. Journal of Public Policy and
Marketing; Consumption, Markets & Culture, Journal of Macromarketing; and
Marketing Theory).
However, as critical marketing becomes more broadly accepted, and as a tradition
develops around its practice, perhaps it runs the risk of losing its mordant edge. This
may or may not be positive for critical marketing and marketing more generally.
In this workshop, we seek to address this issue and ask where is critical marketing
today? This question should help us consider how critical marketing has evolved, and
what state it is in and to set this as a point of departure for its future development. We
seek to focus on three key themes identified in the critical marketing literature as
providing potential for the development of critical marketing studies; namely critical
marketing pedagogy, critical marketing and managerial practice, and critical
marketing and publishing.
Call for papers
We welcome short conceptual or empirical papers anchored in theoretical
perspectives (poststructuralism, Marxism, feminism, queer theory, critical theory,
postcolonialism, etc.) and addressing the three themes noted above. More specifically:
Critical marketing pedagogy: Catterall et al. (1999) examine the challenges in
integrating a critical perspective in marketing education. The conclusion from their
review of the dedicated literature points to “the failure of marketing academics to
represent practice or alter it in significantly positive ways” (Catterall et al., 1999; p.
345). Ten years later, where do we stand now? It seems that not much progress has
been made (For example, Tregear et al. (2007) note the relative paucity of research on
critical marketing pedagogy and Schroder (2007) notes the difficulty in providing
classes that contain a critical content).
Critical marketing and managerial practice: The criticism that critical marketing has
little relevance to the “real world concerns” is a recurrent one. We propose to discuss
the possibility (desirability?) of engagement with managerial practice. Critique does
not only provide an interesting academic research agenda, but should (supposedly)
transform and improve the status quo. Are we able/ equipped to provide guidelines on
how to be a critical marketing manager?
Critical marketing and publishing: “Publish or perish”? Can an academic’s career
‘survive’ with a critical research agenda? Are the critical marketing researcher
supposed to wait for special issues on critical marketing in ‘respectable’ journals, or
publish their own books to see their critical work disseminated? (see for example,
Burton’s (2001) evaluation of the implications of a critical marketing agenda for
publishing; see also Schroeder, 2007).
We also welcome contributions on the themes of marketing discourse; and marketing
history among others. Please do not hesitate to suggest additional themes for the
workshop.
The extended abstracts of 1500- 2500 words should be sent as a Word attachment to
the convenors (please email both: mona.moufahim@nottingham.ac.uk and
Darryn.Mitussis@nottingham.ac.uk) by January, 30th 2009
The accepted abstracts will be presented by their authors and discussed by 1) a panel
of invited speakers/discussants; 2) by opening the debate to the floor.
Important dates
Abstracts to convenors
January 30th 2009
Notification of acceptance
March, 15th 2008
More
information
about
the
CMS
can
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wbs/conf/cms2009/
be
found
at:
References
Burton, D. (2001), “Critical marketing theory: the blueprint?”, European Journal of
Marketing, Vol. 35, No 5/6, pp. 722-743
Catterall, M., Maclaran, P. and Stevens, L. (1999), “Critical Marketing in the
classroom: possibilities and challenge”, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 17/7, pp.
344-353
Saren, M. , Maclaran, P., Goulding, C., Elliott, R., Shankar, A. and Catterall, M. (eds)
(2007), Critical Marketing. Defining the Field. Oxford: Elsevier.
Schroeder, J. (2007), “Critical marketing: insights for informed research and
teaching”, in Saren, M., Maclaran, P., Goulding, C., Elliott, R., Shankar, A. and
Catterall, M. (eds) (2007), Critical Marketing. Defining the Field. Oxford: Elsevier.
Skålén, P. Fougère, M., and Fellesson, M. (2008), Marketing Discourse. A critical
perspective. New York: Routledge
Tadajewski, M. and Brownlie, D. (eds) (2008), Critical Marketing. Issues in
Contemporary Marketing. Chichester: Wiley
Tregear, A., Brennan, M. and Kuznesof, S. (2007), “Critical exchange in
undergraduate marketing education: views from staff and students”, Journal of
Marketing Management, Volume 23, Numbers 5-6, pp. 411-424