Christian Fuentes

My research explores the interrelationships of consumption, markets, and society. I often take a socio-material approach exploring how devices, technologies, and infrastructures shape consumption, marketing work, and the organization of markets. Conceptually, I draw on and combine economic sciology, STS and practice theory. Methodologically, I  employ mainly ethnographic methods, combining interviews and observations, online and offline. More specifically, making use of these theoretical and methodological tools, my research has focused on trying to understand how two broad societal transformations -  the transition towards sustainability and the digitalization of societies - shape and are shaped by consumption, marketing, and markets.

 

In the area of sustainability I have conducted research on Ethical Consumption, Green Marketing, Sustainable Retailing and Alternative Markets. I have, for example, studied how marketing inscribes product with green moralities to make them more valuable as cultural resources, how consumers practically accomplish green shopping,  and how alternative food markets are socio-materially organized.

 

In the area of digitalization I have conducted research on Mobile Shopping, E-tailing, and the digitalization of retailing. I have, for example, taken an interest in how digital devices changes the way we listen to music, explored how new technologies such as smartphones reconfigure in-store shopping practices,  traced how e-tailing companies have developed over time, and investigated the work of e-commerce managers.

 

Finally, combining my interest in sustainability and digitalization,  I have also explored how digital technologies can promote sustainable consumption. I have for example investigated how ”sustainability” apps reconfigure everyday life and enable ethical consumption, how and why digital food platforms fail to become part of consumers everyday food practices, and, conversely, the process and mechanisms through which the use of digital food platforms can become routinized. 

 

My research in these areas contributes to the interdisciplinary fields of consumption studies , market studies, and retail studies. The results has been published in the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Consumption, Markets and Culture, Business Strategy and the Environment, Journal of Rural Studies, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, International Journal of Consumer Studies, as well as in a number of other outlets.