Christian Fuentes

I am a professor of Marketing and Consumption at the Department of Service Studies. My research explores processes of economic organisation and social change with a particular focus on sustainability transitions and digitalisation. While I work interdisciplinary, my work is primarily positioned within marketing studies.

A socio-material practice approach

Drawing on theories of practice, STS, and economic sociology, my focus has been on understanding the practical and socio-material accomplishment of marketing and consumption. I have explored how materialities, devices, and infrastructures shape consumption, marketing work, and the organization of markets. Methodologically, I have used mainly ethnographically inspired methods – e.g., ethnographic interviews and observations, digital methods, and field trials – to conduct studies across a range of empirical contexts including, but not limited to, clothes, food, mobilities, and retailing.

Research topics: sustainability and digitalization

Most of my research can be organized into three areas. 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 despite the complexities involved, 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 consumer culture. I have, for example, taken an interest in how digital devices changes the way we listen to music, explored how digital 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 interests in sustainability and digitalization, I have explored how digital technologies can promote sustainable consumption in various ways. I have for example examined 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 processes and mechanisms through which the use of digital food platforms can become routinized and support more sustainable modes of food consumption.

Output and contributions

My work on these topics has contributed to the interdisciplinary fields of consumption studies, retail studies, and market studies and has been published in a range of outlets, both within and outside of marketing. Examples include the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Consumption Markets and Culture, Journal of Retail and Consumer Services, Food, Culture and Society, and Business Strategy and the Environment.