ABSTRACT
Ontology, epistemology, axiology and praxis were each touched by the successive waves of researchers eager to understand consumption in more holistic, comprehensive fashion. Refugees from and freeholders in other disciplines explored consumption from vastly different perspectives than the economic and psychological ones that had dominated our field. ACR has partnered with Sage Publications over the years to nurture book-length treatments of consumption issues, recognizing the value of monographic accounts in a field dominated by journal readers. The ACR Gender Conference has continued to explore consumption as it is shaped and reflected by the biocultural forces of masculinity, femininity and its hybrids. A pair of early conferences on marketing and semi-otics held in Bloomington and Evanston helped set the agenda for the exploration of meaning movement in consumption, while Stephen Brown’s Belfast trilogy of marketing ‘retreats’ has accelerated inquiry into the sacred and utopian dimensions of consumption.
