ABSTRACT
In 2006 the first annual consumer culture theory (CCT) conference was held. These conferences spawned an association: the Consumer Culture Theory Consortium. In an effort to counter the anti-business image of CCT, Arnould and Thompson pointed to a number of CCT studies that exemplify relevance for managers. Consumer cultures are composed of people who define themselves and often gain a sense of community through their consumption practices. Theoretical anchors for recent cyclical fads have included Bourdieu's Cultural Capital Formation, Foucault's Self-Governance, Latour's Actor Network Theory, Deleuze and Guattari's Assemblage Theory, Bourdieu's Taste Regimes, Scott's and Meyer's Institutional Theory, Bourdieu's Practice Theory, and others. A more productive approach might be to outline some of the more original theoretical and conceptual contributions of consumer culture theory. A further glaring gap and opportunity for future CCT scholarship is in doing more conceptual and theoretical work rather than merely empirical studies.
