CRITICAL REGIONALITIES: RE-THINKING REGIONS IN CCT

Purpose We introduce critical regionalities and the archipelago metaphor as an analytic lens for interrogating and redrawing regional borders while preserving the benefits of a regional approach. Methodology/approach Using secondary data from Latin America, we interrogate the mode by which regions are adopted in marketing and consumer research, raising a discussion of the analytical scales and boundaries of regional cultures, considering regional interdependencies and their common sociohistorical backgrounds. Findings We use the critical regionalities approach to examine the rise of gated-communities in Latin America and demonstrate how a regional approach can reveal connections between meso- level sociohistorical processes and cultural values. Research implications The critical regionalities approach transforms assumptions of national or global scales into tools of inquiry: both the nation and the globe become possible scales to contrast with regional archipelagos and enhance researchers' reflexivity of the how's and why's of consumer phenomena. Social implications The method prompts cultural researchers to adopt scales of analysis that more closely reflect the social phenomena being studied, which is especially useful for understanding emerging markets and marginalized areas. We also emphasize the importance of attending to consumer cultural phenomena and processes in non-Western contexts. Originality/value The paper offers a solution for the conundrum of how to write about regions without essentializing them. Marketers and policy makers can use the concept of cultural archipelagos to define new segments and understand new markets, without the need to conform to preestablished geographic or political borders.