Postcolonial Marketing Communication: Images from the Margin

Abstract

This volume approaches marcomm (marketing communication) from the phenomenology of markets in the context of the Global South and its postcolonial experiences. It provides a fresh perspective to the current paradigm and offers a fresh discourse on the current theories of marketing communication. The book demonstrates how marketing communication, an essentially Global North discourse reinforcing hegemony, can be critiqued and deconstructed when subjected to postcolonial critical analysis. Recognizing as commonplace, the Global South has either willingly embraced or been ideologically coerced into adopting a Western marketing communication system. This system is evident in its theories and practices, mirroring Western themes, symbols, stories, and knowledge frameworks, consequently fostering subjectivities that lack critical self-reflection and are dependent on Western influences. But what remains more interesting is how such an ideological system, mediated through a quintessential Global South modernity, generates a new habitation of modernity at the margin. Essentially a reaction from the Global South perspective, the book thoroughly examines the realities around marketing communication discourses. The book even engenders alternatives to hegemonic marketing communication discourses and a set of "other" epistemologies of alternate modernities of equity and justice. From African to Turkish, from Indian to Canadian first nations, Australian Aborigines to Polynesian-American, postcolonial subjectivities through marcomm across the globe get a voice in the volume. The collection in this volume is a decolonizing attempt that thwarts cultural globalization, examines colonial discourses, cuts across essentialized identities, mobilizes resistance, interrogates power structures and mechanisms of knowledge production, dissemination, and legitimization, and celebrates the new-formed cultural identity of the Third/Fourth World. The book is essential read for researchers, students and practitioners of Marketing who wish to gain a deeper understanding of an oft ignored aspect of marcomm. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), 2024. All rights reserved.