Approaching non-western consumer cultures from a historical perspective: The case of early modern Ottoman consumer culture

Creative Commons License

Karababa E.

Marketing Theory, vol.12, pp.13-25, 2012 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 12
  • Publication Date: 2012
  • Doi Number: 10.1177/1470593111424181
  • Journal Name: Marketing Theory
  • Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.13-25
  • Keywords: consumer culture, history, modernity, multiple modernities, non-west, IDENTITY, SCIENCE, BRANDS
  • Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract


A very common but futile practice in scientific research investigating non-western consumer cultures and markets is the imposition of concepts that are derived from a single historical trajec- tory of western modernization. This paper aims to show that there are alternative historical trajec- tories in the early modern period which have formed today’s multiple modern consumer cultures. The particularities of the Ottoman context, which shaped the development of an alternative early modern consumer culture, are examined as an example. Islamic ethics, fluid social structure, wakf institutions, the negotiability of market institutions, and a public sphere formed by aesthetic, emotional, and playful communicative action are among the particularities discussed in this study.