Webs of Belonging: Beyond Intercultural Dyads in Immigrant Acculturation Research

Abstract

In current marketing literature, immigrant consumer acculturation has been largely represented as a dyadic border crossing between two distinct cultures. Moving beyond the dyad of home and host culture, this article explores a broader theoretical lens which emphasises consumers‟ embeddedness in multiple “webs of belonging” (Calhoun, 2003, p. 536). This additional lens shifts our view of immigrant consumer acculturation to a process of reconfiguration within complex and dynamic webs of belonging, which comprise multiple social groups, places, and histories. This broader lens also situates marketing research in immigrant consumer acculturation in relation to broader interdisciplinary discussions concerning cultural reconfiguration in an era of global mobility.