A call for further research at the intersection of race, marketing, and public policy.

American Marketing Association

Race is intertwined with the structures and actions of and within society. Evidence of this is found in the systemic nature of racism. Bus boycotts, sit-ins, social media–initiated protests, and other forms of consumer activism are clear and visible demonstrations of the importance of acknowledging that race is unequivocally embedded in marketplaces and rooted in marketing practices. Taking this as our lead, this curation is a call to action for further research related to race and marketing. Racial identity is a fundamental aspect of our lived experience, if not our belief systems. Thus, it is imperative that the corpus of knowledge we develop around consumers and marketplaces directly considers the lived experiences of people from different racial backgrounds and the structural relations that uphold racism, including antiblackness. However, Typically, when scholarship on race and marketing is published, it tends to be featured as part of infrequent, yet vital, special issues. This suggests that the contributions of critical research on and about race is both underrepresented and undervalued in marketing discourse. Succinctly put, there is more work to be done. This includes building on research that has focused on social inequalities (Mirabito et al. 2016) but has not specifically and critically accounted for race and racism. A greater number of critical examinations of issues related to race and intersecting oppressions in the marketplace can result in the field of public policy and marketing scholarship more robustly tackling structural racism. We urge readers to consider contributing, or contributing more, to critical scholarly conversations about the racial and racist dynamics of public policy and marketing. In doing so, we also call for more of such research to be rooted in theoretical frameworks, praxis, and principles that are aligned with social justice goals and that foreground the perspectives of those who are affected by racism.