Finding home and stamping identity with people, products and places: a consumer culture theory exploration of the migrant consumers returning home

Existing consumer acculturation research has looked at migration in a uni-directional manner. Using a consumer culture theory lens, this working paper contributes to the consumer acculturation post-assimilation literature by filling the gap and theoretically extending it by the consideration of migrants returning to their culture of origin through two contexts. Through narrative life stories and other ethnographic methods it explores the meanings of consumption related practices with individualised acculturation and re-acculturation. Along with this, it considers the contestations that occur with socially transgressive consumption practice and involved acculturation agents that have been downplayed in extant research. The study furthers our understanding of consumption in the vastly fluid consumer culture and underpin the contribution within the theoretical framework of the consumer acculturation and global movement domain.