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The purpose of this paper is to understand the ritual, roles and symbolic meanings of family grilling consumption experiences in northeast Mexico.

This study adopted a phenomenological approach and conducted 73 in-depth interviews and in situ observations during family grilling experiences.

Based on an examination of the phases, symbolic meanings, and ritual elements of grilling events in Mexico, the results of this study identify a third type of family food consumption ritual, the escape ritual, which has different characteristics than routine and festive family food consumption rituals.

The findings indicate the emergence of a more sophisticated family grilling experience that uses new accessories and products. Companies could align their marketing strategies for grilling products and segment their communication messages based on the roles of participants and the symbolic meanings identified in this study.

This research studies an experience in light of both ritual and escapism literature.

Family dinner on Lunar New Year's Eve is the most important and most ritualized feast for families in China. It is the time for the entire family to reunite. Families gather together to reflect their past and talk about the future. Through the lens of consumer culture theories, this study explores how Chinese consumers construct family identity.

Based on constant comparative analysis of primary data including in-depth interviews and participant observation, and secondary data including historical archives, cultural tracing, documentary reports and essays, the authors deconstruct the consumption rituals of family dinner on Chinese Lunar New Year's Eve. The authors focus on four aspects, including participants, place, time and related activities, and analyze Chinese consumers' ritual experiences.

The authors’ findings show how young consumers construct and strengthen individual self-identity, relational identity and family identity in various ways through consumption and ritual practices during Chinese Lunar New Year celebration.

The study of family dinner on Lunar New Year's Eve helps the authors understand contemporary consumer culture in three aspects. First, it helps the authors understand the relationship between consumption and culture. Second, the study shows the changes and continuities of consumption rituals. Third, the research highlights the experience of “home” among contemporary Chinese consumers.

The purpose of the present study is to explore the collective consumption rituals associated with Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and one of the largest shopping days in the USA.

The research design for this study followed the approach of psychological phenomenological interviewing. Over a two‐year period, the authors, along with trained research assistants, conducted interviews with experienced female Black Friday shoppers.

Qualitative data from 38 interviews indicated that Black Friday shopping activities constitute a collective consumption ritual that is practiced and shared by multiple generations of female family members and close friends. Four themes emerged from the data: familial bonding, strategic planning, the great race, and mission accomplished. The themes coalesced around a military metaphor.

The findings of this study indicate that Black Friday shoppers plan for the ritual by examining advertisements and strategically mapping out their plans for the day. Recommendations for retailers are presented.

This exploratory investigation of Black Friday as a consumption ritual offers new insight into the planning and shopping associated with this well‐known American pseudo‐holiday. Findings also extend theory and research on collective consumption rituals.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the editorial content of monthly women's magazines and consider their role in facilitating the Christmas food rituals. Of particular interest is the extent to which the special food features have adapted to support the changes in women's lifestyles over the last 20 years.

The authors conducted a longitudinal social semiotic analysis of Christmas food features in women's magazines in Australia and the UK over the period 1991‐2011.

The analysis reveals a recurring conflict between the magazine content and the lifestyles of their readers. For families to participate in and maintain the Christmas ritual still means devotion, typically by a woman. The message has not changed, even though the work/home balance for many women has. The responsibility for putting the “magic” in Christmas lies firmly at the woman's feet. The magazines' text convey a contradictory message by offering readers budget and timesaving tips, while their visuals imply that such “shortcuts” stand in the way of the sought‐after magical Christmas, the rituals must be followed in full.

Adopting a longitudinal social semiotic analysis enabled the authors to conduct a detailed comparison of both text and imagery across the magazines and across the years. The authors were also able to report on how the sign complexes such as colour and text worked in combination to create a social message.

Whilst women's magazines remain an important vehicle for the transmission of social values, the paper's findings demonstrate that they are not necessarily adapting to social change.

This study aims to, with family structures in urban China becoming increasingly diverse, examine how and to what extent the characteristics of everyday family meals relate to the establishment and strengthening of a collective sense of the Chinese family. Integrating ritual and family identity theories developed through studies conducted in the West, the research explores the relationship between family identity and the major dimensions that characterize ritualistic practices through an examination of family dinners in a non-Western context.

The mixed-method approach combines a qualitative phase (focus groups and interviews) with a large-scale survey of households (n = 1,319) in four Chinese cities.

The results find a positive relationship between family identity and commitment to family meals, as well as continuity promoted through family meals, at a 99 per cent confidence level.

One important research limitation is that the sample was limited to four cities. In addition, it is difficult for quantitative measures to capture the richness of emotionally and symbolically laden constructs, such as communication, commitment, continuity and family identity.

The results provide insights into the meanings of family meals in China. With over one-third of household expenditures spent on food in Chinese cities, the formulation of brand positions and promotions can be informed through a greater understanding of the influence of family dynamics on food consumption.

The findings indicate that, within China’s dynamic environment of changing family values, strengthening the ritualistic characteristics of everyday family activities, such as family meals, can lead to an increase in a collective sense of family.

The study demonstrates under what conditions, within this rapidly changing socioeconomic environment, the family dinner provides stability and a sense of unity for Chinese families. In China, a trend toward individualization is accompanied by a deep-seeded sense of obligation toward family that exerts an important influence on meal composition and patterns.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework on the experience of cross‐border shopping. This experience is constructed on narratives, rituals, and intergenerational transfers that move beyond the simple description of experienced events to provide explanatory frameworks of family identity construction.

Nine in‐depth interviews are conducted with three generations of North Mexican women from three families who shop frequently across the border.

The findings highlight different processes associated with the experience of cross‐border shopping. First, each family works throughout the years to construct its own identity using the tales of their shared experiences. Second, an intergenerational transfer of knowledge going from grandmothers to mothers to granddaughters in each family occurs as result of the experiences lived together. Third, common knowledge is developed both by Mexican consumers and North American retailers that translates into particular commercial practices. Finally, all our contributors are immersed in a national culture, the North Mexican, sharing and transmitting values like thriftiness, malinchismo, and the relevance of family ties. These values affect their shopping patterns, generating important consequences for both the Mexican and North American economies.

The authors' intent is to contribute to the understanding of the process of family identity construction through consumption. This consumption occurs in a particular context; cross‐border shopping. The experience is singular in the sense that families spend considerable amount of time together while traveling and establishing their shopping routines. This work depicts the shopping rituals passed down from generation‐to‐generation and the derived construction of meaning within the family.

Food practices, including associated routines, rituals, and habits, are an unexplored area in school health promotion. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap through exploring how food rituals act as vehicles for young people to establish, maintain, and strengthen social relationships.

Through an ethnographic inquiry, including observations and interviews with teachers and 16-18 years old students in New Zealand, everyday practices were explored in-depth across one school year.

The findings include three food rituals as significant for young people in managing their social relationships, including the lunch walk, ritualised sharing, and gifting food. The findings highlight the importance of everyday food rituals for young people’s social relationships. For instance, gifting cake mediated care to friends, showed trust in the relationship, and allowed to reciprocate; the lunch walk encouraged social interaction and was a means by which young people could integrate into a new group; and ritualised sharing food involved negotiating friendship boundaries.

The study is exploratory with findings reported from one school. Further research exploring how young people use food rituals in their everyday lives for managing social relationships is needed.

A focus on social relationships in settings such as schools could broaden the scope of nutrition promotion to promote health in physical, mental, and social dimensions. Implications for school health promotion are discussed.

The purpose of this research study is to extend the concept of third places, as explained by Oldenburg (2000), as being places designed as meeting places and as being dynamic rather than static.

The primary site for this paper is a neighborhood ritual of shared meals that has taken place every Wednesday for the past fourteen years. This was a 6 month study focusing on semi-structured interviews.

Characteristics of third places when compared to other arguments for the classification of third place supports the use of space instead of the purpose of a place as the main consideration for the classification of “third place”.

Defining social events within homes as third spaces pushes the traditional third place theory forward. It offers a way for rituals to be explored more deeply through the experiences they offer.

This study asks the reader to pay attention to the periphery where interaction takes place and consider how we frame concepts of third places.

Third places create an environment that allows individuals expressions of restraint (to keep the distance between yourself and others), relaxation (to be yourself), freedom (from judgment), reflexivity (when you look back at past events) and vulnerability (opening yourself up to the possibilities that come from interacting with others).

The distinction of third place is not so much in the categorization of the building but rather in the use for which the space serves. Extending these conversations into future research endeavors would be to continue and to extend the discussion/description of third places.

Family systems theory has often been applied to the organizational environment. This article presents an overview of family systems approaches to management, with particular focus on libraries and information technology. Some of the family systems concepts that can be applied to the library environment include differentiation, mystification, emotional triangles, and pseudomutuality. Some of the positive aspects of a family system that are relevant to the organizational context include stages of development, family rituals, and family stories. Through examples and vignettes, the author demonstrates the application of family systems theory to the field of library management.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how technological devices impact on family mealtime rituals. The intention is to understand how the consumption of technological devices transforms eating practices, and how the meanings of family quality time are continuously evolving through the consumption of mobile media devices.

Insights are drawn from two independent, ethnographic studies that adopted an interpretive approach which employed multiple methods, including 63 visual diaries; 40 written diaries; observations in schools, homes, and Sikh temples (73 items observed), and 66 in-depth interviews. Both studies involved children, aged between 13 and 17 years within the UK, and were conducted for a period of over 12 months each. Informants were recruited through interaction with schools, Sikh temples and the Sikh community.

The findings reveal interplay between family quality time, and the consumption of technological devices such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, ipods and their associated application packages. Of particular interest is how these devices transfer cultural meanings surrounding family mealtime interactions. The paper uncovers how family quality time is altered and evolved in form, but not ultimately abandoned, and argues that the pervasive nature of technology at mealtimes has implications into food cultures and identity.

The encroachment of media devices on the food environment has often been described with negativity. However, this study tells a different, yet positive tale about transformations in social institutions such as the family and the school as a consequence of the consumption of technological devices at mealtimes.