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The purpose of this chapter is to explore the intersection of identity, culture, and consumption as it relates to multiracial identity development.

The authors employed a phenomenological approach wherein 21 multiracial women were interviewed to understanding the lived experience and meaning of multiracial identity development.

Findings of this study indicate that multiracial consumers engage with the marketplace to assuage racial discordance and legitimize the liminal space they occupy.

While there is much research related to the variety of ways marketing and consumption practices intersect with identity (re)formation, researchers have focused much of their attention on monoracial populations. This research identifies and fills a gap in the literature related to how multiple racial backgrounds complicate this understanding.

Due to their growing social visibility and recognized buying power, multiracial individuals have emerged as a viable consumer segment among marketers. However, there is a dearth of research examining how multiracial populations experience the marketplace.

This study provides a better understanding of the ways in which multiracial individuals utilize consumption practices as a means of developing and expressing their racial identity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the cognitive and affective dimensions of COO and the owned-by/made-in cue combinations in first-generation immigrant markets.

The cognitive and affective dimensions were manipulated in a scenario-based experiment administered on 261 Mexican Americans in three product categories.

The cognitive and affective dimensions each have a distinct impact. When the two dimensions combine, the effect is stronger within the specialty product category, followed by the shopping product category, and, to a lesser extent, in the convenience product category.

The cognitive dimension was represented by the country’s degree of political, economic and technological development, whereas the affective dimension was traced by examining immigrants who identify with the emotional and symbolic meanings associated with countries involved in the country of origin (COO) message.

Managers should pursue emerging COO research whose concepts and designs are congruent with today’s global consumer culture. The authors find support for the stand-alone effects of made-in and owned-by COO cues, as well as the effects of the cognitive and affective dimensions of COO. When COO messages combine both made-in and owned-by cues, the cognitive and affective dimensions may work synergistically, depending on the product category.

This study adds to the nascent literature that recognizes the multiplicity of consumer identities, and bridges the gulf between the conventional COO research and the increasingly multicultural nature of the marketplace.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how bicultural consumers differ from monocultural consumers in terms of personality traits and identity negotiation.

Through a multidisciplinary literature review, some anecdotally and qualitatively supported differences between biculturals and monoculturals are reviewed and formulated as hypotheses, and a survey is used to collect quantitative data from a mixed random‐purposeful sample.

Relative to monoculturals, biculturals exhibit greater concern about their acceptability within pertinent reference groups and society at large; have comparable levels of need for uniqueness and art enthusiasm; and consume more artwork as a means and in the process of their routine negotiation of (ethnic) identity. Ethnicity, need for social acceptability, need for group identification, and art enthusiasm are predictors of artwork consumption. Ethnicity, in particular, is a key precursor of artwork consumption.

As a starting‐point for understanding the bicultural consumer, the study is subject to exploratory research limitations.

As partial manifestations of globalization, businesses are challenged today in several ways by the rise and proliferation of the bicultural neotribe. Businesses do not have to fall victim to these challenges; they can turn them around and strategically leverage them as marketplace opportunities. The study provides some early insights that can help businesses to leverage such opportunities.

The racial makeup of the United States' elementary school population is in flux. While much discussion addresses the shrinking White population and the growing Latinx population, less highlighted is the growing number of individuals who identify as belonging to two or more races. This group of individuals currently constitutes the youngest, fastest growing racial subgroup. According to the US Census' projections, the two or more races population will grow by 226% between 2014 and 2060, almost double the Asian population, the next fastest growing subgroup. Though individuals with multiplicity to their racial backgrounds have existed in the United States since its inception, only recently has the government provided the option for individuals to quantify their self-reported belonging to multiple races. The resulting statistics alert educators to the fact that individuals identifying as biracial and multiracial are going to be an increasingly sizable group of students requiring, as all children do, individualized care and support within school walls. In this chapter, I draw upon Black-White biracial women's elementary school recounts to help educational practitioners understand lived experiences that inform young girls' navigations of the intersections of their Blackness and Whiteness in schooling spaces.

This paper aims to assess the representation of women of color (WOC) in the top 3 fashion magazines and explore the implications of underrepresentation within marketing communications. The authors draw from diffusion theory and marketplace omission and commission to situate the research focus and highlight its application to the study findings.

A content analysis was conducted on 481 cover models on the top three fashion magazines of 2018 – Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Vanity Fair during 2006–2018.

The findings indicate WOC are underrepresented despite the strides of inclusion in the marketplace in America during a postracial period. Representation is as follows: white – 412 (86%); black – 41 (9%); Latina – 19 (3.9%); biracial 7 (1.5%); Asian – 1 (0.2%); and Native American – 1 (0.2%). Latina models had the lowest representation. Native and Asian women were completely excluded. When they do appear, black and Latina cover models are more likely than white models to be shown wearing sexually suggestive attire.

This study makes four recommendations to promote antiracism in marketing: diversify staff hiring and editorial decision-makers for public-facing talent; solicit counsel from multicultural marketing agencies; create antiracist marketing curriculum; and cultivate a pipeline of diverse talent for future hiring.

The originality of this paper centers its contribution to the dearth research investigating representation implications within the fashion marketing industry during an alleged post-racial period, and a longer time span. It also presents structured antiracist marketing solutions to mitigate underrepresentation.

The new focus of brand communication in social media has driven firms to develop the effective visual content strategy. In light of narrative transportation theory, this study aims to investigate the impact of a photo’s narrative elements on self-brand connection through viewers’ transportation and emotional responses. Additionally, this study tests the role of telepresence on Instagram in this psychological mechanism.

Using between-subjects experimental design, two experimental studies test the effect of implied movement (Study 1) and diverse narrative elements such as a character, implied motion for chronology and the relevant background (Study 2).

Results demonstrate that a single narrative element, i.e. implied motion, does not induce a viewer’s transportation to the presented image. Rather, the viewer’s transportation occurs as a function of complex and diverse narrative elements, such as implied motion and the background as a context.

Findings suggest that the concept of photo narrative should be taken into consideration in a visually-oriented social media environment. To increase self-brand connection, social media communication should be designed with diverse elements to promote viewers’ active simulation and create meaning to the branded photo story.

This study expands the theory of narrative transportation by applying it to a visual form. Additionally, this research investigates the effect of social media communication on self-brand connection; the findings of this study demonstrate that a major goal of social media communication is not to sell products but to strengthen consumer-brand relationships through branded storytelling.

Compared to monoracials, multiracials appear (a) to be more concerned about acceptance within their select social groups and within society at large and (b) to have higher differentiation and uniqueness needs. Artworks help consumers successfully fulfill these needs, and multiracials are heavily dependent on artworks in their (racial) identity negotiations. In addition to these needs, familial background, school, and technical qualities of artworks serve as antecedents to artwork consumption. Multiracial identity influences artwork consumption both directly and indirectly. The indirect influence is mediated by social acceptability, group identification, and uniqueness needs. Artwork consumption serves multiracials in two ways: pleasure/escape and communication/identity negotiation.

This research examines the impact of biculturalism on the decision making, identity perceptions, and consumption patterns of children of parents from different countries of origin and different cultural and ethnic backgrounds (i.e., biculturals from birth).

This research uses semi-structured depth interviews with the adult children of binational households. We use our Cross Ball and Jar (CBJ) projective technique, which utilizes a tactile, hands-on sorting and ranking process to facilitate discussion of the multifaceted identities and cultural affiliations of bicultural consumers.

Our findings reveal that these “true” biculturals, growing up within a bicultural and binational home, have a more fluid, less clear-cut perception of their identity. Four emergent themes are examined: “Openness,” “Splitness,” “Outside the Mainstream,” and “Badge of Honor.”

Based on these findings, the complexity of identity perceptions is revealed. Participants’ discussion of their struggles to fit in adds to our efforts to better understand multiculturalism’s impact, an understanding facilitated by the use of our CBJ projective technique.

This study raises awareness about the consumption behavior of multicultural consumers and their ongoing interaction with mainstream society. Second, our research extends the current literature on multiculturalism and biculturalism, by focusing on this particular type of bicultural consumer. Finally, this research tests the innovative CBJ projective technique, as a simple and flexible interactive tool to assist researchers in exploring complex, multifaceted identities.

The paper's aim is to explore how bicultural consumers differ from monocultural consumers, and among themselves, in terms of country‐of‐origin effect and ethnocentrism.

A multidisciplinary literature review pointed to a set of hypotheses regarding the differences between biculturals (Mexican Americans) and monoculturals (Mexicans and Americans), and between bicultural groups (integrating biculturals versus alternating biculturals). Two pilot tests and two experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses.

Bicultural Mexican Americans are less ethnocentric than either American or Mexican monoculturals; exhibit more favorable quality evaluation and purchase intention toward American brands than Mexican monoculturals; and exhibit more favorable quality evaluation and purchase intention toward Mexican brands than American monoculturals. Although ethnocentrism does not significantly demarcate alternating biculturals from their integrating counterparts, alternators are more likely than integrators to provide a favorable evaluation of foreign brands and entertain the intention to purchase them.

As a starting‐point for understanding the bicultural consumer, this study is subject to exploratory research limitations.

The country‐of‐origin literature implicitly assumes that consumers identify with either the country where the product is originated or the country where it is sold. This assumption, however, might not hold for ethnic groups who identify with both countries. Such bicultural consumers might identify with the product's origin country as well as target country and, therefore, be less amenable to the country‐of‐origin hypothesis. We address this important research gap.