Faculty Associate
rbelk[at]schulich.yorku.ca
Professor of Marketing; Kraft Foods Canada Chair in Marketing
Schulich School of Business, York University
Research Keywords:
Meanings of possessions, collecting, gift-giving, sharing and materialism; Asia
Research Region(s):
Asia
Research Diaspora(s):
Asian Diaspora
My research involves the meanings of possessions, collecting, gift-giving, sharing and materialism. This work is often cultural, visual, qualitative, and interpretive. By understanding what our possessions mean to us after we acquire them, how different cultures, past and present, regard consumption, and how we relate to each other through possessions, it is my belief that we learn something more profound and practical than simply asking how we evaluate alternative marketplace offerings. In a consumer society, our ideas about ourselves are often bound up or represented in what we desire, what we own, and how we use these things.