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In some cultures, migrants bear an obligation to bring gifts from the foreign country for their relations when returning to their homeland. Why, and to what end? We examine the reasons for these transnational gift obligations in a multisite study of Ghanaian migrants in the United States and Australia, as well as people in Ghana with migrant relations living overseas. We adopt a wealth-centered perspective that problematizes the underexplored mutual impact of migrants and their gifts on social hierarchies within societies and transnational spatial hierarchies between societies. We show how the concepts of wealth in people and wealth in place connect with local gift economies to explain transnational gifting obligations. Specifically, informants use transnational gifts that embody wealth in place to acknowledge "being wealth" to people and to acquire wealth in others. We highlight the wealth in things that are exchanged as gift objects and the wealth in people who are exchanged as gift subjects between here and there. Our findings implicate a "glocal" gift economy that results from the global flows of things and people as gifts within transnational places of differing statuses. We discuss how this glocal gift economy (re)produces transnational spatial hierarchies and local (national) status hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the research on the symbiotic relationship between religion and the market by examining the nature and implications of the marketization of religion in a contemporary Christendom in which religion and the market are hegemonic. Based on our analysis of 3741 church advertisements in Ghana over a 6-year period, we conceptualize three symbiotic relationships that coexist between the market and religion—commensalism, mutualism, and competition. We argue that these symbiotic relationships mirror how religion hegemonizes popular imagination and members' consumption through marketization in contemporary Christendom. This study extends our understanding of the dialectical relationship between religion and the market by showing that religion can use marketization to perpetuate its hegemony within and beyond the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During a roundtable discussion at the 2022 GENMAC Conference, a group of researchers specializing in religiosity and spiritual consumption, using examples from their own fieldwork, reflected on how (i) researchers' subject positioning—including their gender and sexuality—shape fieldwork in multifaceted manners; (ii) investigations of religious/spiritual fields would benefit from a heightened sensitivity to issues of gender and sexuality; and (iii) greater sensitivity to aspects of religion and/or spirituality can help gender and sexuality scholars better understand consumers and markets. Based on the above, in this commentary paper, we call for intersectional reflexivity, attention to vulnerability and discomfort during fieldwork, and critical sensitivity to the religious "context of context" during theorization. Furthermore, we argue that specific spiritual/religious imaginaries can foster new research approaches that can contribute to more nuanced fieldwork and theorization in marketing and consumer research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary section presents a dialogical discussion on Appau's (2021) 'Toward a divine economic system', an article in which he explores religious exchanges in the context of a Pentecostal Church in Ghana and proposes 'the divine economy' as an alternative economic system to interrogate and extend scholarship on the relationship between the market and religion. In a thought-provoking conversation, four commentators (including Appau) engage in a critical discussion aimed at generating new ideas on theorizing the complex relationship between the market, consumption, and religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some life transitions are difficult and prolonged, such as becoming an independent adult, forming a family, or adopting healthy consumption habits. Permanent liminality describes transitions that can span years and even a lifetime with no anticipated end. To understand how consumers are caught in permanent liminality, we examine how Pentecostal converts consume religious services in their difficult transition from the secular "world" to Pentecostalism. We draw on the concept of in / dividual personhood to explain how the Pentecostal dividual is coconstituted in an endless movement between the undesired "worldly" in / dividual and the contiguous incorporation into the desired Pentecostal in / dividual and structure. Pentecostals' permanent liminality thus involves ongoing cycles of separation and incorporation within zones of indeterminacy, in which neither separation nor incorporation is ever completed. This theoretical framework explains the unfinished transition of Pentecostal converts as contested dividuals. We extend this theoretical explanation for future research on liquid modernity and consumers caught in permanent liminality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Good research demands that researchers are reflexive, understanding that all findings are socially constructed and susceptible to the unacknowledged interests of the researcher. When studying the consumption of religion and spirituality, how does a researcher mitigate a potential secularist worldview to consider consumers' alternative metaphysical assumptions? And when these alternative worldviews posit divine and occult forces, how should the researcher study and theorise these forces? Based on our research of Pentecostalism in Ghana, we offer four suggestions. First, we demonstrate the importance of delineating the socio-historical context of our informants' worldview. Second, we encourage exploring the potential of indigenous methods that may be more culturally sensitive; in this case, we show how religious testimony offers new insights as a way of knowing that is consistent with our informants' worldview. Third, we advocate theorising within the frame of the indigenous metaphysical worldviews, such as understanding the religious testimonies as affective performances. Finally, we reflect on the benefits of moving beyond reflexivity to paths of action that seek rapprochement among differing worldviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketing theory on exchanges is dominated by market/nonmarket exchanges and their hybrid versions. However, unlike these relatively more secular exchanges, little is known about religious exchanges or "gifts-to-gods" in marketing theory, in spite of evidence to indicate its overwhelming presence around the world. Using the context of a Pentecostal consumption field, this article examines three forms of religious exchanges—exchange with the church (institution), exchange among church members (communal pooling), and exchange with God (sacred) and how they influence the consumption of religion in this context. Instead of market/nonmarket economic systems, the article advances a divine economic system—a system of exchanges governed by divine agents (gods, spirits, saints), which centralizes and legitimizes these religious exchanges. This article extends marketing theory on exchanges, reciprocity, and the consumption and marketization of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America is one of the most ethnically diverse regions in the world, and is also characterized by high levels of poverty. As a poverty alleviation tool, microfinance emerged in the region and has significantly evolved over the years. However, the implications of the region's high diversity on the performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) are however not known. We attempt to fill this gap by providing evidence on the association between MFI performance and indices of ethnic and linguistic fractionalization. Our findings suggest that fractionalization promotes MFI financial performance but is detrimental to outreach depth. These results are robust to various sensitivity tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the UK Community Life Survey, we examine the relationship between social integration and subjective wellbeing. We measure social integration along various dimensions, including frequency of interaction with one's neighbors, perceived strength of belonging to one's immediate neighborhood and country, length of residence in a neighborhood, and trust in neighbors. Overall, we find that social integration is associated with higher levels of subjective wellbeing. Specifically, our results suggest that an increase in the frequency of interaction with one's neighbors is associated with an increase in subjective wellbeing. Similarly, an increase in respondent's perceived strength of belonging to their immediate neighborhood (and country) is associated with an increase in subjective wellbeing. We further discover that an increase in the length of residence in a neighborhood is associated with an increase in subjective wellbeing, and this is also the case for an increase in the level of trust in one's neighbour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]