Non-western contexts: The invisible half

Consumption is an inherently cultural activity and actual evidence about it is strongly influenced both the cultural orientation of scholars and the cultural settings in which such evidence has studied. A long tradition in consumption studies has developed in Western, economically, societies by scholars whose backgrounds are rooted in the Western tradition of thought. from some exceptions, some of which will be reviewed hereafter, consumption studies present this sort of Western bias in epistemological and ontological terms. The purpose this special issue is that of highlighting the importance of and the need for considering theoretical ideological approaches to the studies of consumption that do not necessarily belong to Western tradition. As such, non-Western contexts that have been observed from a Western need to be reconsidered under a different light. In so doing, scholars need to interpret in the light of theoretical categories and constructs that are compatible with the cultural under scrutiny (Venkatesh, 1995; Meamber and Venkatesh, 2000).