Consumption, migration, and urban life

Despite voluminous attention across the social sciences consumption, migration, and urban life remains under-theorised and -researched. In response we pursue critical opportunities afforded by pluralistic blending of relational ontologies elaborated through interrogation of empirical research focused on migrant building workers in China. In doing so we sketch new terrain for interdisciplinary debate via ethnographies of future-orientated consumption practices enabled through mundane (im)mobilities that unfold across diverse times and spaces. Overall, we show how study of consumption can advance momentum in challenging de-humanising impulses that have tended to eclipse complexities of migration, and migrants’ everyday lives within and beyond cities. Concluding, we offer theoretical, methodological, empirical reflections and signpost future research directions.