The Three-Tier Cycle: Capturing Complexity in Consumer Culture Research

This paper synthesizes the notions of agency, assemblage, and practice as explorative lenses in a research framework for the use of consumer research which adopts a complexity standpoint on cultures and markets. The three-tier cycle is proposed as a contribution to the theoretical grounds of consumer culture research, supplying an extension to the interpretative investigation toolbox. The proposed framework enables better navigation for future studies that focus on understanding relational processes manifesting through consumption and market-related phenomena. To this end, the introduced approach can guide studies toward grasping the co-creative interactions in postmodern culture in flux, from a multidimensional perspective. This paper therefore provides operational guidelines for contemporary consumer culture research that will employ complexity theories.