Author Meets Critics: Race in the Marketplace: Crossing Critical Boundaries

Abstract

Abstract: This Author Meets Critics conversation focuses on Sonya Grier, Anthony Kwame Harrison, Guillaume D. Johnson, and Kevin D. Thomas' edited volume Race in the Marketplace: Crossing Boundaries (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). Several of the book's editors and a chapter contributor meet with marketing, sociology, and history experts to discuss the following topics: the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration; the application of critical theory; race, racism, and the non-neutral marketplace; how the book crosses many disciplinary and theoretical boundaries; how and why the volume is vital to understanding the rise in public awareness about race in 2020; the dearth of academic publishing about consumers of color; the centrality of marketplace transactions; cautions about fully embracing the state to solve societal problems related to race; intersectionality; biases in academic publishing; the need to create more awareness of racial issues among White scholars; exhaustion that comes in researching and talking about race issues, especially for scholars and students of color; the need to sustain research about race in the marketplace; the relationship between consumers and producers; advice to professors teaching about race; and advice to industry practitioners.