Islamic Marketing Perspective on Intergenerational Consumption Practices: An Ethnographic Study on Muslim Consumers in Egypt

This study seeks to present Muslim consumers within an intergenerational social context. Prior marketing studies that examined religion have focused on its influence on individual practices and overlooked collective consumption experiences. They tend to adopt a reductionist approach, potentially marginalising Muslim consumers as a homogenous group within segmentation type frameworks. Hence, this research examines consumption practices within a community that officially follows a religion. Against this scholarly background, the thesis uses religion and consumption to explore how Islamic values are negotiated and performed in the Egyptian context.

Using the theoretical lens of Pierre Bourdieu, this ethnographic study explores the consumption practices of 8 families. Through interviews, observations and documentations, the research chronicles and analyses day-to-day activities to explore how consumption practices amongst Muslims in Egypt are influenced by their Islamic religious beliefs.

The findings display how consumption practices involve a complex negotiation of religious, secular, and materialistic beliefs for individuals, and how these beliefs are developed, nurtured, and contested within the family context. The findings also suggest how gender dynamics within a Muslim family are formed and performed through socialising, leisure, and gifting practices. The fieldwork was undertaken during the Covid-19 pandemic, and thus the findings examine how daily routines and habits were disturbed, and their implications for festivals and events. It contributes to the domain of consumer research and religion, complementing individualistic perspectives through developing an intergenerational practice-based approach. In doing so it explores how conflicts arise between family members as their conditions change and the position of religion in society is challenged.

The thesis contributes to the developing field of Islamic marketing through approaching Muslim consumers from an intergenerational perspective. It explains the challenges of adhering to religious and societal pressures that often result in individuals undertaking compensatory practices to achieve familial and personal harmony. The study also extends discussion of women’s role in Islamic marketing beyond clothing choices to discuss their financial and emotional roles in managing household consumption along with building their careers.